The forest devoured the sound of their footsteps.
Every step pulled them deeper into shadow, into silence. Branches clawed at Roman's shoulders like accusing fingers. Leaves whispered secrets he wasn't ready to hear. The moon was gone—hidden behind thick clouds—and the sky itself seemed to hold its breath.
Misha walked ahead, unwavering. She didn't look back. She didn't slow.
Roman tried to match her pace, but his legs felt like stone. Every muscle in his body burned from the fight, from the running, from the weight of everything he didn't understand.
Still, he followed her.
Not because he trusted her. But because, right now, she was the only one who made sense in a world that had suddenly turned upside-down.
They passed through trees older than memory. Through a field of thornbrush. Then they reached it.
A rusted fence, swallowed by wild vines and creeping roots.
Misha didn't hesitate. She slipped through a jagged tear in the metal like smoke through a crack. Roman ducked behind her, his breath catching as the branches scraped his neck.
Beyond the fence, the land sloped downward into a hollow. There, half-swallowed by the earth, sat a concrete bunker—low and silent. Its reinforced door was choked in rust, and moss clung to the seams like it wanted to drag the whole thing down into the soil.
Roman stopped.
"You've been here before," he said.
Misha didn't answer. She pressed her palm against a faint sensor. The old door groaned and cracked open with a sound like a dying breath.
Inside, it was colder.
The air stank of iron, old oil, and stillness. Roman stepped cautiously through the threshold, his skin prickling. The room was small—bare concrete walls, no windows, no warmth. A single mattress lay rolled in the corner beside a shelf stocked with canned food and old supplies.
There was no furniture. No decoration. No hint of life.
Just a place to hide… or be buried.
"You call this safe?" Roman muttered.
Misha flicked a switch hidden behind a panel. A low hum echoed as a generator kicked to life. Faded yellow lights buzzed on overhead, painting the bunker in shadows.
"It's off-grid," she said. "No signals. No surveillance. Not forever. Just long enough."
"Long enough for what?"
Misha turned toward him. "To begin."
Roman didn't ask what she meant.
He dropped his bag near the wall and sat on the mattress, exhaling slowly. His body ached in places he didn't know existed. His hands still shook—not from exhaustion, but from memory.
The way those agents went down. The strength he didn't know he had. The way time had folded around him like a sheet of smoke.
It hadn't been a fight.
It had been a transformation.
"You led me into that," he said finally.
Misha looked at him, expression unreadable. "You needed to know what you're capable of."
"You used me."
"I guided you," she corrected. "There's a difference."
Roman didn't argue. He couldn't. Because deep down, he knew she wasn't wrong.
Whatever was inside him—it had needed something to push it to the surface.
And it had come alive.
Misha moved to one of the crates and carefully opened it. Inside, wrapped in old cloth, was a long hunting knife. She unwrapped it slowly and placed it on the floor between them.
Roman stared at the blade.
It looked… familiar.
"What is that?" he asked.
"A key," she said. "To a door only you can open."
Roman frowned. "You want me to touch it?"
"Yes. Focus. Don't think—feel."
He hesitated. The memory of the glowing words from before still lingered in his mind. The power. The name. Looking Back at Times.
He reached forward. His fingers brushed the cold handle.
Nothing.
Then—pressure.
A strange shift in the air. In his skin. In his soul.
The glow returned.
Soft light shimmered in the air before him, forming letters etched in static flame.
[LOOKING BACK AT TIMES]
He reached for it again.
And fell.
Not physically. Not in space.
But through memory.
The bunker around him changed. Candlelight flickered. Dust drifted through the air like ash. A man sat hunched against the wall—clutching the very same knife.
He was crying.
Broken sobs tore from his throat. A photograph lay beside him. A woman and a child, both smiling. Too brightly. Too alive.
"I didn't mean to hurt her…" the man whispered. "I didn't know what I was…"
Roman couldn't move. He could only feel.
The man's guilt. His grief. His soul unraveling.
And then the blade flashed.
Blood spilled across the concrete.
Roman screamed—
And woke up gasping, drenched in sweat, back on the mattress.
His pulse thundered in his ears.
Misha was still there. Watching.
"What did you see?" she asked quietly.
Roman wiped a hand across his face. "He killed himself. I felt it. Like I was him."
She nodded. "That's how it works."
"That's insane," he muttered. "That's not memory. That's possession."
"No. That's immersion," she corrected. "That's what makes your stolen power unique."
Roman looked at the knife again. It sat there—innocent, lifeless.
