For a moment, there was nothing.
No sound.
No breath.
No thought.
Just a blinding flare swallowing the storage room whole.
Then the world snapped back.
Nero hit the floor hard, his ears ringing, he felt like as if he'd fallen from a great height. Helia slammed into the crates behind him, coughing. Shards of glass hovered in the air for one last second before collapsing all at once.
The sirens had stopped.
The entire facility had gone dead silent.
Helia pushed herself upright. "Nero… are yo...."
But when she saw his face, the words stopped coming from her.
Nero's eyes glowed.Not a gentle resonance.
Not the faint flicker she'd seen before.
A solid, burning cyan radiance pulsed from his eyes, as if light itself was trying to escape him.
"I… didn't activate it," he whispered. His voice wasn't entirely his—it carried an echo, another tone layered beneath it. "I swear, Helia… I didn't call it."
Helia swallowed. "It activated on its own."
Before Nero could respond, metal groaned overhead. Pipes bulged as if something heavy pressed against them from the inside. The lights flickered violently.
Something was moving above them.
A deep, hollow thump echoed from the ceiling—then another.
Helia's face drained of color. "They've released the C-Units."
Nero stared at her. "What?"
"Containment Units," she said quickly, grabbing his arm. "Semi autonomous bots. Built for high-risk resonance events.and i swear they're not… gentle."
Another metallic thud above them.
"And they're coming straight for you," she finished.
The ceiling vent buckled.
Helia pushed Nero toward the back exit. "Move!"
The vent exploded downward as a sleek, black shape crashed into the room—four limbs bending like a mechanical animal, head tilting with smoothness. Its face was a blank mask divided by glowing lines, matching Nero's own resonance.
It scanned the room with a sharp chirp.
Its gaze locked onto Nero instantly.
"Target located," a synthetic voice came.
Helia shoved Nero toward the hallway. "Run!"
They sprinted out the back door as the C-Unit lunged after them, claws tearing grooves into the metal floor. Its footsteps were silent—terrifyingly silent—only the vibration of its impact echoing down the narrow passage.
Nero's heart hammered, the glow in his eyes was uncontrollably.
"Helia!" he gasped. "I—I can't—my body feels—"
"Don't fight it. Just hold on!" she shouted.
The hallway split into two paths. Helia dragged him left, slamming her hand on the emergency override. The door began sliding shut—
—but the C-Unit slid under it, spinning low across the floor like a shadow.
It was fast.Too fast.
Nero stumbled back. The C-Unit stood between them and escape, its mask shifting into a new configuration—one resembling a cold, alien frown.
"Unstable resonance detected," it intoned. "Initiating neutralization."
Then it lunged.
Nero raised his hands instinctively—and the world bent.
A wave burst from him, invisible yet crushing, like the air solidified for a heartbeat. The C-Unit was flung backwards, slamming into the wall with enough force to dent steel.
Helia's eyes widened. "Nero… you just—"
"I didn't mean to!" he shouted.
The light in his chestplate burned painfully bright.
"No," Helia whispered. "This is good. It means your body is stabilizing Veyra under stress. We can use this."
Nero shook his head violently. "I don't even know what I did!"
The C-Unit rose again, undamaged.
Helia swore under her breath. "They're reinforced with memory-stitched alloys. They adapt."
The C-Unit unfolded its arms into bladed prongs.
"Helia…" Nero said weakly. "I think it's adapting to me."
It rushed forward.
Nero reacted without thinking.
"Veyra—!"
The moment the word escaped his lips, time rippled outward.
The corridor blurred.
Every sound stretched into a low, vibrating hum.
The C-Unit froze mid-step, its body suspended between one motion and the next. Floating shards of dust glimmered around it like tiny stars.
Helia stared around in shock. "You… you stopped its temporal path."
"No," Nero whispered, voice trembling. "I slowed it. Not fully."
He staggered forward, feeling the resistance of warped air pressing against him. Each step felt like walking through liquid. When he reached the C-Unit, his breath hitched.
The machine's head slowly rotated toward him—far too slowly.
It was aware.
Even being in the slowed time, it was trying to move.
It's resisting.
"Nero!" Helia cried. "Don't get closer!"
But it was too late.
The C-Unit's arm jerked violently—breaking free from the edge of the slowed field. Nero's eyes widened as the blade whipped toward him.
His concentration snapped.
Time slammed back to normal.
He pulled himself backward just as the blade sliced through the air where his throat had been.
The shockwave of restored time knocked all three of them off balance—Nero, Helia, and the C-Unit.
Helia dragged Nero through an access hatch on the wall. "Go! Now!"
Nero went inside the narrow maintenance crawlspace as Helia sealed the hatch behind them. The C-Unit slammed into the door instantly, metal buckling inward with each hit.
The whole tunnel shook.
Helia leaned her head against the wall, panting. "That… was too close."
Nero sat across from her, trembling violently. His vision flickered between normal and teal static.
"I don't want this," he whispered. "I don't want to lose control."
Helia looked at him and her expression softened.
"You're not losing control," she said quietly. "You're being forced into it."
He met her eyes, desperation raw across his face. "By what? The Archive? The Time Master? Or the other me?"
Helia hesitated only for a secondand replied.
"…maybe all of them."
The banging outside stopped suddenly
Silence filled the tunnel.
Helia's eyes narrowed. "That's not good."
Nero tensed. "Where did it go?"
Before she could answer, a deep voice echoed through the cramped metal space—a familiar one.
"You're evolving faster than expected."
The shadows at the far end of the tunnel twisted.
The Unknown Time Master stepped forward, his glowing eyes cutting through the dark.
Helia reached for Nero instinctively, shielding him—but the Time Master only tilted his head, his expression was unreadable.
"You're beginning to remember," he said to Nero. "Fragments, at least."
Nero shook his head. "I'm remembering nothing."
"You're remembering everything you were never meant to be."
The tunnel lights crackled.
The Time Master raised a hand, placing a single finger in mid-air.
"Shall I show you?"
Nero's breath caught.
Helia grabbed his hand. "Nero—don't let him—"
But the world had already begun to fracture.
Pieces of memory spilled through the air like broken glass.
The past.The future.Lives he never lived.
Choices he never made.
Whispers of a boy who looked just like him.
The glow in Nero's chest flared, syncing perfectly with the Time Master's pulse.
The world collapsed into light.