The alarms started as a low hum—annoying, almost ignorable.
Then they climbed into a shrill wail that rattled the reinforced glass in Elias's cell.
He shot upright from the cot. The Core inside him was already screaming louder than the klaxon, its pulse jagged and uneven, vibrating through his ribs like a drum out of control.
Too close. Too strong. This isn't a test.
The door slammed open. Guards barreled in, weapons half-raised, eyes wide.
"On your feet, Kael. Move."
"Where?" Elias demanded, but he already knew. The Core was tugging, drawing him like a lodestone.
"To the command center. Commander's orders."
The facility's corridors weren't sterile and calm this time. Scientists rushed past, clutching datapads. Red emergency lights bathed everything in pulsing shadows.
Elias staggered once as another wave of resonance smashed into him, sharp enough to make his vision blur. The guards tightened their grip on his arms.
"Keep him steady," one barked.
Steady? Elias thought bitterly. This is what steady looks like when you've got a living Rift inside you.
The war-room was chaos.
Holt stood at the center, barking clipped orders. "Deploy drones to Sector 9. Seal the northern perimeter. I want full power diverted to containment grid three—now!"
Screens showed live feeds: a barren stretch of tundra outside the facility, snow whipping under floodlights. And in the middle of it, the air shimmered. A distortion bent the landscape, ripples of light tearing across the ice.
The Rift was forming.
And it was bigger than anything Elias had seen yet.
The Core throbbed violently. His breath hitched. He could feel it clawing outward, hungry, pulling at him.
"It's not stable," he muttered.
Heads turned. Lyra was there, pale, datapad in hand. Her eyes snapped to him immediately, searching his face.
"What do you mean?"
Elias clenched his fists against the magnetic cuffs. "It's accelerating. You've got minutes—less. Your containment grids won't hold it."
Holt spun toward him, eyes like steel. "Shut him up."
"Commander—" Lyra cut in, sharp. "He's right. Look at the harmonic curve—" She shoved her pad toward the nearest monitor. The readout was spiking off the charts.
The technician stammered, "Sir, the anomaly is—uh—destabilizing faster than our simulations predict."
Holt's face tightened, but his voice stayed cold. "Then increase power. Keep the grid online until reinforcements arrive."
"You can't brute force this!" Elias shouted over the alarms. "You need finesse. Alignment. Let me out there."
Holt turned back, fury flashing across his features. "You expect me to throw you at the anomaly like some savior? You'll do nothing but exploit the chaos to escape."
Elias met his glare. "If that Rift opens fully, there won't be a facility left to escape from."
The room froze at his words. The alarms wailed, monitors flashed warnings, and outside, the Rift's shimmer bulged like a balloon stretched too far.
Lyra broke the silence. "Sir, if he's right—if this gets worse—none of us survive. Let him try."
The weight of the moment pressed down. Holt's jaw worked, his pride and fear warring in his eyes.
Finally, he snapped, "Fine. One chance. You fail, and I end you myself."
He gestured. "Remove the cuffs."
The guards hesitated, then released Elias. The magnetic restraints clattered to the floor.
The Core surged the instant the shackles fell, relief flooding through Elias's veins like oxygen after drowning. He staggered, caught himself, and straightened.
"Show me the exit," he said.
The blast doors groaned as they opened. Wind and snow knifed into the hangar, cold sharp enough to burn the skin. Elias stepped out first, Lyra trailing with a portable scanner despite Holt's scowl. Soldiers fanned out around them, rifles raised—not at the Rift, but at Elias.
The shimmer loomed ahead, twisting the night sky. Lightning danced inside its warped surface, crackling across unseen edges. It hummed with a sound no ear should hear, low and high at once.
The Core inside him roared in answer.
Elias dropped to one knee, pressing a hand against the ice. Threads of energy flared in his vision—lines only he could see—stretching from the Rift into the ground, like roots digging deep.
He clenched his teeth. It's anchoring. If it sets fully, nothing closes it.
"Talk to me," Lyra called over the storm.
"It's tethering. I need to cut the roots before they lock."
"How?"
Elias spread his arms. The Core pulsed, blazing heat in his chest. The threads of resonance snapped into focus, glowing brighter.
He pushed.
The ice cracked, energy lines buckling under his will. The Rift shuddered, warping violently, its edges stuttering.
The soldiers shouted, some stumbling back as the ground trembled.
Holt's voice barked over comms: "Keep formation! Hold fire unless it breaches!"
Elias roared as he poured everything into the resonance, the Core blazing like a sun in his ribs. The lines resisted—then snapped one by one, like cords cut by invisible shears.
The Rift convulsed. The lightning inside it flared brighter, then imploded inward, collapsing into itself with a thunderclap that rattled the mountains.
The world went still.
Only snow fell.
Elias dropped to his hands, chest heaving, sweat freezing on his skin. The Core quieted, settling back into a steady thrum.
Slowly, he pushed himself upright. The soldiers stared at him, rifles still raised but hands shaking.
Lyra's scanner was going wild. She looked at him like she was seeing a ghost. "You… you severed the anchors. That's not possible."
Elias met her gaze, then looked past her—straight at Holt.
The commander's face was pale, his jaw locked. He didn't look like a man in control anymore.
He looked like a man facing something he couldn't control at all.
Elias wiped frost from his mouth, his voice hoarse but steady. "Still think I'm just a tool?"
No one answered.
The silence was proof enough.
A real Rift manifests dangerously close to the facility. Holt still tries to dismiss Elias, but Lyra pushes back. Elias proves his power in the open, collapsing the Rift in front of soldiers and scientists. Holt loses control of the narrative.