The Path linking to the Past

The air inside the chamber was thick with an unseen force, pressing against Ethan and Anna like an invisible tide. The door, now fully open, revealed nothing but a void—deep, endless, and waiting. The faceless figure stood unmoving before them, its presence a whisper against reality itself.

Ethan still felt the echoes of what he had seen—the burning cities, the repeating cycle, the realization that this had all happened before. His breath was uneven, his hands trembling. He forced himself to speak.

"What are you?" His voice sounded distant, even to himself.

The figure did not respond. It simply tilted its head, as though considering the question. Then, its words slithered through Ethan's mind like an echo of something ancient.

"You know me."

Anna's grip on her gun tightened. "That's not an answer."

The figure slowly raised one hand. The carvings on the walls dimmed, the symbols rearranging themselves, forming words neither of them should have been able to understand—yet somehow, the meaning burned into their minds.

"Every civilization meets its threshold. Every empire reaches its end. The question has never been whether it happens."

The door behind it shuddered.

"The question has always been… who will stand at the edge and decide what comes next?"

Ethan's breath caught. He turned to Anna, but she was staring past him—at the void, at whatever waited beyond.

Then, a sound.

A slow, deliberate step.

Something else was moving inside the darkness.

Ethan's instincts screamed. He grabbed Anna's arm, yanking her backward just as a second figure emerged from the void.

This one was different.

Where the first was draped in shifting black, this one wore form like a borrowed suit. It had features—but they were wrong, like a poor imitation of a human face. The eyes were just a little too deep, the mouth just a little too sharp, the skin stretched too tight.

But its voice was clear.

"You have opened the door."

The first figure did not move. It merely watched as the second stepped closer.

Anna exhaled, her voice low. "Ethan, I swear to God, if we don't get out of here—"

The second figure smiled.

It wasn't a human expression. It was too wide. Too knowing.

"You think you still have a choice."

The void behind them expanded, swallowing the carvings, consuming the chamber's dim light. Ethan's pulse hammered.

Anna lifted her gun. "I don't know what the hell you are, but back—"

Before she could finish, the entire chamber trembled.

Ethan barely had time to react before the world shattered.

A pressure wave erupted outward, a deafening pulse that sent them crashing to the ground.

The second figure lunged forward, impossibly fast, its presence a tearing wound in reality itself.

Ethan rolled away just in time, grabbing Anna as the shockwave sent dust and debris cascading around them. The void was spreading, devouring the chamber's edges like a wound infecting flesh.

The first figure finally moved. It turned slightly, as though amused.

"Time has run out."

Ethan forced himself to his feet, dragging Anna with him. The air was electric, humming with something old and hungry.

They needed to run.

But there was nowhere left to go.

Luminex's war room was in chaos. The Veilwatchers had already deployed, their encrypted comms feeding a constant stream of information back to Victoria's command station. The satellite feeds were still unstable, but what little data they were receiving was making the analysts uneasy.

The energy signature radiating from St. Augustine was wrong.

Not just powerful—deliberate.

Victoria stood at the center of it all, her hands clenched as she processed the data. Every instinct told her they were out of time.

Then, the main monitor flickered.

For a brief second, it showed the void.

Not data. Not a corrupted feed.

Just blackness.

And then—a face.

One of the Veilwatchers shouted. Another reached for the controls. But the image remained, staring back at them from inside the screen.

And then it spoke.

"You have always been watching. But you have never truly seen."

The monitors exploded, plunging the war room into chaos.

Victoria didn't move. She simply closed her eyes for a fraction of a second, exhaling slowly. Then she turned to the nearest analyst, her voice even.

"Pull the remaining teams out of St. Augustine. Now."

The analyst hesitated. "But—"

Victoria's gaze was ice.

"Get them out, or we all die here."

Ethan barely registered the sound of something collapsing. The walls of the chamber were crumbling, the void consuming everything in its path.

The second figure had stopped moving. It simply watched, as if satisfied with what was happening.

Anna's voice was sharp in his ear. "We have to go."

Ethan's jaw clenched. He knew she was right. But something inside him wouldn't let go of the feeling that if they left now—this would never stop.

And then—

The first figure turned back to him.

Its faceless head tilted slightly, as though amused.

"You will return to this place. You always do."

Ethan didn't want to understand what that meant.

He grabbed Anna's hand and ran.

The last thing he saw before the world turned black was the second figure, smiling.

Then—

Nothing.