The glow wasn't a light.
It was a wound.
A seam in reality stitched together with trembling threads, bleeding colors that shouldn't exist. Salem Grey stepped toward it, heart pounding like a fist against a locked door. The tunnel behind him had collapsed into nothing, as if the universe had decided the only direction left was forward—no matter how dangerous.
He stared at the doorway, at the quiet calm that waited on the other side.
Everything in him screamed that this was a trap.
But the threads—those cruel, whispering strands—were pulling him like a drug. He could feel the pull in his bones, in the soft places in his mind that had already been broken by skipping days and fractured timelines.
A voice, soft and almost tender, echoed through the glow.
"Step through."
Salem's mouth went dry. He knew that voice.
Not the sound of it.
The feeling.
It was the same feeling he had when he'd been on the edge of a choice, the same feeling he had when he had decided to break time in the first place.
The same feeling that had made him think he could control it.
He swallowed.
"Who are you?" he asked, voice trembling.
The glow didn't answer.
Instead, the seam opened wider.
And Salem felt a pressure behind his eyes, like someone was trying to push his mind apart.
He stepped forward.
The world snapped.
It didn't change.
It shifted.
The air tasted different. Not clean. Not fresh. Like metal and rain. Like a memory you weren't supposed to remember. Like a dream you had as a child but forgot the moment you woke.
He was standing in a hallway.
A hallway that didn't exist.
The walls were made of broken clocks, their hands spinning without direction. The floor was made of a patchwork of streets from his life—old neighborhoods, unfamiliar alleys, the corridor of a hospital he had never been in but recognized anyway.
Above him, the ceiling wasn't a ceiling.
It was a sky.
A sky made of flickering, overlapping stars.
Each star was a thread.
Each thread was a possibility.
And the hallway was filled with them, like a river of choices that had no bank.
Salem stood frozen, trying to breathe.
The threads pulsed around him, humming like insects.
He felt them in his bones.
He felt them in his blood.
He felt them in the places he had kept hidden from himself.
His chest tightened.
"What is this?" he whispered.
A laugh answered.
Not loud.
Not loud enough to be heard.
But loud enough to be felt.
A laugh that felt like a knife in his ribs.
The Carnival Barker's laugh.
The same laugh that had haunted his skipping days.
The same laugh that had followed him into the void.
Salem turned.
And he saw a door at the end of the hallway.
A door that looked like it had been carved from the night itself.
On the door, a symbol was painted.
A circle with a line through it.
A symbol he had seen before.
A symbol he had tried to forget.
The symbol of a watch.
The symbol of time.
And below it, written in a language he couldn't read but somehow understood, was a single sentence:
THE MACHINE WAS NEVER THE BEGINNING.
Salem's stomach dropped.
The machine.
The time machine.
The one he had been told would exist in 2063.
The one that would break reality.
The one that would cause the multiverse.
The one that would cause everything.
The one he thought was a future problem.
The one he had believed was still far away.
But the sentence said it wasn't.
The machine was never the beginning.
Then what was?
Salem's vision blurred.
The hallway spun.
He gripped the wall, feeling the clock-hands cut into his skin.
A voice echoed from the darkness beyond the door.
A voice that wasn't the Carnival Barker.
A voice that was cold, controlled, and familiar.
"Salem Grey."
Salem's breath caught.
He knew that voice too.
He didn't know it.
It was like hearing his own name spoken by a stranger who had lived inside his head for years.
He stepped closer.
The door was a boundary, a limit, a line drawn between what he knew and what he refused to see.
He reached out.
His fingers touched the cold surface.
The door didn't open.
It responded.
The symbol of the watch glowed brighter, and the hallway trembled.
The threads around him began to twist, wrapping around his arms like living vines.
Salem tried to pull away.
But the threads held.
They tightened.
He felt them dig into his skin.
He felt his blood warm.
He felt the threads feeding.
And then he heard the voice again.
Clearer.
Closer.
"You're not supposed to be here."
Salem's heart pounded.
"I'm always here," he whispered, voice shaky. "I'm the one who broke it."
The voice laughed.
Not the Barker's laugh.
A laugh that sounded like a man who had been waiting a long time.
A laugh that sounded like someone who had already won.
"You think you broke it?"
The door shook.
The hallway trembled.
The threads tightened.
Salem felt his mind begin to slip.
Like the edges of his thoughts were melting.
Like he was being pulled into the seam.
And then, from the darkness beyond the door, a figure stepped forward.
Not a shadow.
Not a thread.
A person.
Tall.
Lean.
Eyes that looked like galaxies.
And the moment Salem saw them, something inside him shattered.
Not fear.
Recognition.
Not recognition of the face.
Recognition of the purpose.
The figure spoke.
Not loudly.
Not dramatically.
Just enough to cut through the chaos.
"Salem Grey."
Salem's throat tightened.
"I—"
The figure lifted a hand.
A gesture like a stop sign.
And the hallway stopped.
The threads paused midair.
The clocks stopped spinning.
The stars stopped flickering.
Everything froze.
As if the universe itself was holding its breath.
