Displacement into the Rifted Zone
Darkness. A pulsing hum, low and constant, surrounded Kael before he could even open his eyes. The sensation wasn't pain it was distortion, like being pulled in every direction and none at once.
Then light a fractured brilliance, like stained glass melting into itself. Kael blinked as his surroundings came into focus. The world around him was broken.
He stood on a patch of moss-covered stone that floated above a sky of shimmering gold. To his left, the skeletal remains of a medieval castle jutted out at impossible angles. Behind it, a monorail track from a future that had never existed twisted midair, looping through static clouds. Wind didn't blow here; instead, time itself breathed forward, back, sideways soft and unpredictable.
Kura stirred beside him, already on her feet with a blade half-drawn.
"Where… are we?" Kael murmured.
Kura's eyes scanned the horizon. "This isn't any known zone," she muttered. "It's fractured. Raw." She looked at him sharply. "What did you bring us into, Forward-Walker?"
Kael opened his mouth, but no words came. The weight of the Rifted Zone pressed into his chest like an accusation.
"We need to move," Kura said, slipping into motion. "If you've dragged us into a temporal collapse, standing still will get us erased."
Kael followed, his legs shaky. Around them, the environment shifted. Trees bloomed and withered in moments, stones melted into sand and reformed as ice. The laws of reality had no dominion here.
In the silence, Kael whispered, "You don't trust me."
Kura didn't look back. "Trust is for those who don't keep dragging specters into our world."
Kael bit down his frustration. He didn't know what he'd awakened—but whatever it was, it had changed everything.
The horizon pulsed. Something massive groaned in the distance, the sound delayed, arriving moments after the vibration. Kura paused.
"Did you hear that?"
Kael nodded.
She frowned. "We're not alone here."
Kael and Kura's Rifted Trial
The path beneath their feet disintegrated with every step, reassembling itself just as they leapt forward. Stones floated upward, paused midair, and then snapped back into the ground with a jarring crunch. All the while, Kael kept stealing glances at Kura—her posture rigid, her silence screaming louder than words.
She halted suddenly, one hand raised. "Something's following."
Kael froze. The hairs on his neck prickled. A ripple surged across the skyline, bending the twisted ruins and floating structures in the distance. For a breathless moment, he saw a towering silhouette—humanoid, cloaked in ragged sheets of shifting void.
A Rift Warden.
Kura's hand went to her blade. "Keep your anchor ready."
"I—" Kael fumbled with the device on his belt. The anchor blinked, pulsing blue. "Why is it after us?"
"Instability attracts them. You're unstable."
The words hit harder than she intended. "I didn't ask for any of this."
"No," she replied, still scanning the horizon. "But you're the reason we're here. That pulse earlier—it wasn't normal. You resonated with something… old."
Kael looked away. "I'm not trying to break the world, Kura."
A hollow cry shattered the air before the sound caught up, vibrating in their bones. The Warden didn't walk—it drifted, sliding between realities in every stride.
"Talk later. Run now!" Kura snapped.
They sprinted. Gravity twisted sideways. Kael's foot nearly missed a crumbling ledge, the terrain buckling beneath him. Kura moved like a shadow, leaping between floating shards of ground, momentum effortless. Kael's every breath was ragged. He wasn't ready for this.
The Warden was gaining, warping time with every movement. Light flickered as though it couldn't decide which second to exist in.
"We're cornered!" Kael gasped as they reached the edge of a crumbling ridge.
"Then stabilize us!"
"I—!"
The Warden raised a warped hand, and from its palm, a lance of burning time curled into existence. The moment slowed. Kael felt it all, Kura's breath catching, the heartbeat in his ears, the shimmer of the Rift on his skin.
"No!" he shouted, thrusting the anchor into the ground.
A shockwave burst outward. Blue-white rings of energy radiated through the landscape, freezing the Warden mid-lunge. The world trembled. For a second, just a second—reality reasserted itself.
