Aven dreamed of fire that night. Of a city swallowed by flames, the sky cracking open like glass. And in the chaos, he saw himself—older, ragged, with eyes that looked hollow and dead.
When he woke, the memory clung to him like smoke.
He met Rhea at the museum entrance before dawn. She was waiting in the shadows, arms folded, her notebook under one arm. "We don't have much time," she whispered. "I think something is starting to hunt the artifacts."
"Hunt them?" Aven asked.
She nodded. "Every time we try to archive a failed future, something resists. It's like the universe itself is fighting to erase the remnants completely."
They hurried into the main hall. Half the lights were out. Broken display cases lay shattered on the floor, their contents missing. Rhea knelt by the shards, tracing her fingers over the cold metal. "Whatever it is, it's close," she murmured.
Aven felt the hairs on his neck rise. "Do you think it's… alive?"
Rhea didn't answer.
Instead, she led him to the Archive's deepest vault, where thick steel doors hummed with security fields. She punched in an override code, and the doors creaked open.
Inside were dozens of cubes—some flickering weakly, others pulsing bright. But one, sitting on a pedestal, glowed with a deep crimson light.
Rhea pointed. "That's new. It wasn't here yesterday."
Aven stepped closer, peering into the glow. The cube showed a fractured projection of him and Rhea standing in the museum, both older, bloodied, cornered by shadowy shapes that swarmed the hall.
He backed away. "Is that… our future?"
"Or another failed possibility," Rhea said grimly.
Aven's voice cracked. "What do we do?"
Rhea's eyes hardened. "We fight. Or we disappear like the others."