Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE — THE FIRST RIFT

Lystra — 2028

In the year 2028, life on Planet Lystra was normal.

At least, that was what everyone believed.

Lystra was a developed world with huge cities, oceans, forests, deserts and mountains. Different countries had their own governments, cultures and ways of life, but technology had become a normal part of everyday life almost everywhere. Artificial intelligence helped doctors in hospitals, managed parts of transportation systems and assisted with security. Self-driving cars were already on the roads, drones were common, and satellites watched over the planet from above.

People had problems, of course. Wars, politics, crime, disasters and other things still happened. But there was one thing humanity was certain about.

They understood the world they lived in.

That belief was about to change.

It happened in Veyron, one of the largest cities in Eryndor.

It started with a line in the sky.

At first, nobody paid much attention to it. It was too thin and too high to understand clearly. Some people thought it was a strange reflection. Others assumed it was some kind of aircraft or an unusual atmospheric effect.

Then the line moved.

It stretched across the sky.

People stopped walking. Cars slowed down. Phones came out almost immediately.

The line widened.

It looked like a crack spreading across a giant piece of glass, except there was no glass.

The air around it began to distort. Buildings behind the opening appeared bent, as if someone had grabbed the image of the city and twisted it.

Then the crack opened wider.

For a few seconds, the whole city seemed to hold its breath.

The first videos reached social media before the authorities could even understand what they were seeing.

People gave it names.

A sky crack.

A space fracture.

A portal.

Nobody knew what it was.

The government response was much less dramatic.

They called it an unknown atmospheric anomaly.

Emergency services were sent toward the area. Police began moving people away from the streets directly underneath the opening. Military units were placed on standby while scientists were brought in to determine whether the phenomenon was dangerous.

Then something came out of it.

Not a creature.

Not a machine.

Particles.

They drifted out of the opening and spread through the air.

Most were almost impossible to see. Some became faintly visible when sunlight passed through them, like tiny pieces of dust suspended in the air.

The particles were collected in containers and taken to laboratories.

That was when the situation became more confusing.

The particles were not behaving like anything the scientists expected.

Radiation was detected around the Rift, but the particles themselves did not behave like ordinary radioactive material. Some passed through materials that should have stopped them. Others became trapped.

Scientists tested metal, glass, water and soil.

The results changed depending on what the particles came into contact with.

Large air-cleaning and filtration machines were brought in from industrial facilities and research centers. These machines had already been used for years to remove dangerous particles and contaminants from the air.

They had not been designed for the new phenomenon.

Still, the scientists had to try.

Some particles were caught.

Others passed through the filters as if the machines were barely there.

The particles that remained behaved differently from the ones that had been captured.

Nobody understood why.

For the first time, the scientists began using a simple temporary name.

Rift particles.

Professor Frederick Aldrin was among the scientists brought into the investigation.

At forty-eight, Frederick was already well known in Eryndor's scientific community. His main fields were theoretical and quantum physics, and he had spent years studying matter, energy and particle behaviour.

He was not the kind of person who enjoyed being the center of attention.

He cared more about getting an answer.

Standing behind a reinforced observation window, Frederick watched the Rift through several layers of sensors.

"How long has it been stable?" he asked.

"Nine hours and twenty-three minutes," a researcher answered.

"Any major changes?"

"Nothing consistent."

Frederick looked at the readings.

The Rift was not acting like an explosion. It was not closing like a tear in fabric either. It simply remained there, hanging above Veyron.

"Keep monitoring the particle density," he said. "And increase the evacuation range."

"We already evacuated the first zone."

"Then prepare the next one."

The researcher hesitated.

"You think something could come through?"

Frederick looked back at the opening.

"I don't know," he said. "That's exactly why we shouldn't wait to find out."

The Rift remained open for days.

Then weeks.

People in Veyron learned to live with the strange opening in the sky, although nobody ever became comfortable with it. The area around it stayed restricted, and military personnel guarded the perimeter.

News channels discussed it constantly.

Social media was worse.

Real videos were mixed with fake ones. Some people claimed the Rift was a secret government experiment. Others said it was an alien invasion. Some claimed the world was ending.

Most of those claims were false.

The Rift itself was real.

And it was not alone for long.

About a month after the first Rift appeared, another one was detected in a different part of Lystra.

Then another.

Some lasted only a few hours.

Others remained open for much longer.

Governments began sharing information more aggressively. Emergency plans were updated. Cities near active Rifts prepared evacuation routes and temporary shelters.

Military readiness increased.

Scientists studied the particles as quickly as they could, but the more they learned, the more questions appeared.

The particles were no longer limited to the areas immediately surrounding the Rifts.

They were being detected in the atmosphere.

Then in soil.

Then in water.

Plants were affected differently. Some showed almost no changes. Others developed strange cellular activity.

Animals were even harder to predict.

