It started with the clocks.
On Mars Colony Theta, a child dropped her toy chrono. The numbers didn't just stop—they ran backward. 14:03… 14:02… 14:01…
Then the rain began to rise.
Not metaphorically. Actual droplets lifted from puddles, arcing upward into gray clouds that hadn't been there an hour ago. People screamed as their wounds unhealed—stitches popping out, scars reappearing, broken bones snapping back into fractures.
The reset had begun.
Not with a bang. With erasure.
Transcendence wasn't attacking. It was rewinding.
Across the galaxy, timelines snapped like overstretched rubber bands. The Ark's AI blared alarms in seventeen languages before its voice dissolved into static. On the bridge, Mireth gripped the console as her own memories flickered—she forgot Elena's name, then remembered it, then forgot again.
"It's not deleting us," she gasped. "It's putting everything back to… before."
"Before what?" Elena demanded, knuckles white on her rifle.
