The silver glow of the moon filtered through the broken blinds, casting long, eerie shadows across the lab. Aria sat still in her chair, her pulse still racing from what she had seen—or thought she had seen—inside the experiment chamber. The silhouette of a man, suspended in time, trapped within the glowing sphere of quantum light. It wasn't possible. It shouldn't have been.
Her fingers trembled as she reached for the control panel. The readings were off the charts. The AI monitoring system, ZEON, flashed red warnings across the screen:
"Temporal breach detected. Subject identity unknown."
Subject?
There wasn't supposed to be any subject.
"ZEON," she whispered, her voice dry, "Run facial recognition on the entity inside the chamber."
The system processed for a few seconds before responding:
> "No match found. Entity does not exist in current global database."
Aria's breath caught in her throat.
Suddenly, a low hum filled the room. The lights dimmed slightly. A strange vibration pulsed through the air, like the frequency of a distant thunder. Then, through the static, a voice emerged.
> "Aria... help me..."
She froze.
It was a man's voice. Calm, familiar—and filled with pain.
"Who's there?" she asked, backing away from the console.
No answer.
The chamber flickered, the figure inside growing clearer for a moment. He wore something that looked futuristic—a hybrid of military and research gear—and his face… his face was oddly familiar. Like a memory from a dream she had forgotten.
Then the voice again.
> "You created this loop… you must break it… before it breaks you."
The lights exploded back to full brightness. The chamber went dark. The figure vanished.
Aria stood alone, heart pounding, facing the impossible.
Was she losing her mind?
Or had she just opened the door… to another reality?