Sector Gamma-7 was a residential district on the city's eastern edge. It was pleasant enough, with tree-lined streets and buildings that mimicked an older, more organic architecture. Families lived here. Children played in the parks. It was the kind of place people called "normal."
The doorway was at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac, attached to a building that housed small shops on the ground floor. From the outside, it looked like any other door: dark wood, a brass handle, a small window at eye level. But the window showed nothing. Not darkness, not a reflection of the street. Just... nothing. A flat, grey void.
A small crowd had gathered, neighbors murmuring to each other in confused tones. A woman in an apron held a crying child. An old man with a walking stick kept poking the door frame, as if expecting it to dissolve.
Kai pushed through the crowd, her OmniSphere badge visible on her jacket. "Reality Compliance," she announced. "Everyone, please return to your homes. This is a minor data anomaly. It will be resolved shortly."
The crowd dispersed reluctantly, casting backward glances at the impossible door. When they were gone, Kai approached it alone. She placed her hand on the wood. It felt solid. Real. She looked through the window. The grey void stared back.
She activated her interface, letting her vision slip into the code. The building, the street, the people retreating to their homes—all of it dissolved into the familiar green lattice. It was healthy. Stable. And then she looked at the door.
The door wasn't there.
In the code, the space where the door stood was a blank spot. Not a glitch, not a corrupted file. An absence. Like someone had taken an eraser to the universe and simply... removed it. But the door was there. She could see it. Touch it. The contradiction made her head spin.
She reached out with her mind, probing the blank space. And again, she felt it. The shadow. The ghost. The same faint imprint she had found in the bird's flight path. She pushed deeper, and the face appeared again.
The man.
He was standing in the grey void, looking back at her through the window. Not sad this time. Urgent. Desperate. He raised a hand and pressed it against the glass from his side. On instinct, Kai raised hers to meet it.
The moment their phantom hands touched, the world screamed.