The Black-Suits had been stationed at the crater for hours.

  Casen, Elian, and Milo crouched behind a twisted steel outcrop that used to be a monorail line. The wind howled through the broken beams, whistling over the crater where the Ash Core shimmered like a wound in the earth—pulsing with pale blue light.

  “They’re not leaving,” Casen whispered.

  “No,” Milo muttered, peeking through a bent girder. “And they’ve got gear. Thermal scanners. Probably pulse readers too. We’d get fried in two seconds.”

  Casen’s jaw clenched. The crystal key pulsed faintly in his pocket, its rhythm syncing with the glow of the crater. It wanted to be used. But there was no way in without getting caught.

  “Can’t you distract them?” Elian asked Milo.

  Milo looked offended. “What do I look like, a street magician? You want me to pull a ghost out of my hat and shout ‘ta-da’?”

  Casen cracked a smile despite the tension. “Actually, yes.”

  Milo sighed. “Fine. Give me five minutes and at least one horrible idea.”

  He rummaged in his bag and pulled out two drone spheres, a flare stick, and something that looked suspiciously like a salvaged ghost-receiver. He grinned.

  “I call this... the Screaming Decoy.”

  Ten minutes later, the drone flew over the Black-Suits, trailing the flare and blaring a looped audio clip of a ghost scream Milo had recorded weeks ago.

  The effect was instant.

  Weapons raised. Orders shouted. One of the agents hit the dirt as the flare burst overhead.

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  “Now!” Milo yelled.

  They ran.

  Casen clutched the crystal, its pulse turning rapid as they reached the crater’s lip. The Ash Core glowed beneath, wrapped in shifting black mist.

  Elian grabbed his hand. “It’s reacting.”

  Casen stepped closer. The wind died around them.

  And the moment the crystal passed the threshold—

  —the mist recoiled.

  An opening appeared in the crater wall. A perfect circle, rimmed in pulsing light.

  “I think that’s our door,” Milo said, panting. “No dramatic lock sound though. Missed opportunity.”

  They moved quickly, slipping inside as the Black-Suits returned to the crater, scanning the area with rifles raised.

  The inside of the Ash Core wasn’t rock.

  It was memory.

  Walls shimmered like liquid glass. Voices echoed from nowhere—half-spoken memories, fragments of the past. Casen staggered as the air thickened.

  “Careful,” Elian warned. “It’s unstable.”

  Milo spun around slowly. “This place is... like walking through someone else’s dream.”

  A central pillar of black stone stood in the middle. Atop it, embedded in crystal, was a small disc—metallic, etched with strange sigils.

  “The Fracture Key,” Casen whispered.

  He stepped forward, held the crystal out—and the disc responded.

  Light flared.

  The walls rippled.

  Memories flooded in—Casen’s childhood, a woman’s voice calling his name, and something deeper, buried, like a scream caught beneath the surface of time.

  The mist swirled. And then—

  A figure stepped from the pillar’s far side.

  Dressed in black. Eyes hollow.

  Elian froze. “Is that...?”

  Casen couldn’t speak.

  The figure looked exactly like him.

  But older. And burned. Not by fire—but by time itself.

  “Who are you?” Elian asked.

  The figure smiled, sad and broken.

  “I’m what he becomes,” it said. “If he chooses wrong.”

  And then it vanished.

  The mist collapsed inward, drawing them toward the pillar. Milo grabbed Casen’s arm.

  “Whatever choice you’re about to make,” Milo said, “make it fast. And don’t let it turn you into Mr. Broody-Time-Ghost.”

  Casen reached for the disc.

  And the moment his fingers touched it—

  —a crack split through the pillar.

  The First Fracture opened.

  A rift in the air itself. A glimpse of something deeper—wires of time, threads of memory, and faces flickering between past and future.

  Casen pulled his hand back. The fracture held.

  “We did it,” Elian whispered. “We opened the way.”

  Milo tilted his head. “Yeah. Uh, anyone else feel like we just broke the universe’s glass floor?”

  Outside, alarms sounded. The Black-Suits had noticed the breach.

  But it didn’t matter. The rift was open.

  And through it, they saw the next path:

  The Faultline.

  Where the dead weren’t the only ones trapped by time.