Reed Harrow's sanctuary had become his prison. The dimensional pocket—once a marvel of his engineering—now felt suffocating, its walls pulsing with equations that struggled to maintain stability against the chaos outside. From his observation chamber, he watched as reality itself continued to unravel beyond the protective barriers. Stars collapsed into mathematical singularities. Space folded upon itself like origami in the hands of a mad god. Time accelerated, reversed, looped.
His body had not recovered from the encounter with the Watchers. Blood still seeped from his eyes in slow, steady droplets. His left arm had partially dematerialized, existing now as a spectral limb of pure equation. The pain was constant, excruciating—nerve endings firing signals from flesh that no longer physically existed.
