Rotham stumbled to his feet, his breathing sharp and uneven. The air smelled sterile and too clean—like a place untouched by decay or time. Fluorescent lights hummed overhead. Unlike the derelict Adra-9, this station was active, alive, and under strict surveillance.
But it wasn't supposed to be.
Adra-1 was the first station in the Echo experiments—a myth whispered in deep-space archives. It had never been found.
Until now.
Rotham moved carefully, slipping into a narrow service corridor. Voices passed nearby—engineers, researchers, soldiers. None noticed him. They were too busy.
Too frantic.
"The Core's rejecting stabilization again," someone barked."It's pulling fragments from other realities—things we haven't seen before.""Shut it down before it reaches—"
Rotham felt it then. A pulse through the floor, like a heartbeat.
The same frequency as Nexus Zero.
Selin's voice returned, quieter, almost stunned.
"This is where it all began. The first breach. The first echo. Rotham... you're inside the experiment that broke the universe."
He stepped out into a central atrium where researchers surrounded a containment field. Inside it shimmered a swirling sphere of black-glass light.
It was the First Core—raw, unstable, and still dreaming.
But as Rotham looked closer, his blood turned to ice.
Inside the containment sphere… was him.
Or at least a version of him—trapped in a loop, repeating a single phrase over and over:
"Don't rewrite… don't rewrite… don't—"
Suddenly, klaxons blared.
A voice from overhead roared:
"Security breach! Temporal anomaly detected!"
Rotham's presence had been noticed.
The walls shimmered. Time stuttered.
Adra-1 was about to collapse from paradox.
Rotham turned back toward the containment chamber. The Core called to him again.
This time, both versions of him had to choose.