Kael woke to rain that wasn't there.
The sound hit first—steady, rhythmic, tapping against glass. His eyes snapped open, heart hammering, breath sharp in his chest.
He was on his bed.
Not on the floor where he remembered falling. Not consumed by white light. Not dead.
Alive.
Kael bolted upright, hands flying to his head. The neural implant hummed softly, stable, its interface flickering to life as if nothing catastrophic had happened.
03:18 a.m.
Temporal Sync: Normal
"No," he whispered.
The rain continued—gentle, artificial. He turned his head slowly.
The balcony doors were intact. The city skyline beyond them glowed in its usual midnight blues. Transit drones moved smoothly along their lanes. No fractures. No void. No screaming.
Axiom City was normal.
Too normal.
Kael swung his legs over the side of the bed, pulse roaring in his ears. His hands were shaking.
It was real. It had been real. He could still feel it—the pressure in his skull, the wrongness in the air, the way reality had peeled open like thin metal.
And Lyra.
He scanned the apartment.
Empty.
The coat she'd dropped was gone. No footprints. No damage. No sign anyone had been there at all.
Kael stood, moving slowly, as if the world might break again if he rushed it. He crossed to the balcony and pressed his palm to the glass.
Cold. Solid.
Below, people walked the streets, unaware they'd come within seconds of erasure.
"You saw it," Kael told himself. "You're not insane."
His implant chimed softly.
⟡ MEMORY CONFLICT DETECTED ⟡
Kael stiffened.
A new icon pulsed in the corner of his vision—something he had never seen before.
A lock.
He focused on it.
Pain exploded behind his eyes.
Kael gasped, clutching his head as images slammed into him—fragmented, unstable, but unmistakably memories.
Lyra running ahead of him through a corridor of broken glass.
A timer counting down from ten.
His own voice shouting, "This is the last time!"
He staggered back, hitting the wall.
"No," he groaned. "No, no, no…"
The memories vanished as abruptly as they'd appeared, leaving only the echo of terror and something worse—certainty.
This had happened before.
A knock sounded.
Kael froze.
His pulse spiked instantly, body responding before thought. He turned slowly toward the door.
Three taps.
Slow.
Measured.
Exactly the same.
Kael swallowed, every instinct screaming at him to run.
He didn't.
He crossed the apartment and opened the door.
Lyra Vale stood there again.
Dry this time. Composed. As if she hadn't watched reality collapse less than a minute ago.
She met his eyes, searching his face.
"You remember," she said quietly.
It wasn't a question.
Kael stepped back, letting her in without thinking.
The door sealed.
The silence returned—not the suffocating void from before, but something heavy nonetheless.
"How many times?" Kael asked.
Lyra removed her gloves carefully, setting them on the counter. "Depends how you count."
"Try me."
She leaned back against the wall, arms folding across her chest. Up close, Kael noticed the faint scars along her knuckles. Old. Repeated. Someone who had learned violence through necessity.
"This is the seventh reset I'm aware of," she said. "The third where you survive long enough to ask questions."
Kael let out a breath that sounded dangerously close to laughter.
"Great," he muttered. "Lucky me."
Lyra's eyes sharpened. "Don't joke. You died the other four."
The words hit harder than any vision.
Kael looked away, jaw tightening. "How?"
"Different ways," she replied. "Once in a transit collapse. Once from neural overload. Twice because you refused to believe me."
He turned back to her sharply. "And you?"
Her gaze flickered.
"I don't get that luxury," she said.
Kael felt something twist in his chest.
"Why me?" he asked. "I'm not special. I'm a systems analyst. I fix broken algorithms. I don't—" He gestured vaguely. "—break reality."
Lyra pushed off the wall and stepped closer.
"You don't break it," she said. "You anchor it."
Kael frowned. "That doesn't make sense."
"It will," she replied. "When you stop fighting the memories."
His implant chimed again—soft, insistent.
⟡ TEMPORAL ANOMALY STABLE ⟡
⟡ ANCHOR POINT CONFIRMED ⟡
Kael stared at the text.
"That's new," he said.
Lyra followed his gaze, then nodded grimly. "Earlier than expected."
She moved to the window, peering out at the city. "The reset held longer this time."
"Because of me?" Kael asked.
"Yes."
The word landed with terrifying weight.
Lyra turned back to him. "Kael, the universe is attempting to correct a paradox it cannot resolve. Every reset pushes harder. Every correction costs more lives."
"And eventually?" Kael asked.
She hesitated.
"Eventually," she said, "it stops trying to save us."
A distant rumble rolled through the city—not thunder. Structural.
Kael felt it in his bones.
"You said most people don't notice resets," he said. "Why do I?"
Lyra studied him for a long moment. "Because you were never supposed to exist past Cycle Zero."
Silence swallowed the room.
Kael's laugh came out hollow. "You're saying I'm a mistake."
"No," Lyra said softly. "You're a consequence."
Another memory surfaced unbidden.
Lyra crying.
Him holding her face, desperate.
A choice made too late.
Kael rubbed his temples. "You keep saying 'cycle' and 'reset' like this is a program."
"In a way," Lyra replied, "it is."
She reached into her coat—this time, she was wearing it—and withdrew a small, angular device. Matte black. Unmarked.
She placed it on the table between them.
"This," she said, "is a temporal breach key."
Kael eyed it warily. "What does it do?"
"It opens doors the universe doesn't want opened."
Kael snorted. "Of course it does."
Lyra didn't smile.
"Using it will mark you permanently," she continued. "You won't be able to pretend this is a nightmare anymore."
Kael looked from the device to her face.
"And if I don't?"
She met his eyes steadily.
"Then the next reset won't stop at the city."
Another tremor rippled through the floor—stronger this time. Somewhere, alarms began to sound faintly, then cut off.
Kael felt the wrongness creeping back in. The pressure. The sense of something vast turning its attention toward him.
He thought of the people outside. Unaware. Innocent.
He thought of the memories that weren't his—but felt like they were.
"How long do we have?" he asked.
Lyra glanced at her implant.
"Minutes," she said. "Before time notices you noticing it."
Kael reached out, fingers hovering over the device.
His hand shook.
"If I do this," he said, "there's no going back, is there?"
Lyra's voice softened.
"There never was."
The lights flickered.
Outside, the sky began to bruise.
Kael closed his eyes, then grabbed the device.
The moment his skin made contact, the world listened.