The sky above Indonesia was a tapestry of strange clouds—curling, silent, and flickering with hues not found in nature. The storm hadn't been forecasted. It hadn't existed five minutes ago. Now it hovered like a sentient thing.
The stealth aircraft cut through the edge of it with a shudder. Inside, Nate sat at the rear bulkhead, fists clenched. His skin still tingled from proximity to the Warden. Mallory was across from him, trying to catalog every motion he made.
"You've changed," she said quietly.
"I saw it… It saw me."
Rosco, overhead, grunted. "Landing in fifteen. Wherever we're going, it doesn't like guests."
Iris emerged from the cockpit. "Something scrambled every satellite over this zone. We're completely blind."
"Good," said Nate. "We don't want anyone else following."
---
They landed near the edge of a crater where a once-flourishing village had been turned to ash. Tuck disembarked first, rifle up, his boots crunching charcoal.
"This wasn't fire," he muttered. "This was erasure."
The soil beneath them radiated the same pulse as the anchors—a low thrum that beat like a second heart in Nate's chest.
Iris activated her field interface. "There's something under the crater. Not mechanical. Biological… and massive."
Mallory unslung her blade. "Another Warden?"
"No," Nate said. "The Warden."
---
They entered the remains of a subterranean temple hidden beneath the crater. The walls pulsed with fragments of languages from thousands of years ago—Babylonian, Sanskrit, code glyphs, and something older.
The passage narrowed. They moved in silence. Each footstep echoed across time.
They entered a central chamber, where a giant obsidian mirror floated, untethered. Reflections swirled across its surface—images from timelines that never happened.
Nate stepped closer. A dozen versions of himself stared back: soldier, scientist, tyrant, child.
Then one moved.
Not a reflection. A message.
"Nathaniel Cross. This is your last chance. Leave the anchors. Bury the shards. Lock the Warden back in the dark."
Tuck raised his weapon. "Who the hell is that?"
The mirror rippled.
"I am you. A version that listened. That lived."
---
They fled the mirror as the chamber collapsed. Not from explosives—but from truth unraveling itself. Outside, the air was colder. Thinner. As if the planet had exhaled in warning.
They climbed a ridge. Beyond it, stretched across miles, lay a sleeping titan—flesh of stone, eyes closed, embedded in the earth.
"The Warden," Iris breathed.
It twitched.
---
In Geneva, the Global Temporal Coalition met in panic. Holograms flickered above the council table.
"The Nexites have gone active," said a grim-faced woman from Kazakhstan. "Containment has failed."
A man from Norway whispered, "We have one last card. We release Project Remnant."
"No!" Vane's voice echoed over secure line. "You'll destroy everything."
"We already have."
---
Back near the ridge, the team made camp. Nate couldn't sleep. Every blink brought whispers.
It was the Warden.
"Why do you run? You already opened the gates."
He stood. Walked alone to the hilltop. The wind cut through him like memory.
"I didn't know," he said aloud.
"You do now."
Lightning struck. The Warden's eye opened.
---
Earth shook. The jungle ripped apart. An enormous vine shot upward—carrying Nate into the sky.
From below, Tuck and Iris screamed.
Mallory charged forward, leapt, and latched onto the vine. "I've got you!"
But Nate had already gone still. A glow erupted from his chest. The anchor resonance.
And he whispered something ancient:
"Urav nex domana."
The sky split.
---
In Langley, alarms screamed. Evelyn Vane watched through a satellite feed as an aerial distortion formed above Southeast Asia.
"Trace it! Lock its location!"
Vox turned slowly. "It's not in our world. It's overlaying it."
"What?"
"The Warden isn't arriving. It never left. Reality has been layered over it like a shroud. Now it wants to return."
---
High above, Nate hovered. Alone in a space of light and memory.
He stood on a stone platform that existed outside time.
Opposite him was the Warden in humanoid form—nine feet tall, cloaked in echoing voices.
"You opened all four," it said. "You touched the Seed."
"What are you?" Nate asked.
The Warden extended a hand.
"Everything that remains when stories die. I watched civilizations burn, gods fade, kings vanish. I remember. And I judge."
Nate stared. "What do you want?"
"To offer you what you were denied. Choice."
---
Back on Earth, Mallory dragged Nate's limp body down as the vine collapsed. He gasped for air, coughing, eyes wide.
"I saw everything."
Tuck scanned the horizon. "We're not alone."
Figures emerged from the trees. Dozens. Armored in old tech and tribal glyphs.
Iris stepped forward. "Nexites."
The leader raised her hand. "You carry the Seed. You are the Key."
Mallory raised her blade. "Back off."
But Nate stood.
"No. We need them."
---
They were led to an underground city beneath the jungle. Ruins of an advanced society once lost to time, now repurposed by the Nexites.
The leader's name was Kaana. She spoke with a voice like thunder wrapped in silk.
"The anchors were never meant for your kind. They were warnings. You failed them."
Nate looked around. "Then help us fix it."
Kaana's eyes narrowed. "To fix it, you must remember what you are."
And with that, she touched his temple.
A flood of memories returned—alternate lives, sacrifices made, worlds forgotten. Nate collapsed.
---
Elsewhere, Vane prepared to unleash Remnant Protocol—a failsafe designed to collapse the anchor fields entirely.
Vox interrupted her.
"If you proceed, you'll erase not just them. But everything tied to the Seed."
Vane didn't blink. "Collateral damage."
---
Nate awoke. Empowered. Terrified.
He had become the Seed-Bearer.
And time itself had begun to bend around his choices.
---