Damian didn't move, traumatized with that smile he couldn't forget.
Blood stuck to his face in crusty lines. Every time he moved his mouth it cracked and pulled. His heart felt like it was doing this weird thing where it'd race like hell then just stop for a few beats. It made him dizzy.
Behind him, the altar looked like someone had gone at it with a sledgehammer, stone chunks were everywhere and those symbols that were glowing before? Dead now, cracked right down the middle. Whatever was in there was gone, except not really. He could feel it inside his head, like a song stuck on repeat except the song was whispers and shit that made his teeth itch.
The monastery was dead quiet. Dust floating around from where part of the ceiling had come down. Old wooden pews tipped over, some cracked clean through. Candle wax all over the floor in lumpy puddles.
[Synchronization: 14%]
[Instability: Moderate]
He blinked it away and started walking, with his boots scraping over stone chunks and old mortar. The main doors were hanging crooked, one completely busted off and leaning against the wall. Had to step around a pile of rubble. His shadow looked off, like it was lagging behind him.
The stairs up were carved right into rock, worn smooth from years of use. He kept one hand on the wall so he wouldn't fall. Water dripping somewhere back in the dark.
When he got outside, something was different.
Sunlight was still coming through the trees but it looked wrong. Too orange. The pine trees were standing too straight, too still. No wind. No birds. Even the bugs had shut up. He'd been in enough dead zones to know that kind of quiet meant bad news.
He was maybe half a mile from the road. The path he'd taken down here was barely there now, just scuff marks in the dirt and some busted branches. Snow crunched under his boots, but it was the wrong kind of snow. Too dry. Too gray.
[Time Until System Surge: 75 Hours 34 Minutes]
[Thread Interference: Intensifying]
[Stability: 9%]
Nine percent, just my luck!
It was dropping too fast. He pulled his coat tighter and started walking faster. His breath was coming out in white puffs even though it didn't feel cold. The ground was bumpy, roots and rocks hidden under patches of that gray snow.
Had to get back to his car. Parked about three miles north on the old logging road. From there maybe an hour to town.
He walked maybe a hundred yards when the trees started looking familiar, only to find the same thick pine with the lightning scar, same bunch of birch trees. Same fallen log in the way.
Wait. He'd already passed this log.
Then his head exploded with notifications.
[External Presence Detected]
[Threadwalker Instability Spike: Critical]
[Warning: Manifestation in Progress]
The air in front of him went nuts. Like someone grabbed reality and gave it a good shake. The trees looked like they were bending without actually moving, the light kept getting darker, then lighter again.
Something stepped out.
It looked like a person at first. Tall guy in a coat, maybe six feet. Nice dark wool coat, looked expensive. But the arms were all wrong, with elbows bent backwards, neck twisted at this angle that should've snapped it. And where the face should be was nothing. Just smooth skin stretched over empty space.
The thing stood maybe twenty feet away, right in the middle of the path. Just waiting.
Damian tried to move and couldn't, didn't have Shadow Step that he used to rely on with his life on the line. Just nothing.
The thing raised its hand and the world tore open.
For maybe a second, Damian saw another version of this place, everything was on fire, with trees burning to ash, screams coming from somewhere far off. Then it snapped shut with this wet popping sound, but he could still smell smoke.
That got him moving.
He turned and ran through the trees, weaving around thick trunks and jumping over fallen branches. Ice cracked under his feet where puddles had frozen over. Behind him, the thing followed but wasn't running. Just walking. But every step sounded wrong, like the echoes were coming from the wrong place.
The path curved left toward a clearing he remembered from before. Except when he got there, it wasn't a clearing. It was the same bit of forest he'd just run through. Same lightning-scarred pine. Same cluster of birch trees.
Same fallen log, same frost-dead patch of grass.
Again and again.
"What the hell—"
[Threadwalker: Emergency Use Protocol]
[Target: Rupture Nearby]
[Status: Unstable]
[Outcome: Unknown]
Proceed?
"DO IT!"
Everything went sideways.
He hit dirt hard, rolled through ash and rocks that dug into his back and shoulders. When he stopped rolling, the quiet felt different to him, it was heavy, something like being stuck underwater.
There was no snow, no forest, no nothing.
The ground under him was packed dirt, hard and dry. Cracks running through it everywhere. When he tried to push himself up, ash fell off his coat in gray chunks.
The sky was fucked up orange and gray with clouds that curved inward like they were getting sucked into something. The sun just sat there, not moving, barely putting out any light. Looked smaller than it should be.
All around him, dead landscape as far as he could see. What used to be hills were now just piles of ash and busted rock. The air tasted like burnt metal.
Damian got up slowly, his whole body ached hard. He could feel the taste of blood.
[Threadwalker: Unstable Synchronization]
[Collapse Imminent – 2:13 Remaining]
[Anchor Needed for Stabilization]
The trees were all dead, with black stumps sticking up like busted teeth, some still smoking, ash coming down like snow. There were shapes way off in the distance that might've been buildings once, but now they were just twisted metal and collapsed concrete.
This place was messed up, this whole timeline or whatever the hell it was totally dead.
"You weren't supposed to get here this early."
Damian spun around, ash crunching under his boots.
It was him. Same height, same face, same scar over his left eye from when he fell off Tommy Morrison's bike in third grade. But this version wasn't bleeding. Wasn't shaking. Wasn't falling apart.
This version looked at him like he was an idiot.
[Temporal Echo Detected]
[Warning: Identity Overlap Approaching Threshold]
"What are you?" Damian's voice came out rough.
"I'm you. From somewhere else. Somewhere you didn't touch that thing downstairs." The other him sounded tired. "Somewhere you weren't dumb enough to wake it up."
"Why show me this?"
"Because you need to know something." The echo stepped closer. "You're not the only one walking between worlds now. There are others. And they remember everything."
The ground started shaking. Not much, just a little vibration under his feet.
"They remember, and they're pissed."
Then the echo was gone. Just gone, like someone hit delete button.
Something laughed from up in that sick sky, it wasn't loud, just close enough to let him know it was watching.
[Synchronization: 19%]
[External Entity: Active. Monitoring...]
[Stability Level: Deteriorating]
[Time Left in Rupture: 0:45]
Forty-five seconds before this place collapsed.
Damian looked at his hands, still shaking, panicking wont do anything.
The mark on his chest was pulsing like a second heartbeat.
Whatever Threadwalker was, it wasn't just some ability. It was a door. And something on the other side was getting ready to come through.
Great, just fucking great.
[User: Damian Voss]
Level: 7
STR: +8 | DEX: +9 | INT: +11 | PER: +7
Passive: ??? – (Active)
Ability: Threadwalker - (Corrupted)
Next Global Event: ???
Time Until System Surge: 74 Hours
System Status: Thread Interference Present
→ Anomalous Presence Confirmed
→ Core Ability Rewriting (23%)