A rat found near one affected area became the first widely documented example.

It had developed a third eye.

The animal was alive, but its body was clearly different.

Other animals showed unusual tissue growth or cellular changes.

Most animals showed nothing obvious at all.

That was important.

Exposure did not automatically turn living things into something else.

Whatever was happening was more complicated than that.

By the third month, the first serious human case was discovered.

A young man admitted to a hospital after experiencing unexplained pain and weakness was sent through an advanced medical scanner.

The scan showed something the doctors could not explain.

There was a structure inside his body that should not have been there.

It was deep in the upper abdominal region, close to important blood vessels and nerve pathways.

At first, the doctors thought it might be a tumour.

It was not.

They checked for an infection.

Nothing.

They compared it with known human organs and biological structures.

Nothing matched.

More exposed patients were examined.

Some had similar structures.

Others did not.

The strange structure appeared in some people, but not everyone who had been exposed to Rift particles.

The scientists did not know what caused it or what it was supposed to do.

They gave it a temporary name.

The Nexal Organ.

And one fact became clear very quickly.

The people who had it were still human.

They had not become monsters.

They simply had a biological structure that science had never seen before.

Frederick spent more time at the research facilities as the months passed.

He studied reports from hospitals, environmental stations and Rift-monitoring teams.

There were patterns, but nothing strong enough to form a complete answer.

The particles behaved differently in different environments.

Living organisms reacted differently.

Some people developed the Nexal Organ.

Others did not.

And the Rifts themselves were not identical.

Frederick began keeping separate records for every Rift.

Duration.

Particle density.

Radiation levels.

Environmental effects.

Location.

Anything that could matter.

He also pushed the government to prepare for a possibility that nobody wanted to talk about.

Something might eventually come through.

There had still been no confirmed living organism from the other side.

But Frederick did not believe that would last forever.

He was right.

It happened during the fifth month.

The Rift over a restricted area became unstable.

Warning alarms sounded throughout the monitoring facility.

"Particle density is rising!"

Frederick stood up from his chair.

"How fast?"

"Too fast."

The readings climbed.

The surface of the Rift began to move.

Not like before.

Something was behind it.

At first, the sensors could not make sense of the shape.

Then the opening widened.

Something pushed through.

The soldiers surrounding the area raised their weapons.

The thing fell hard against the ground.

For a moment, it did not move.

Then it stood.

Everyone watching understood immediately.

This was not an animal from Lystra.

The organism was large.

Its body was covered in hard plates that looked nothing like any known animal's natural armor. It had six limbs, with the upper pair much larger than the others. Folded structures extended from its back, their exact purpose unclear.

Its head was narrow.

Several dark eyes moved as it looked around.

The soldiers opened fire when it charged.

Heavy rounds struck its body.

Some bounced from the plates.

Others broke through.

The organism screamed and continued moving.

The military changed formation and brought in heavier weapons.

It was not easy.

The Aberrant was fast, strong and difficult to stop, but it was not invincible. Repeated heavy fire eventually slowed it down.

Instead of killing it, the military managed to bring it down alive.

The wounded organism was secured, restrained and transported to a high-security research facility.

It became the first confirmed living organism from a Rift.

The scientists gave it the simplest name they could.

Aberrant.

Frederick stood behind another reinforced observation window as the Aberrant was examined.

He watched as researchers carefully collected samples from its damaged tissue.

"Any match with known life?" he asked.

"Nothing," one of them answered.

"Genetic structure?"

"Completely unfamiliar."

Frederick looked through the glass.

The Aberrant was alive.

That fact alone changed everything.

Then a researcher called him over.

"We found something."

Frederick moved to the monitor.

The sample analysis showed unusual particles inside the Aberrant's tissue.

The same kind of particles that had been coming through the Rifts.

Rift particles.

Frederick said nothing for several seconds.

"How certain are you?"

"We've checked it three times."

He looked at the results again.

Then he thought about the hospitals.

The strange biological structures.

The Nexal Organ.

The particles in the air.

The Aberrant.

There was a connection.

He could feel it.

But he did not know what that connection meant.

Not yet.

Frederick ordered the information to be restricted.

Not because he had solved the mystery.

Because he had not.

He did not want the public hearing that the Aberrant contained the same particles that were appearing throughout the environment before scientists understood what that meant.

There were too many unknowns.

If the Nexal Organ and the Aberrant were connected to the Rift particles, then humanity had only begun to understand what the Rifts were doing to Lystra.

And then the monitoring system sounded again.

A red marker appeared on the main screen.

Frederick turned toward it.

"Where?"

The operator gave the location.

Before anyone could respond, another marker appeared.

Then another.

Red lights began appearing across the map of Lystra.

The room went quiet.

Frederick stared at the screen.

For five months, humanity had believed it was dealing with one impossible event that had slowly become a global problem.

Now he understood something worse.