Kael stared at the figure standing across from him in the command chamber of the Epoch Serpent.
Same eyes. Same scar on the left brow. Same fire in the veins.
But different.
The man before him wasn't just a mirror. He was a deviation.
> "How…?" Kael whispered.
The other Kael tilted his head. "This isn't your first time meeting me. But it's my last time meeting you."
The statement landed like gravity, heavier than space itself. Kael reached instinctively for his plasma sidearm—but the Other raised a hand.
> "If I wanted you dead, I wouldn't need a weapon. Trust me."
Kael didn't lower his guard. "Who are you?"
"I'm you," the Other said. "From a collapsed timeline. One where you didn't make the jump in time. One where Earth burned, and the Spiral collapsed on itself."
Kael's jaw clenched. "You're lying."
"Am I?" The Other Kael stepped toward the console. "Ask Ziri. She remembers."
Ziri's voice trembled, softer than usual. "There is... residual data in the ship's memory banks. A prior Kael. But he shouldn't exist anymore."
"Exactly," the Other snapped. "I'm a remnant. A paradox held together by sheer will. I broke protocol, shattered rules, and fractured myself into the folds of the Spiral—because you need help."
---
Kael's mind spun. "Why now? Why show up after the Vault?"
"Because you're about to walk into something bigger than prophecy," the Other said. "The Spiral isn't just collapsing. It's being attacked."
"By what?"
The Other hesitated.
Kael stepped closer. "Tell me."
"By something that was never meant to exist. A corruption spawned from forgotten time—a force that feeds on causality itself. We called it…" The Other exhaled. "The Nullborn."
The word echoed in the chamber.
Even Ziri went silent.
---
"Explain," Kael demanded.
The Other touched the holopanel, and a swirling map appeared—an impossible representation of intersecting timelines, twisted around each other like a knot.
The center was black. Empty. Devouring.
> "The Nullborn are time-cancers," the Other said. "Entities without origin. No past. No future. Just hunger. They travel across broken timelines, erasing cause and consequence. And one of them… is hunting you."
Kael's throat went dry. "Why me?"
"Because you're the last fixed point."
The Other pointed at the center of the map. "The last Voyager. The last node that hasn't been overwritten."
---
Silence settled.
Kael stared at the shifting Spiral, the corrupted center.
Then he laughed. A broken, humorless sound.
"I'm not a soldier," he said. "I'm a scientist's kid with a stolen ship and a head full of questions."
"Exactly," the Other replied. "That's why you can survive this. You're not locked into a pattern yet. You're unpredictable. That's the only thing the Nullborn fear."
Kael shook his head. "So what now?"
The Other's expression darkened.
"I send you to Anchor One."
---
The holomap reconfigured. One node pulsed a violent red—on the edge of a timeline spinning in reverse.
> "Anchor One was placed in a fractured colony world. It's regressing—moving backward through time every hour. You'll need to find the Anchor before the world erases itself."
Kael swallowed. "And you?"
The Other smiled faintly. "I stay here. This timeline's already dead. But I've got one last job."
"What is it?"
The Other walked to the emergency hatch, placing a hand on the wall.
> "I'm going to make sure nothing follows you."
Before Kael could object, the Other reached over and tapped Ziri's core console.
"Coordinates locked. Anchor One is waiting."
"Wait—!"
Too late.
The Epoch Serpent shuddered.
Foldstream engaged.
---
Time warped.
Kael was thrown back into his cradle, vision blurring as Ziri screamed.
"Temporal pull intensifying—this jump is unstable!"
"Do it anyway!" Kael shouted.
With a burst of blinding light, the ship tore into the Spiral and vanished.
---
It re-emerged in chaos.
Flames.
Screams.
A sky that ran backward, where rain returned to the clouds and collapsed buildings rebuilt themselves brick by brick.
> "Welcome to Ravel-4," Ziri said, her voice strained. "Temporal decay at ninety percent. Estimated anchor collapse: sixteen hours."
Kael opened the hatch and stepped out into madness.
People were walking in reverse. Speaking backward. A child un-broke a window. A soldier un-fired his weapon.
Time wasn't flowing.
It was reversing.
And somewhere in the middle of it… was the first Anchor.
Kael tightened his coat, locked his weapon, and stepped into the broken world.
He had less than a day.
And time was already running in the wrong direction.