[MEMORY LOG: EVENT-THETA]
"Panther 6, respond."
Heavy boots pounded against steel flooring, echoing through the underground tomb that once masqueraded as a research facility. Lieutenant Killian Fritz gripped the radio with white knuckles, breath ragged, jaw clenched like a man who'd tasted too much blood.
"Alpha Team—check in!"
Nothing.
"Bravo, do you read me?!"
Still nothing. Just the crackle of dead air.
Killian ran, zigzagging past collapsed beams, overturned gurneys, shattered glass. His wrist display blinked—one red dot, pulsing at the farthest point of the lab. The only sign of life.
Or something worse.
Creak… creak…
The sound came from his headset.
Then, static.
Then—a voice.
A raspy, smiling voice.
"Hello… Hello…"
Killian's throat tightened. "Who the hell is this? What happened in there?"
A pause.
Then:
"Everyone's dead."
His feet stopped moving, but his pulse didn't.
Then came the whisper that ripped his spine in half.
"I killed them."
The name tore itself out of his throat like a curse. "Issac Green…"
Killian shot forward, faster now. He skidded to a halt at the last chamber, eyes wide as he saw it—a glowing barrier of electric blue energy, humming like something alive.
It pulsed in the air, separating him from the other end.
He reached out.
Zzzzt!
The barrier tossed him backward like a ragdoll. He hit the floor hard, but pain was background noise now. He pushed to his feet, eyes locked on the veil.
And there they were.
Dozens of soldiers—some burnt, some butchered—were strewn across the ground. Green. Brown. Black. All soaked in red. Some with eyes wide open, frozen in terror. Some with faces torn beyond recognition.
And in the center of the massacre, like the calm eye of a storm, was an old man, him.
Dr. Issac Green.
His fingers tapped the keys of a terminal without urgency, without even glancing up. Beside him, a white cylindrical pod buzzed with hundreds of thick cables.
It was charging.
Killian pressed his fists against the barrier, voice cracking.
"ISSAC GREEN! Stop this right now!"
No reply.
Killian slammed his fist into the barrier. Boom. Then again. BOOM. The energy wavered, just slightly.
Then, slowly, Issac turned.
His hair was silver, face deeply lined, but his eyes… they were sharp but cold.
"Killian Fritz…" he murmured.
"Why are you here?"
Killian snarled. "To stop this madness."
"You taught us that no man should ever touch time or space."
"You said it yourself—the timeline is sacred. So tell me why you're playing God now."
Issac turned back to his screen.
"Because I'm dying."
"Good!" Killian barked.
"You should've died years ago! After the first experiments! After the screams started coming from the children's ward!"
Issac paused. Then exhaled like a man bored of the conversation.
"Do you fear death, Killian?"
Killian kept punching the barrier, voice rising with each blow.
"No, I fear you. I fear what you'll do if you go back. I fear another timeline where my sister dies worse. Where she gets carved up and violated again, by you—again!"
The glow of his fists turned red-hot.
Issac slowly turned back to face him.
'He's still clumsy. Emotional. But that glow…'
'Fascinating.'
This time, he smiled.
"Ashley Fritz… right?"
Killian froze mid-punch. Eyes wide.
Issac smirked.
"Pretty thing. Screamed a lot. Cried even more."
Killian let out a howl, something primal and broken, and smashed the barrier with all his might. It cracked. Light flared and dimmed.
Issac stepped toward the machine, cane tapping gently.
"Let me tell you something, boy."
"Love? Family? Justice? They are all lies." His voice was venom.
"Fairytales are for the weak. The world runs on knowledge. On truth."
"Knowledge is what separates gods from animals."
"I don't care about your grief. I care about the laws that bind the universe—and I will understand them, even if I have to burn this timeline to the ground."
The machine stirred.
A low hum, like the growl of something ancient, filled the air as the capsule behind him opened with a hiss.
Killian screamed as he punched again, breaking more of the barrier.
His arm bled, but he didn't stop.
"I'll kill you!"
Issac was inside now. The door began to seal.
"Then kill me," Issac said, eyes glowing with mania.
"Kill me and live with the fact that you'll never understand why I did it. Why knowledge is worth every scream you heard in this place."
The capsule's base spun slowly, gaining momentum—whirring, faster and faster. Rings along its sides began to rotate in opposite directions, glowing brighter with every second. The air itself vibrated. The walls groaned like they might cave
Killian's voice cracked with rage and despair.
"I won't let you—won't let you rewrite the past!"
Inside the pod, Issac sat calmly, buckling himself in. He muttered through the noise, but Killian still heard it.
"You think I want a do-over?"
A beat.
"I want dominion."
The pod roared now, light swallowing it. The rotation accelerated—discs spinning, gyros trembling, energy bleeding into the air like it was ripping a hole through reality.
Issac turned to Killian one last time. His voice was hollow, emotionless.
"I will become a god."
That was it.
BOOM.
BOOM!
The barrier shattered.
Killian exploded forward, tearing through the broken remnants of the barrier. His body was coated in sweat and blood—but his right fist, it glowed.
Red.
Molten red. Like iron pulled from the core of the Earth.
Issac's eyes caught the glow through the transparent shell.
And for the first time, his face faltered.
"...What's that?"
The words left his mouth in disbelief.
Then—he understood.
'Did he survive Subject 9's prototype?'
"Killian, no—"
Too late.
Killian roared, as his fist slammed it into the spinning capsule.
BOOOOOOOM.
The container erupted. Light and flame shot outward in every direction.
Inside, Issac was flung against the pod's interior like a ragdoll. Sparks exploded across the dashboard. His body jerked violently as systems collapsed—the barrier short-circuited, the timer shattered, and the stabilizers screamed in mechanical agony.
The rings spun out of control—grinding metal against metal—before they imploded inward, folding space around the dying core.
BOOM.
The fire swallowed the lab.
And for a moment, everything was silence.
Then—movement.
Killian emerged from the flames, wrapped in a halo of white energy, coughing up blood but still standing. His uniform was in tatters, his body scorched, but his eyes—
They burned.
He stumbled toward the central terminal. The countdown display, now cracked and barely clinging to life, blinked once.
00:00:01
He let out a breath. Half-laugh, half sob.
"I made it…"
He looked around.
Burnt corpses. Melted helmets. His men. His friends. His guilt.
Tears blurred his vision as he whispered, "I've avenged you."
"I killed that bastard…"
Just then,...
BOOM.
A nuclear bloom swallowed the facility, turning the desert floor into a crater of fire.
No survivors.
And somewhere far away…
[REMOTE OBSERVATION LOG ACTIVE]
Subject: Killian Fritz.
Status: Unknown.
Radiation signature: anomalous
...
Admin: Issac Green.
Status: Unknown.
Radiation signature: Zero
[User I.GREEN]: [Memory sequence complete.]
[Uploading to Host Vessel.]
[Transfer initialized.]
[Conscious override: pending…]