Kael collapsed to one knee, breath coming in gulps. The anchor steamed beneath his hand.
Kura stepped forward, staring at the stabilized zone. Slowly, she sheathed her blade. "That was actual control."
Kael met her gaze, his hands still trembling. "That was luck."
She didn't argue. Not this time. Instead, she nodded—grudging, but not dismissive.
"Let's keep moving," she said after a pause. And when they walked again, she didn't lead ahead.
She walked beside him.
Aya and Jessa in the Memory Loop
Location: The Liminal Fold – a looping timeline pocket inside the Rifted Zone
Aya jolted upright, her breath sharp and uneven.
She was kneeling on a marble floor—one she hadn't seen in years. The walls around her were smooth stone, etched with fading tactical diagrams. The air smelled of burnt ozone and crushed hope.
She knew this place.
No.
Not here.
Jessa stirred behind her. "Aya… where are we?"
Aya didn't answer. She was already moving, faster than thought, down a corridor too familiar. Each step pulled her deeper, not just into the Rift, but into a memory she'd buried long ago.
A door slid open.
And there they were.
Six operatives. Her old team. Laughing around a table. Minka, adjusting her gloves. Rafi, tossing a stim canister to Lorn. Sela, sharpening a blade with the rhythm of old war songs. Alive. Breathing.
Not yet dead.
Aya stopped at the threshold, her chest tightening.
Jessa caught up, her eyes wide. "This… isn't right. These people—they're—"
"Dead." Aya's voice was thin. "All of them."
As if cued by her words, time jumped. The room blurred and reassembled. Screams filled the air. The floor was scorched. Minka was slumped against the wall, blood pooling beneath her. Rafi lay crumpled, arms outstretched as if shielding someone.
Sela was gone.
Aya staggered back, gripping the wall.
Jessa looked around, horrified. "What is this? A projection?"
"No. It's worse. The Rift is looping my worst failure."
Another jump.
They were alive again. Laughing.
Aya's breath hitched. "I left them. I thought I was saving the mission. I followed protocol." Her voice shook. "But they didn't make it out."
Jessa placed a hand on her shoulder, grounding her. "Aya, this isn't real. You're not back there. You're here with me."
"It feels real."
"You've carried this guilt alone too long."
Another jump.
This time the scene was different.
The team was dead again but this time, Aya stood over them, her armor cracked, blood smeared across her face. Only this version of her… smiled.
Coldly. Detached.
"No," Aya whispered.
"Is that… you?" Jessa asked quietly.
Aya nodded, numb. "It's the version of me that accepted it. Buried it. Moved on. That's what the Rift wants—to make me forget. Or worse, to become that version."
She stepped forward, into the flickering chaos. "I won't."
The memory twisted, resisting her. The dead didn't move, but their eyes opened—all six—staring directly at her.
"I'm sorry," Aya whispered. "I didn't forget you. I never will."
A pulse rippled through the room. The image shattered like glass, revealing the Liminal Fold as it truly was a cracked, echoing corridor of silver ash and fading stars.
They were out.
Jessa stood beside her, watching her carefully. "What did you say to them? Before we broke out?"
Aya hesitated, her voice low. "I told them I'd earn the life they gave me."
And then, more quietly, "Even if it breaks me."
Jessa didn't press further. She only nodded, falling into step beside her as they continued forward.
Elrik's Lone Vision
Location: Ruins of the Chronoseum – deep within the Rifted Zone
Elrik wandered alone through a corridor that refused to stay still.
Stone turned to metal, then melted into living vines. Time didn't pass here, it pulsed, like a heartbeat gone wrong. He adjusted the stabilizer on his wrist, though it barely kept the anomalies at bay.
His boots scraped across what looked like polished obsidian. In its reflective surface, he didn't see his own face.
He saw Kael's.
Older. Weathered. Eyes distant—cold.
Elrik shivered. "That's not… now."