But he would never see it the same way again.
"I didn't just see the past," he whispered. "I wore it. I lived it."
"Yes."
She leaned forward.
"And the man you took it from? Damar, He could do far more."
Roman's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?"
"He didn't just witness memories. He could detach. Step out of them. Travel between them. Not physically—but mentally. Once inside, he could drift—through time, through place, through the lives of others."
"Like… remote viewing?" Roman asked.
"More than that," Misha said. "He could observe any event. Anywhere. As long as it had happened, he could find it. Secrets. Confessions. Betrayals. Even classified military plans."
Roman's breath caught.
"That's why they wanted him."
"And now you take this power from him"
She nodded. "That's one more reasons they want you."
Roman stared at his hands again. They looked normal. But he knew now—something else lived beneath the skin.
"You said I took it from him," he said. "But I didn't mean to."
"Doesn't matter," she said softly. "He envied you. Your soul responded. Your mutation shifted. The ability passed."
Roman leaned back against the wall, dizzy.
"What am I becoming?" he whispered.
Misha didn't answer.
Because even she didn't know.
Meanwhile: Armenia – Blacksite Command Hub
The air inside the blackroom was sharp and cold. Rows of monitors lined the wall. Surveillance maps glowed with live data streams.
Roman's file flickered across the largest screen.
"Subject slipped past perimeter," a tech officer said. "Two agents unconscious. One severely wounded."
Commander Kael stood at the center of the room, arms folded.
No reaction.
"Civilian mutation status has escalated," the officer added. "Unknown origin."
Kael turned to a subordinate. "Activate the contingency asset."
The subordinate stiffened. "Sir, that would mean releasing—"
Kael raised a hand.
"That was the order."
Sublevel – Containment Wing
The reinforced door hissed open.
Inside stood a man—barefoot, shirtless, tattoos spiraling up his back like storm clouds. His breath fogged slightly in the chill.
Darius Dorgu.
Mutant. Ex-Othernesia soldier. Armenia's captive for six years. And now, their hound.
His power: Static Imprint.
Wound a mutant. Copy their ability—temporarily.
He cracked his neck slowly.
A voice echoed from the speaker above.
"Your target: Roman Ravenscroft. Secondary target: unknown female."
"Alive?" Darius asked, stretching.
"For now."
"Ah—one more thing, If you encounter Damar, prioritize capturing him alive."
Darius raised an eyebrow but didn't interrupt.
"We've been hunting him for over eleven years. He's slippery—too slippery. But his ability is… critical. We need him intact. If you can't bring him in alive, then don't do anything that risks his life."
The line went quiet for a beat.
Then: "Understand?"
Darius smirked, the kind that never quite reached his eyes.
"Crystal," he said. But his tone held something sharp—something unreadable.
He chuckled. "Leash is off, then?"
"You're not cleared to kill."
"No promises," Darius muttered.
As he stepped into the corridor, his eyes caught the monitor feed of Roman's escape.
"Let's see what makes the boy so special."
Back in the Bunker
Roman sat alone now, the knife still on the floor beside him.
Outside, the wind had picked up, rattling the old door.
Misha stood quietly on the roof, eyes scanning the tree line. Her fingers traced the edge of a concealed blade in her coat sleeve.
She wasn't calm.
She wasn't resting.
She knew something was coming.
After using her power this time, Misha felt it—like a shadow pressing down on her chest. A silent certainty that made her skin crawl.
He was coming.
The one she feared more than any other.
The enemy who had found her in every future she'd ever seen. No matter the path, no matter the choices, he always appeared. Always relentless. Always faster than she was ready for.
She had clashed with him countless times across splintered timelines—different places, different moments—but the outcome was always the same. Capture. Collapse. Erasure.
Except once.
There was only a single future—one fragile thread among hundreds—where she escaped him.
And that future had Roman in it.
But even that wasn't enough to offer comfort.
Because out of the thirteen futures where she and Roman had fled together, she had died in twelve.
And in the thirteenth—the very vision she'd just returned from—she had failed again.
Roman wasn't ready. Not yet. And time was thinning.
That hunter… he would come to this land soon. She could feel the echo of his presence bleeding into the timeline, distorting possibilities. Every time she rewound, his arrival crept closer.
He was like gravity—inescapable.
She had to move faster.
She had to sharpen Roman before the hunter arrived. Before he found them.
There wasn't another future left to waste.
And deep in her bones, she knows that even this safehouse wouldn't be enough.
Not when he was being sent.
Not when Darius Dorgu had just been unleashed.