Kael didn't feel his body anymore.
He felt… weightless. Like he was floating in syrup. The air didn't taste like air. It buzzed. Sweet. Cold. Still.
Wherever he was, it wasn't the Juno Nest anymore.
He blinked.
Beneath him stretched an endless floor of soft, glowing blue light. Above, galaxies swirled in slow motion, stars blinking like curious eyes. Time didn't tick—it breathed.
He turned. A presence.
The hooded figure stood only a few feet away, still faceless, its hands clasped behind its back like a disappointed teacher.
"You made it," the figure said. "Barely."
Kael swallowed. "Where is this? A dream?"
The figure's voice lowered.
"This is the in-between. A fracture in the loop. A place you weren't supposed to reach."
Kael clenched his fists. "You keep talking about 'loops.' Who are you? Who's controlling all this?"
"Not God," the figure replied. "Not fate. The Architects. They built the galaxies of Praton and Sobo. They manage the time loops. They monitor anomalies like you."
Kael shook his head. "Why me? I'm just a reactor tech. I'm not special."
"You're the first in hundreds of cycles to feel pain deeply enough to break pattern."
Kael's throat tightened. "Pain?"
"You grieved your sister when others forgot. You questioned why everyone else moved on. Your soul didn't reset. That's... rare."
Kael flinched.
Images swirled in the air—his younger sister Maya, laughing in zero-G, hair floating like wild roots. Then her body in the med-bay. Still. Cold.
They said it was an accident. But Kael never accepted that.
"You were supposed to forget her by Loop Twelve," the figure continued. "But you didn't. You mourned her like it was day one."
Kael's eyes burned.
"The simulation doesn't like grief," the figure said. "Grief causes cracks."
Kael stepped forward. "What do you want from me?"
The figure lifted a hand. A new image appeared: a red star, pulsating wildly. Its light glitched, like corrupted code.
"That is the Glitch Star. It doesn't belong. Not even the Architects understand it."
Kael squinted. "Where is it?"
"Everywhere. Nowhere. It appears only to those the loop fails to erase."
Kael frowned. "So why show me this?"
"Because it's calling you, Kael."
Then, like thunder underwater, the ground trembled.
"Wake up. Or you'll never find it."
Kael's body jerked upward, gasping.
He was back in the med-bay. Sweat drenched his body. The scent of antiseptic hit his nose like reality trying too hard.
Juno sat beside the bed, her eyes red-rimmed.
"You were gone," she whispered. "Flatlined for 42 seconds."
Kael looked at her. "I saw the Glitch Star."
Juno didn't even blink. "I've seen it too."
Kael's heart jumped. "What?"
Juno rubbed her eyes. "Twice. Back when I was an assistant engineer on Loop Forty-Six. Thought I was going crazy. I tried to log it, and the system crashed."
Kael reached for her hand—instinctively.
She didn't pull away.
"I remember it," she said quietly. "Not the image. The feeling. Like something alive… something watching."
Kael's voice broke. "Why are we still here? If it's all a loop… why let us live through the pain again and again?"
She squeezed his hand. "Because pain is the only thing they can't overwrite."
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Just the beeping of the monitor.
Just two people holding hands in a quiet room built on lies.
Later, in the ship's memory vault, they cracked open a forbidden folder.
Kael typed furiously, bypassing safeguards he didn't even know he could beat. Like his hands remembered before his brain did.
"This file," Juno said. "'OBX-Star'? That's not from any of our logs."
They opened it.
The screen filled with corrupted footage—flickers of deep space, then static, then a single clean frame.
Kael stared.
It was him.
Strapped to a chair in a ship neither of them recognized. Screaming without sound. Eyes glowing faintly red.
Juno turned pale. "That's you from another loop."
"No," Kael whispered. "That's me from… after."
"After what?"
"I think… after I reach the star."
The screen went black.
Alarms blared through the ship like banshees:
"Security breach. Core compromised."
Kael stood up. "They know we're looking."
Down the corridor, footsteps echoed—wet, heavy.
Juno drew her blaster. "Wraith?"
Kael shook his head. "No… it's not that."
From the darkness stepped a man.
Burned. Eyes flickering.
Another Kael.
"The star sent me back," he said.
Kael stepped forward. "Back from where?"
The second Kael smiled.
"From the end."
Kael's chest tightened.
Juno raised her weapon. "What do you mean, the end?"
"You don't get it yet," the second Kael said, his voice layered—glitched. "The Glitch Star isn't salvation. It's a choice."
Kael stepped closer. "A choice between what?"
The other him didn't answer.
He collapsed.
Screaming.
His body convulsed. Light poured from his mouth, eyes, and chest. Symbols—foreign, ancient—rippled across his skin.
Kael grabbed Juno's wrist. "We have to go. Now."
"But what was that?!"
"I think," Kael said, his voice trembling, "that was me… if I fail."
To be continued...