He's already one foot into the next world. And the bridge is built with your bones.
---
4:00 P.M.
Atmospheric Distortion — Recorded Worldwide
In Tokyo: glass ripples, reflecting places that don't exist.
In New York: people report hearing music made of whispers.
In Prague: a floating rune burns into the cathedral sky.
> "It's not hallucination," Naomi says.
"It's bleed-through.
The veil is thinning."
Physics stutters.
Gravity flickers.
Some buildings turn partially transparent for seconds.
The border between worlds is no longer theoretical.
It's breaking.
---
4:15 P.M.
Hidden Location — The Ritual Site
Deep beneath Antarctica, where no satellite sees.
A throne of broken altars.
Silas kneels naked before a black sun that only he can see.
The air around him pulses, glitching.
The Choir forms a circle of 144, their bodies flayed and still alive—chanting with no tongues.
> "The world I was born in dies here."
"The world I will own begins on the other side."
He holds the final blade.
Etched in ten million names.
His.
Theirs.
Yours.
---
4:22 P.M.
Resistance Headquarters — Naomi Intercepts The Final Coordinates
A code broadcast embedded in the Choir's final chant leads Naomi to a single string:
> "66°36′12″S 99°43′12″E"
— Queen Maud Land, Antarctica
She doesn't hesitate.
> "Get me a jet.
If he dies there, the next world belongs to him."
Taye looks up, terrified.
> "Naomi… what if it's already too late?"
She loads her weapon.
> "Then I follow him in and end it there."
---
4:40 P.M.
Global Chaos — 12 Simultaneous Veil Fractures
In:
Buenos Aires: A massive beastlike silhouette passes behind skyscrapers—for 3 seconds—then vanishes.
London: An entire street melts into a stone bridge, then snaps back.
Seoul: Citizens begin speaking in languages no one knows—and then forget they did.
Time breaks.
Dreams bleed into waking life.
Reality asks to be let go.
---
5:00 P.M.
Silas Begins the Final Rite
He lifts the blade.
> "Ten million lives… mine will be the key."
He places it against his own throat.
The sky around him turns black-gold.
Suddenly—
> "DROP THE KNIFE!"
Naomi appears.
Her rifle aimed at his head.
> "I know everything, Silas.
The deaths, the rebirth, the magic world—I know."
> "You die here, and you become a god there."
> "But not if I kill you first."
Silas slowly lowers the blade.
Smiling.
> "You're too late, Naomi."
The air explodes in golden static.
---
Final Scene
Reality tears.
A crack in space, ten stories high, opens behind Silas.
Inside?
A new world.
Floating castles.
Impossible skies.
Roars of creatures that do not belong in this universe.
Silas turns, face lit by the other side.
> "I've killed this world.
Now I'll rule the next."
He steps forward—
> "NOT YET."
Naomi fires.
The screen goes white.
---
Final Line:
> "If I can't save this world," Naomi whispers,
"then I'll burn the next one with him."
---