Rheon Arcadis never hacked for money.
Money was boring.
Truth was dangerous.
That was why he did it.
The government server shouldn't have been reachable—not from a cramped Mumbai apartment with flickering lights and a fan that whined like it was dying. The firewall architecture was elegant. Almost beautiful.
Rheon cracked it in six minutes.
Seven, if he counted the moment he stopped just to admire it.
Then his screen went black.
Not crashed.
Not frozen.
Erased.
The code vanished like it had never existed.
Rheon frowned. "That's… new."
The fan above him slowed. The air thickened. His heartbeat thudded louder than it should've.
A single white line typed itself onto the void of his screen.
YOU SHOULD NOT EXIST.
His fingers hovered over the keyboard.
"What kind of edgy warning is that?" he muttered, trying to laugh it off.
Another line appeared.
REPORT TO SITE: 00.07
The clock on his laptop blinked.
00:06 AM.
Rheon's smile faded.
His phone buzzed.
Then his tablet.
Then the ancient TV in the corner—still unplugged—flickered to life.
All of them displayed the same symbol.
A spiral.
Not rotating.
Watching.
Rheon's chest tightened. He slammed his laptop shut and stood up.
"Nope. I'm out."
The moment his hand touched the door handle, the world lurched.
Not shook.
Not moved.
Stuttered.
Like reality missed a frame.
The door blasted inward.
But there was no explosion.
No sound.
The wood simply… failed.
Fragments froze midair, suspended like time had tripped.
Rheon staggered back, heart pounding. "What the hell—"
The fragments dropped.
Three figures stood in his doorway.
Black coats. No insignia. Faces hidden behind smooth, reflective masks.
One of them spoke. The voice was distorted, layered—male and female at once.
"Rheon Arcadis."
Rheon's blood ran cold.
"You are coming with us."
"Yeah," Rheon said hoarsely, backing toward his desk, "I don't think so."
The spiral symbol burned onto his laptop screen again—this time glowing faint red.
The masked figure tilted its head.
"You already made the choice."
Rheon's vision blurred.
Suddenly, he wasn't in his room.
He was somewhere else.
A white space stretched infinitely. No floor. No ceiling. Just light and shadows folding into each other.
Two other silhouettes stood far away.
A girl, clutching something to her chest.
A tall figure drenched in red, breathing hard.
Rheon gasped.
Who are they?
A voice echoed from everywhere and nowhere.
CHAOSBORN NODE 1: ACTIVE.
Pain lanced through his skull. Memories he didn't own flickered behind his eyes—music, blood, fear, warmth.
The silhouettes looked at him.
At the same time.
Rheon screamed—
—and snapped back into his apartment, collapsing to the floor.
The masked figures were gone.
The door stood intact.
As if nothing had happened.
His laptop chimed.
A final message glowed on the screen.
WELCOME, CATALYST.
THE CASCADE HAS BEGUN.
Outside, somewhere across the world, two strangers felt their hearts beat in perfect sync with his.
And the Spiral smiled.