EXT. DEEP-SEA RESEARCH PLATFORM - NIGHT (CONTINUOUS)
The scene is a symphony of destruction. The reality-tearing rift in the sky casts an eerie, violet light over everything. The storm is frozen, raindrops hanging like a crystal curtain. The platform groans, metal shrieking as it's torn apart by forces beyond physics.
KAELEN stands at the center of the chaos, her eyes glowing. To her, the world is a web of light. She sees the solid walkway they stand on, but also a ghostly, translucent image of it crumbling into dust a few seconds in the future. She sees the path of a falling girder as a shimmering red line of probability.
MALAKOR, his face illuminated by a shower of sparks, stares at her. He sees her pointing to a solid wall, but as Julian runs towards it, the wall flickers, revealing a maintenance corridor that wasn't there a moment ago. It's a path from an alternate version of the platform, a ghost door only Kaelen can see.
They run through a maze of impossible geometry. A staircase twists upside down. A corridor stretches into infinity before snapping back. Kaelen is their guide, calling out dangers fractions of a second before they manifest, navigating a collapsing world by seeing all of its possibilities at once. They leap onto the emergency submersible just as the platform folds in on itself, consumed by the silent, hungry void.
EXT. HONG KONG HARBOR - DAWN
The submersible surfaces to a city that feels sick. The air itself seems to hum with static. The iconic skyline of Hong Kong is plagued by the "Paradox Plague."
•Visual Scene: A massive, ultra-modern skyscraper flickers. For a split second, it becomes a half-finished bamboo scaffold from the 1960s, then a gleaming, bio-luminescent tower from a future that will never exist, before settling back.
•Visual Scene: The reflection in a puddle on the dock shows the bustling harbor, but the people in the reflection are wearing turn-of-the-century clothes, their faces ghostly and confused.
•Visual Scene: A neon sign for Coca-Cola glitches, its familiar script mentarily replaced by swirling, alien glyphs before correcting itself. The locals stumble, rubbing their eyes, suffering from a collective, low-grade migraine as their memories clash with the unstable reality around them.
Amidst this quiet chaos, the truce shatters. Malakor, with Inez, and Anja Vogel disappear into the disoriented crowds, leaving Kaelen's team alone on the shore of a broken world.
INT. NEW HIDEOUT, KOWLOON WALLED CITY (REMNANT) - DAY
Their new base is a cramped, multi-level apartment in a forgotten, labyrinthine block, a surviving remnant of the infamous Walled City. It's a vertical maze of rusted balconies, tangled wires, and narrow, oppressive corridors, reflecting the team's trapped, desperate state. Light struggles to pierce the gloom, illuminating dust motes dancing in the air. This is where they must rebuild.
EXT. CROWDED NIGHT MARKET, MONG KOK - NIGHT
The final scene is a sensory assault. Steam billows from food stalls. The air is thick with the smell of sizzling meat and spices. A river of people flows through a narrow street illuminated by a chaotic sea of red lanterns and flickering neon.
Julian, on a supply run, moves through the crowd. He bumps into a man, who drops a wallet. Julian picks it up.
The man turns. It is Julian's own face, but it's horribly wrong. The image glitches and stutters, like a corrupted video file. One eye seems to lag behind the other. The skin texture flickers, momentarily showing a horrifying, static-like void beneath. This is an Echo.
The Echo lunges, not with a punch, but with a desperate, clawing grasp, its movements jerky and unnatural. It slams Julian into a food stall, sending a shower of sparks from a wok into the air. The crowd screams and scatters. The fight is brutal, close-quarters, and deeply personal. Julian is forced to defend his very existence against a hungry ghost wearing his own face, under the hellish, beautiful glow of the Hong Kong night.
FADE TO BLACK.
END OF EPISODE 12