(Written in first person for maximum immersion and engagement)
---
I died three times before breakfast.
The first was quick—heart stop. Neural surge. System crash. No big deal.
The second one felt more real. I heard voices screaming, static in my veins, and then a long, endless silence.
The third time?
The third time, I saw myself staring back.
Not a reflection. Not a clone.
Me.
Older. Colder. Wearing the emblem of the Temporal Authority I once hacked for fun.
That was the moment I knew I wasn't dreaming.
I jolted up from the memory loop with sweat dripping from my spine and alarms screaming inside my skull. My neural HUD glitched violently—code bleeding across my vision like broken glass. Red. Red. Red. Protocol breach detected.
> ERROR 0093-A: Chrono Signature Mismatch
PROBABLE CAUSE: Temporal Echo Contamination
ACTION REQUIRED: Immediate containment
"Contain this," I muttered, slamming my palm into the console.
My bunker was underground, dark, and filled with enough illegal tech to start a war. Nothing should've been able to breach my neural firewall—not even Authority-grade time firewalls. But this... this wasn't a breach.
It was a seed.
A memory planted like a virus—except it wasn't from my past or my future. It felt older. Like it belonged to someone who never existed. Someone who shouldn't.
My name is Lira Venn, certified system-breaker, quantum code artist, and former apprentice to the ghost legend known only as Ezel. I burned my ID tags years ago. Off-grid, forgotten, invisible. Or so I thought.
Until this morning.
Until I died and saw a version of me wearing an Authority badge.
---
I blinked. The HUD stuttered again.
A new line of code appeared, etched in goldlight.
> [P-S_Ω] has initiated first contact.
Do you accept interface?
I hesitated.
Every instinct screamed no. But every instinct also wanted to know what the hell was happening inside my brain.
I tapped yes.
The world went white.
---
I stood inside a vast, rotating sphere of light. Glyphs hovered in the air like living runes, moving, shifting. I couldn't feel my body. Couldn't feel time.
A voice echoed—not outside me, but inside.
> "You are Host Designation: Venn, Lira. Clearance: Revoked. Status: Deleted. But you remember. That means you are the anomaly."
"Who are you?"
> "I am the last fragment of Protocol Omega. The seed left behind before the final reset."
"Reset of what?"
> "Time."
---
My chest tightened. Time was sacred. Sealed. Ruled by the Authority. Even touching unauthorized moments could get you "archived" — erased from every version of history like you never lived.
Yet here I was, holding a protocol in my mind that shouldn't exist, hearing a voice that spoke in paradoxes.
> "You were not meant to survive the collapse. But you did. Because you seeded me."
"I—I don't remember."
> "You will."
And just like that, I was back—in my bunker, gasping, on my knees. Blood ran from my nose. My eyes burned like they were full of sand and solar flares. But the seed was still there. I could feel it pulsing.
My screen lit up again.
> UNREGISTERED TEMPORAL SIGNATURE DETECTED NEAR ZONE 9
ACTIVE SCAN EN ROUTE
The Authority had found me.
---
I didn't wait to pack. I grabbed the deck. Slammed my hands into the neural gear. Pulled the switch on my emergency exit tunnel.
I had one shot to disappear again—maybe less.
But as the tunnel hissed open and the cold underground wind slammed into me, I realized something worse than being hunted.
Someone out there remembered what I'd forgotten.
And they were already inside the timelines trying to stop me from remembering more.
The Paradox Seed wasn't just a virus or code.
It was a countdown.
And it had already started.