You never forget the sound of your own footsteps when you're being hunted.
Mine echoed down an empty transit tunnel as I sprinted through a world that wasn't mine, gripping the divergence generator like it might dissolve if I loosened my hold.
Search drones swept across the sky behind me, beams slicing through the night. Every second mattered. Every breath burned.
I ducked into an abandoned service station, heart hammering, and checked the small cracked screen on the generator.
DESTINATION COORDINATES REQUIRED.
Right. I couldn't jump unless I knew where.
Only one place made sense...
my lab.
The original.
The one I built in my own timeline.
Whether it was still intact… or crawling with MSD agents… didn't matter.
If there were answers anywhere, they were there.
I set the coordinates manually, fingers trembling. The device whined–old tech protesting, but after a tense moment:
LOCKED.
A cold breath left my lungs. I activated the generator.
Reality folded inward.
Colors twisted, the world darkened!
And I dropped.
Hard.
My knees hit concrete. Dust exploded around me in a choking cloud.
For several long seconds, I didn't move partly because I couldn't, partly because I was terrified to open my eyes. The air was heavy. Still. Wrong.
When I finally looked up, my throat tightened.
I was inside the remains of my lab.
Or what used to be my lab.
Now… it looked like a war zone.
Glass shards glittered across the floor. Consoles were smashed beyond recognition. Burn marks scarred the walls, twisting outward in a circular blast pattern.
Someone destroyed this place deliberately.
My chest tightened. This was the lab where I spent years building the QDD project. Where I thought I was inventing something that would help humanity.
Now it was rubble.
"What happened here…?" I whispered to myself.
As I picked my way through the wreckage, memories surfaced–old jokes, long nights, coffee that tasted like chemicals, Lyra yelling at me for falling asleep on the floor. The kind of memories that feel like home even when everything else burns.
The silence felt accusing.
Then I saw it...
half-buried under a fallen steel beam.
A terminal. Cracked. Smoking. But… intact enough to flicker with faint blue light.
I dropped to my knees and brushed away debris. The screen was shattered, but I could still see a blinking notification.
1 NEW MESSAGE
FROM: UNKNOWN
TIMESTAMP: 7 MINUTES AFTER YOUR ARREST
My blood turned cold.
Someone sent this after the MSD took me.
With shaking fingers, I tapped the message.
Static.
Then...
A distorted voice.
Low. Calm. Familiar in a way that made my stomach twist.
"Aren Vale," the voice said. "If you've found this message, then you already know the truth."
I swallowed hard. "What truth…?"
The voice continued:
"You didn't commit the massacre. But you were meant to take the blame. You were chosen because you are predictable. Because you will run. And running is the point."
My pulse spiked.
"I'm leaving you a path," the voice said. "Follow it, and maybe you'll understand. Maybe you'll see why your survival matters."
The screen flickered violently, then recovered just long enough to display a single line of text:
RUN TO TIMELINE 14-B.
The message ended.
Silence swallowed the room.
My thoughts spun.
A prerecorded message.
Someone knowing I'd come here.
Someone knowing when I'd come here.
Someone who sounded like...
"No," I whispered. "It can't be him."
But the truth pressed in on me like crushing gravity.
It was him.
The man in the breach.
The man in the massacre footage.
The man the older Aren warned me about.
The version of me who wasn't me.
V-0.
Before I could process it, a faint hum vibrated through the air. Lights flickered across the ceiling.
My gut flipped.
A timeline breach.
"No, not now!"
The floor shook violently. Equipment rattled. Sparks exploded from torn wiring.
I grabbed the divergence generator and stumbled backward.
Just as a hole in reality tore open in the far corner of the lab.
The breach glowed dark red this time, pulsing like a heartbeat.
A figure stepped through.
Not V-0.
Not an MSD agent.
Someone worse.
Riven.
Her armor was cracked, as if she'd just fought through a war. Her eyes locked onto me with raw fury.
"Aren Vale," she said, voice trembling with rage, "you are under arrest for multiversal interference."
I didn't hesitate.
I bolted toward the nearest exit.
Riven shouted, "Stop! I swear I will shoot!"
She meant it.
But I wasn't stopping.
Not until I found Timeline 14-B.
Not until I found answers.
Not until I found him.
I activated the divergence generator–feeling the air warp around me as Riven lunged forward...
And the world tore apart once more.