Damian woke up choking on ash.
For a second he didn't remember where he was just the taste of blood and fire and something burning behind his eyes like a migraine that never stopped, everything felt off, his skin itched inside him, his heartbeat was too slow, then too fast, his breath came out in shudders.
He rolled onto his side and dry-heaved.
The snow was gone.
There weren't any trees, no monastery, just rocky dirt and cold wind biting at his back, It was over all, whatever that Rupture he experienced had been, it spit him out like the world wanted him dead but hadn't finished the job.
[Synchronization: 22%]
[Threadwalker Status: Glitched]
[Instability: Ongoing]
[System Integrity: Recalibrating…]
Great!
He pulled himself upright, with his fingers trembling, vision swimming with static that wasn't really there, the sky still didn't look right, the sun too bright, it felt too still to him, no birds, barely any clouds. Just the kind of stillness that made his instincts go sideways.
He took a shaky breath and looked around him, nothing familiar, not even the damn forest trail.
Just black gravel and scorched grass, and a broken stretch of road behind him, cracked and frostbitten, leading toward a slope. He squinted. Something was up there. Faint glint. Metal.
His car.
Damian started walking.
His legs barely held together. Each step sent shooting pain through his knees and ribs. His coat was torn along one arm. His boots were crusted with blood and dirt. He didn't remember getting half these injuries.
Didn't matter to him.
Get to the car and figure it out later.
It took him almost twenty minutes to get up there. The slope was a bastard, and his lungs kept glitching—like he'd forget to breathe unless he focused on it. He leaned against the driver door and tried to stop shaking.
Then he saw himself in the side mirror.
For a second, his heart locked up.
The face staring back wasn't just bruised or dirty. It was… off. Eyes bloodshot. Skin pale with a slight gray tint. And something under his skin was moving. Barely. Like tiny nerves twitching in patterns.
He blinked, and it was gone.
He opened the door and slid into the seat.
Silence.
No beeping. No alarms. No monster behind him. Just the hum of something slowly breaking in the background—like a string pulled too tight.
[New Passive: ??? – (Active)]
[Threadwalker Anchor Fragment Detected]
His coat pocket felt a bit heavier than before like something was in there, it was rough and cold.
When he pulled it out of his pocket.
It was a small compass, but not magnetic, the arrow didn't point north it pointed sideways, like toward a direction that didn't exist. The metal frame was cracked and warped. The back had a faint symbol etched into it, one that made his head hurt to look at too long.
He didn't remember picking it up.
But it pulsed with the same rhythm as the mark on his chest, he just ignored it an put it back in his pocket.
The car started without issue, which shouldn't have surprised him anymore, but still did. Damian didn't even bother with music, just sat there behind the wheel, windows fogging slightly, breathing like a man trying not to scream.
He drove.
Didn't even know where at first. Just away.
South.
That's where he had to go. The next Gate wasn't supposed to be open yet but time was screwed. Egypt, luxor. The memory clicked into place like a knife between ribs.
He'd saw what happened there before regression, it was too late for people to take action.
The Gate in Luxor hadn't just broken the land it'd awakened something beneath it, something that even the System hadn't accounted for, a second Breach that spilled past containment in hours, the kind of event that wiped out entire bloodlines and never made the news, humanity suffered cluelessly.
He gripped the wheel tighter and kept driving.
Hours passed. Roads blurred by. Cities became highways, became gas stations, became snowy hills that faded into drier, flatter land. Czech Republic became Austria. Then he crossed through Slovenia. All of it just background noise now.
No music, just static.
The System buzzed in the back of his skull the whole time—muted, like it was sulking.
His status screen flickered every few hours, numbers jumping for no reason.
[Level: 7 → 8 → 6 → 7]
[Core Ability Rewriting: 29%… 34%… 28%]
[System Surge Countdown: 65:44:19]
[Thread Interference: Active]
He stopped in a rest area sometime past midnight. The sky was dark and full of static again, but this time there weren't any stars. Just blackness above and pale light from broken streetlamps flickering across cracked concrete.
He checked his coat.
Still had the compass, still had his kitchen knife, still had the same haunted look behind his eyes.
There was a man sleeping in a parked truck nearby, head tilted back, mouth open, with a radio inside the cab played old rock music.
Damian watched it for a second, then got back in his car and drove back home.
The System chimed.
[New Global Quest: Protocol Nile – Phase I]
Location: Luxor, Egypt
Time Left Until Breach: 68 Hours 15 Minutes
Difficulty: C
Penalty: Contamination Spread (Tier 2 – Global)
He stared at it until it faded on his own while driving home.
He slammed the door so hard the walls shook, Eva poked her head around the corner, arms crossed, eyebrows up like, "You good, or what?"
"Egypt," he said, barely looking at her. No "Hey," no "What's up," just that word like a goddamn sentence.
She blinked. "You serious? Previously Moscow with all that happened and now Egypt?"
He ripped open his duffel like he was throwing a tantrum, tossing out crap: some old socks, a dented water bottle, a busted multitool, a comic book with dog-eared pages, and, of course, the kitchen knife taped up like a bandage.
"You really need all this?" she asked, voice flat but amused.
He grabbed the comic, shoved it back in without a word.
"Whatever," he muttered, slinging the bag over his shoulder.
Eva shook her head, half-smiling. "You're an such an idiot."
He didn't answer. He was already out the door, heading to the car.
There were no time for goodbyes and chit chat, Second gate was waiting for him
By the time Greece showed up on the signs, he was almost numb.
Damian wasn't tired. Just… drained.
Like something had taken half of him back in that rupture and hadn't given it back yet, he felt unsafe without his previous abilities.
The closer he got to the coast, the worse the dreams became.
Every time he blinked, he saw the other him again. The one in the dead future. The one who looked more alive than he did.
And sometimes… he dreamed of being someone else.
With the same face, same body, but different memories, walking through cities that didn't exist, holding hands with people he didn't recognize and running through corridors of temples buried in dust.
Each time he woke up gasping, and the compass would be spinning in circles.
He reached the port just after sunrise.
The sea was calm, too calm.
The port was nearly empty, quiet enough to make Damian drop his guard.
He found a vessel cargo ship, it was pretty low-profile, owned by some private trade outfit, probably shady, but Damian didn't care much, all he needed was a way across the water, fast and unnoticed.
He flashed some fake credentials. Got waved through. Nobody cared.
The ship was pretty old, rusted at the joints, with a busted nameplate and half a crew that barely spoke to each other, one of them looked at him a second too long when he boarded, but didn't say anything, just ignored him.
[System Warning: External Presence Detected Onboard]
[Warning: Environmental Threads Weakening – Maritime Region]
[Surge Risk: Medium]
Sigh—
Of course, even the sea wasn't safe anymore.
[User: Damian Voss]
Level: 7
STR: +8 | DEX: +9 | INT: +11 | PER: +7
Passive: ??? – (Active)
Ability: Threadwalker - (Corrupted)
New Global Quest: Protocol Nile – Phase I
Time Until System Surge: 57 Hours
System Status: Thread Interference Present