A low hum vibrated in the air. It wasn't mechanical. It was something older. Alive.
He stepped forward into a chamber that shouldn't have existed.
It was circular, immense, and eerily serene. At its center stood a monolithic spire—cracked, levitating just above a spiraling sigil of faded gold. Dust danced in the air, slow as sleep. Runes glowed faintly across the walls—language long extinct.
This wasn't just any ruin.
It was the Chronoseum—a temple whispered about in fragments of forbidden history. A place where the first Riftwalkers once listened to time itself.
Elrik approached the spire, drawn by instinct more than curiosity. As his fingers brushed the surface, it lit up—not with color, but with memory.
Suddenly, he wasn't in the temple anymore.
He stood on a battlefield that stretched across epochs—Victorian airships clashing above alien towers, soldiers in cybernetic armor fighting beside warriors with bronze shields. And in the center of it all:
Kael.
Not the Kael he knew.
This one floated above the broken ground, engulfed in a storm of temporal energy. His voice echoed across the battle, not words, but raw command. He tore apart time with gestures, rewriting moments mid-strike, dissolving enemies into forgotten futures.
Then his gaze turned directly at Elrik.
"You were warned."
Elrik staggered back. The vision collapsed like shattered glass, and he was on the floor of the Chronoseum again, gasping for breath.
The spire had gone dark.
His pulse thundered. "Kael… what are you becoming?"
He didn't speak the second thought aloud:
And what will I have to do when that time comes?
Elrik rose slowly, hand trembling as he touched the stabilizer again.
Loyalty could only carry a man so far.
But for now… he walked forward, toward the faint signal of the others.
Reunion at the Spire of Convergence
Location: Edge of the Rifted Zone – The Spire of Convergence
The Rifted Zone began to quiet.
Its swirling dissonance faded into a trembling stillness, as if the storm had exhaled. Through broken landscapes and erratic echoes, the scattered team slowly converged on a singular pulse—a beacon of deep, ancient resonance.
The Spire of Convergence rose before them like a wound stitched into reality. Not built, but formed—as if time itself had split open and bled this structure into being. Tendrils of light bent unnaturally around it, making its silhouette shimmer and blur.
Kael and Kura arrived first.
They stood in silence at the outer edge of the clearing. Kael rubbed his hands together to ground himself, his fingers still twitching from earlier. Kura stood rigid beside him—still quiet, but no longer accusatory.
Footsteps crunched over fractured stone. Aya and Jessa emerged next, battered but whole. Aya's jaw was tight, and she kept glancing over her shoulder, as if the memory loop still chased her.
Kael's eyes met hers.
For a second, they didn't speak.
Then, just a nod a silent recognition that something inside both of them had changed.
Elrik was last.
He stepped out from between two cracked pillars, slow, thoughtful. His coat was torn, his expression unreadable. But there was a weight behind his eyes Kael hadn't seen before.
They gathered beneath the shadow of the Spire.
No words. Just breathing, shared in a rare moment of pause.
Jessa was the first to break it.
"I ran a diagnostic on the field surrounding this place," she said, crouching near the base of the monolith. "It's a convergence point. Timelines folding into one another. Stable... barely. But not natural."
She looked up, voice steady. "This is where they've been drawing power. The Riftbound."
Aya stepped forward. "And it's accelerating. The keystone's somewhere below, still leaking energy. The Riftbound aren't just surviving off it anymore. They're organizing."
Elrik's voice was lower than usual. "Or being guided."
Everyone turned.
He met their gazes with uncharacteristic seriousness. "They're not just rogue anomalies. I saw it in the Chronoseum. They… reflect something larger. Something old. Maybe not even hostile in the way we understand. But definitely bound to that keystone."
Kael's throat tightened.
Jessa tilted her head. "Fragments of a sentience?"
"Or the shadow of one," Elrik said.
