Nero woke to the sound of someone calling his name.
"Nero! Nero, open your eyes"
Helia's voice.
His mind slowly came back from darkness, heavy and slow, like swimming through tar. Light stabbed into his vision, blurry shapes sharpening into the familiar metal of an Archive maintenance bay.
He was lying on the floor.
Helia beside him, her hands gripping his shoulders hard enough to bruise. When she saw him blink, she exhaled sharply—expressing relief.
"You're awake," she breathed. "Thank god."
Nero tried to sit up, but the world spun violently. Helia supported him.
"What… happened?" he whispered.
Helia swallowed. "You tell me."
Nero searched for the thread of memory. The storage room. The C-Unit. The tunnel. And then—
—the Time Master.
—the Unlived boy.
—the lab.
—the shattering.
A cold wave rolled through him, making his skin crawl. "I saw things," he whispered. "Memories that weren't mine."
Helia nodded slowly. "You were out for almost five minutes. Your pulse was irregular. Your resonance was… changing."
"Changing how?"
She hesitated. That alone terrified him.
"Nero," she said quietly, "your eyes were glowing even while you were unconscious."
He stiffened. "They've never done that before."
"That's why I panicked."
She reached up, as if to check his gaze again, but stopped just short of touching him.
"Something about you is different," she whispered. "I don't know if it's good… or very, very bad."
Before Nero could respond, a deep vibration shook the floor beneath them.
Helia froze. "They're back again."
A dull boom echoed overhead, followed by the faint whirring of machinery.
Nero recognized it instantly. "C-Units."
"More of them," Helia confirmed. "And they're sweeping the entire sector."
Panic tightened in his throat. "We have to run."
Helia nodded. "But not blindly this time."
She stood and crossed to a locked cabinet on the wall. From inside, she pulled out a small gray device—cylindrical, palm-sized, embedded with thin circuits.
Nero frowned. "What is that?"
"A R-S(Resonance Suppressor)," Helia said. "It won't hide you completely—but it will keep the Archive sensors from tracking your pulse."
"You had one of those this whole time?!"
"I wasn't supposed to," she muttered. "And technically, I still don't."
Nero stared at her.
Helia avoided his eyes. "…I wasn't sure you needed it. Or if using it would make things worse."
Nero didn't know how to react to that.
Helia stepped closer. "Lift your arm."
He obeyed. She pressed the device against his forearm; it clicked, clamping into place with a soft magnetic sound. Nero felt the faint vibration of circuits syncing to his skin.
Suddenly the glow in his chest reduced—just a little. Enough that he felt lighter, as if a weight had lifted from his body.
He exhaled. "That helps."
"For now," Helia said. "We need to get to a secure line and contact the Outer Wing. Someone there owes me a favor."
Nero nodded, trying to push away the lingering images of the Unlived boy—shattering into light, dissolving into nothing.
Helia helped him to his feet.
But as soon as he stood, the lights overhead flickered. Not a normal flicker—this was rhythmic, pulsed, like a heartbeat.
Nero felt it in his bones.
He went still.
Helia noticed immediately. "Nero? What is it?"
A whisper slipped through the air—too faint to be heard, yet somehow Nero understood it.
"You're not alone."
The temperature dropped.
Helia shivered. "Nero, don't tell me—"
He didn't have to.
A figure emerged from the far corner of the maintenance bay.
Not fully formed—just a silhouette at first, then a face sculpted out of shadow and light.
The Time Master.
Helia instinctively stepped in front of Nero. "Stay back!"
The Time Master didn't even glance at her. His glowing eyes fixed solely on Nero.
"I warned you," he said calmly. "Remembering comes with a cost."
Nero's pulse stuttered. "Why show me all that? Why him?"
"Because you asked for truth," the Time Master replied. "But truth is never singular."
Helia gritted her teeth. "Stop talking in riddles."
The Time Master tilted his head, amused. "If I spoke simply, you wouldn't survive it."
Nero stepped forward despite the fear twisting in his gut.
"What am I?" he whispered.
The Time Master smiled faintly.
"Something unfinished."
Helia tightened her grip on Nero's wrist. "We're leaving."
The Time Master's voice followed them like a shadow."You can't run from his echoes."
The shatter-pattern on the walls flickered to life—glass-like fractures radiating outward in slow motion. Nero felt the resonance suppressor on his arm vibrating violently.
Helia threw an arm around Nero's shoulder. "Move!"
They ran across the maintenance bay, pushing through a heavy service door that led into a descending stairwell. As soon as the door closed behind them, they leaned against the wall, catching their breath.
Nero pressed a hand to his chest. "He's following us."
"He can't materialize fully outside zones with high resonance," Helia said. "Not yet."
"Not comforting."
"No," she agreed. "But it buys us time."
Another vibration shook the stairwell—this one heavier, metallic.
Nero's stomach dropped. "That wasn't him."
Helia cursed under her breath. "The C-Units found this level."
A mechanical howl reached them through the vents.
Nero's heart pounded. "Helia, if they catch me—"
"They won't."
"How can you be sure?"
Helia grabbed his hand—firm, steady, grounding him in a way nothing else could.
"Because," she said, "you're not just running anymore. You're resisting."
Nero stared at her.
For a moment—just a moment—the fear loosened its grip.
Helia let go and turned down the stairs. "Come on. We're heading to Sector Zero."
Nero froze. "Sector Zero? That place is off-limits even to Director-class staff."
"Exactly," Helia said. "Which means it's the only place the they won't expect us to go."
Her voice dropped to a whisper.
"…and the only place where someone like you can't be monitored."
A chill crawled down Nero's spine. "Someone like me?"
Helia met his gaze.
"You're no longer just Nero Vale."
The air hummed.
"Whether you want it or not… you're becoming what he was supposed to be."
Nero's breath stopped.
The echo of the Unlived boy's whisper—Veyra—passed through his mind like a ghost.
The stairwell rumbled again—closer this time.
"We need to move! "Helia said.
They ran downward into the dark as the C-Units tore the level apart above them.
Far behind them—faint voice followed:
"We will meet again soon…."