The figure's voice was calm.
Soft.
But it carried the weight of a storm.
"You're not supposed to know this yet."
Salem's eyes narrowed.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
The figure smiled.
It wasn't a friendly smile.
It wasn't a cruel smile.
It was a smile that belonged to someone who had already decided the ending.
"You're supposed to be in 2023," the figure said. "You're supposed to be trapped in the skips. You're supposed to be confused and broken and helpless."
Salem's heart thundered.
"How do you know that?" he asked.
The figure stepped closer.
And the closer they got, the more Salem felt the truth.
The more he felt the threads.
The more he realized that this wasn't just a meeting.
This was a collision.
This was an echo.
This was a moment that had already happened in a hundred different timelines.
The figure spoke again.
"I know because I'm you."
Salem froze.
His blood ran cold.
"No," he whispered. "That's impossible."
The figure's smile widened.
"Everything is possible now."
Salem's mind screamed.
But the voice was calm.
"I am not you," the figure said. "I am what you become when you stop pretending you can fix everything."
Salem's eyes widened.
The figure's eyes glowed.
The symbol on the door flared.
The threads around Salem tightened again.
The hallway began to spin.
The world started to collapse.
The door trembled.
The figure raised a hand.
And the hallway split open.
A crack appeared.
A crack that looked like a tear in the sky.
And through the crack, Salem saw something that made his heart stop.
A city.
A city that was not his.
A city that was made of metal and glass and broken dreams.
A city where the sky was filled with ships that looked like they were made of stars.
A city that was not 2023.
A city that was not 2063.
A city that was something else.
Something between.
Something… impossible.
The figure whispered.
"This is where the machine begins."
Salem stared.
His mind went blank.
His breath caught.
The threads pulled.
The hallway collapsed.
And Salem fell.
He woke up on cold concrete.
The air was sharp.
The night was quiet.
Too quiet.
He sat up, panting.
His hands were shaking.
His mind was racing.
He looked around.
He was in a parking lot.
An empty parking lot.
But something was wrong.
The world looked wrong.
The shadows were too long.
The light was too bright.
The sky was wrong.
And in the distance, he saw something that made his blood run cold.
A figure standing under a streetlamp.
Watching him.
Waiting.
Salem's heart hammered.
He stood up slowly.
The figure didn't move.
The streetlamp flickered.
The figure stepped into the light.
And Salem saw their face.
Not a stranger.
Not a shadow.
A man with eyes like galaxies.
A man who looked like he had already lived a hundred lifetimes.
A man who looked like… him.
Eryon Vale.
The one who was supposed to be a myth.
The one who was supposed to be an observer.
The one who was supposed to only watch.
The one who was supposed to never intervene.
Eryon's voice was quiet.
Almost bored.
But it carried a cold edge.
"Salem Grey."
Salem's blood turned to ice.
"How do you know my name?" he whispered.
Eryon's smile was small.
"Because you wrote it in every universe."
Salem's chest tightened.
"What do you want?"
Eryon's eyes narrowed.
"I want to stop you."
Salem laughed, but it came out wrong.
A broken sound.
"Stop me? You're the one who's been watching me this whole time."
Eryon tilted his head.
"I've been watching because I had to."
Salem's eyes widened.
"Had to?"
Eryon's voice became sharper.
"Because you're not just a broken boy in a loop."
"You're a fracture."
Salem stared.
The words hit him like a punch.
A fracture.
Not a skip.
Not a glitch.
A fracture.
Something that wasn't supposed to exist.
Something that had spread.
Something that had already begun to break reality.
Salem's voice shook.
"What have I done?"
Eryon stepped closer.
His face was calm.
But Salem could feel the danger.
He could feel the power.
He could feel the truth.
"You don't get to ask that question," Eryon said. "Not anymore."
Salem swallowed.
"What do you mean?"
Eryon's eyes flashed.
"The multiverse is already here."
Salem's heart stopped.
Eryon continued.
"And it's not just a story."
He paused.
His voice dropped.
The night grew colder.
"You're going to create the machine."
Salem's mind went blank.
His voice was barely a whisper.
"No."
Eryon's expression didn't change.
"You will."
Salem's eyes burned.
He took a step back.
He looked at the streetlamp.
He looked at the empty parking lot.
He looked at the sky.
The world was wrong.
The world was broken.
And he was the reason.
He swallowed.
He whispered, barely audible.
"What do you want from me?"
Eryon's smile was cruel.
Not because he wanted to hurt Salem.
But because he wanted to make him understand.
"I want you to choose."
Salem stared.
"Choose what?"
Eryon's eyes glowed.
The air shimmered.
The streetlamp flickered.
The world began to twist.
And Eryon spoke the last words Salem heard before the night swallowed them both.
"Choose between saving the universe…"
He paused.
His voice lowered.
"…or saving yourself."
Salem's breath stopped.
The world twisted.
The parking lot began to fold into itself.
And in the distance, a sound echoed—
A sound like a machine starting.
A sound like a door opening in the sky.
A sound like a multiverse being born.