Kura crossed his arms. "Doesn't matter what it is. If it's tearing reality apart, we break it before it breaks us."
Aya's lips parted slightly. Her silence was contemplative now, not cold.
"No," she said finally. "We don't just react anymore. Not like before. Not like we did when the Authority dictated our every step."
She looked at Kael, but she was speaking to all of them.
"We confront this. We find the heart of it, and we end it—not just the symptoms. The cause."
Kael stepped toward the base of the Spire, laying a hand on the stone.
It hummed beneath his skin. Not malevolent. Not welcoming. Just aware.
Watching.
"I saw a version of myself," he murmured, mostly to himself. "Something I could become."
Kura's head snapped toward him. "You too?"
The air grew thick with implication.
Aya narrowed her eyes. "Then it's time we stop running from it."
Location: Perimeter of the Spire of Convergence – The Null Core Threshold
The inside of the Spire pulsed.
Not with light—but with memory. Echoes drifted down its central shaft like whispers riding gravity, coalescing into faint impressions: voices from futures that hadn't yet happened. Or perhaps already had. None of the team dared speak for a while. The tension was thick enough to bend reality.
Kael stood near one of the internal walls. It shimmered under his hand—neither stone nor metal, but something more… aware. It breathed in a rhythm matching his own pulse.
"They want me to enter," he said quietly.
"They?" Jessa asked, slinging her pack off her back to check her tools. "The Riftbound?"
Kael shook his head. "Not exactly. Not just them."
Aya studied him, eyes narrowing. "What did you feel?"
Kael hesitated, then said, "Like I've already been here. Or I'm about to be." His voice broke slightly. "I think this… this place remembers me."
A quiet passed.
Kura grunted, leaning against a fractured support pillar. "You're not the only one." He tossed a half-shredded datapad onto the cracked floor. "Found this jammed in the ruins outside. Been scanning it. There's a log entry… decades old."
Jessa crouched beside it. "Whose?"
Kura didn't answer right away.
So Kael picked it up. The screen flickered, stabilizing just long enough to show a time-stamped log.
Entry 47 – KURA / Date Fragmented
The kid made it through. Somehow. But he's not the same. The Rift's taken something from him—and given something back. I don't trust it. Not anymore. Not even him.
Kael's hand trembled slightly. "Is this…?"
"Written by me," Kura said flatly. "Or a future me. Or a version that saw too much. I don't know. But it confirms what we're walking into isn't just the end of a cycle."
He looked Kael dead in the eyes. "It's the beginning of something else."
Elrik let out a low whistle. "Null Core."
"Where time goes to die," Aya murmured. "And get reborn."
The team began to prep.
Jessa handed Kael a stabilization device—a small orb with embedded runes that pulsed in sync with his heartbeat. "It'll buy you time. Literally. If reality fractures around you, focus on this. Anchor yourself."
Kael nodded, pocketing it.
Aya adjusted her gear, then spoke while cinching the last strap. "From here on out, there are no recon routes. No fallback corridors. Whatever waits inside, it wasn't meant to be navigated."
Kael swallowed, then straightened. "Then we map it with every step."
Each member checked weapons, tools, comm-links. The air was thick with apprehension—but something else too.
Resolve.
Aya gave the silent signal.
They approached the descending spiral that led into the Null Core, each step dimming the world behind them.
Then, the ground trembled.
Softly at first. Then violently, like the very fabric of space beneath the Spire had convulsed.
Cracks spiderwebbed through the walls. A thunderous hum rippled through the stone. Jessa dropped to one knee, trying to stabilize her equipment readings—but the instruments spun erratically.
"No readings," she said. "Whatever's awakening down there... it's dampening time itself."
A single, echoing roar pulsed from below.
Not beast. Not machine.
A presence.
Massive. Cold. Ancient.
The Riftbound Sovereign was stirring.
Kael's breath caught in his chest. No one moved.
Then Aya said quietly, "Now or never."
They descended together.