You own the last CHOICE

Ethan had no body.

No breath.

No self.

There was only awareness.

Suspended in darkness, he drifted. His memories were scattered fragments, flickering like dying embers. There was no sense of time, no sense of place—only the whisper that crawled into the void where his mind had once been.

"You always return."

The words rippled through him.

Then, something changed.

A light—distant, pulsing, unfamiliar.

Not light as he understood it, but something deeper. Older.

It called to him.

And Ethan, without thinking, answered.

He fell.

Not downward, not in any direction that could be defined—just falling.

And then—he woke up.

His body hit the ground hard. Real ground.

Cold air flooded his lungs. His vision spun, disoriented. The weight of existence slammed into him all at once, like being pulled from the depths of the ocean.

Ethan gasped, his fingers digging into the rough, uneven earth beneath him. He was somewhere new.

And he wasn't alone.

A figure stood nearby.

Anna.

She was staring at something beyond him, her expression unreadable. Ethan pushed himself up, his limbs aching, and followed her gaze.

And what he saw—should not have existed.

A city.

Or what had once been a city.

It stretched before them, vast and impossibly ancient, its skyline shattered, its structures built from materials that defied recognition. Some buildings looked like they had been sculpted from stone, others from something fluid yet solid,constantly shifting in and out of recognizable form.

The air hummed with a presence.

And at the heart of it all, towering above the ruins—

A monolith.

Black. Endless.

Waiting.

Anna exhaled sharply. "What the hell is this?"

Ethan didn't know how to answer.

Because this place felt familiar.

Like he had been here before.

Or like it had been waiting for him to arrive.

In the real world, Victoria Lane was losing control.

Horizon Division had moved in. The war room was no longer hers—it belonged to them.

The lead operative, clad in the signature black armor of the Division, stepped forward, his voice calm, practiced, absolute.

"Luminex is no longer in operational control. As of this moment, this facility is under Horizon's command."

Victoria didn't flinch.

She had known this moment would come.

She turned slowly to face him. "And what's your solution?"

The operative regarded her for a long moment before responding.

"Erase everything."

Victoria's jaw tightened. "That won't stop it."

The operative's expression didn't change. "It's not about stopping it. It's about containment."

Victoria knew then, with absolute certainty, that they had already decided.

Horizon Division wasn't here to fix anything.

They were here to bury it.

The world flickered—just for a second.

And for the first time in her life, Victoria Lane felt afraid.

Ethan and Anna walked forward.

The ruins whispered around them, their shapes shifting in the periphery of their vision. Every step felt deliberate, as if the city itself were guiding them toward the monolith.

Anna exhaled, her fingers twitching near her weapon. "You recognize this place, don't you?"

Ethan swallowed.

He did.

But not in the way someone remembers a place they have visited before.

He knew it.

Like it was a part of him.

Like he had built it.

They stopped before the monolith.

The surface was impossibly smooth, reflecting nothing, absorbing everything.

And at its base—a door.

Not like the one beneath St. Augustine.

This one was open.

Anna tensed. "Ethan, I swear to God, if you—"

But she didn't need to finish.

Because Ethan was already stepping forward.

And from the other side of the door—something stepped out.

It was him.

Not a copy.

Not an illusion.

The real Ethan.

And he looked tired.

Like he had been waiting for this moment for a very, very long time.

The Ethan standing outside the door spoke first.

His voice was quiet. Measured.

"You finally made it."

The Ethan who had just arrived felt his stomach drop.

Because in that instant, he understood.

He had never been trapped in a loop.

He had been trapped in a decision.

One he had never been able to make.

And now—

He had one last chance to get it right.