I woke to the taste of copper and something faintly sweet.

I didn’t know where I was.

The ceiling above me was low and uneven, cracked in thin veins that glowed faintly where emergency lights leaked through exposed wiring. The air smelled of melting plastic.

I tried to sit up.

The world lurched violently to the side.

My stomach clenched, my vision smeared, and I dropped back with a sharp breath that scraped my throat on the way out.

“Easy,” a voice said. Close. Calm. “Don’t do that yet.”

I froze.

My pulse slammed against my ribs as I turned my head.

He was sitting a few feet away, back against the wall, one knee bent, the other stretched out. His jacket was gone. His sleeves were rolled to his forearms. In his hand was an apple, bright red, clean, impossibly ordinary.

He took a bite.

The sound was loud in the quiet room. Crisp. Wet.

My eyes drifted to his wrist before I could stop them.

The mark.

Subtle. Engraved.

The same one I had seen in the execution room.

My throat tightened.

“You,” I whispered.

He followed my gaze, then looked back at me. No surprise. No denial.

“Yeah,” he said. “Me.”

I pushed myself backward instinctively, palms scraping against the cold concrete until my shoulders hit the wall. The movement sent another wave of nausea rolling through me, sharp and disorienting.

He watched without moving.

“You’re fine but it feels weird,” he said. “It’s the prep serum.”

“What?” My voice shook despite my effort to control it.

He tore off a slice of the apple with a small folding blade and held it out toward me.

“Eat,” he said. “It’ll help.”

I didn’t move.

After a moment, he placed the slice on the floor between us and leaned back again, non-threatening.

“They started you early,” he continued. “Stabilizers. Neural buffering. Muscle compliance. Everything they give you before a leap so your body doesn’t tear itself apart when the frequency locks.”

“I didn’t jump,” I said.

“I know.”

The words landed heavier than I expected.

“You were minutes out,” he said. “Then the center went up.”

My stomach twisted.

“The bombing,” I said quietly.

“Yes.”

“Because of him.”

He took another bite of the apple. Chewed. Swallowed.

“Retaliation,” he said. “Fast response. Poorly aimed.”

His eyes sharpened slightly.

“You executed him,” I said. “I watched you.”

“I know.”

“You didn’t hesitate.”

“No.”

I waited for justification. It didn’t come.

“I was under orders,” he said finally. “That’s true. But don’t confuse that with compliance.”

He leaned his head back against the wall, eyes tracing the cracked ceiling.

“That man wasn’t just a politician,” he continued. “He was a stabilizing variable. Removing him not only destabilized timelines but it’s causing chaos Outside.”

My chest tightened.

“And now?” I asked.

“And now,” he said, looking back at me, “you’re a loose end wild card.”

“I can’t go back home and I can’t jump,” I said.

“Well,” he agreed. “You’re half right.”

“I hate this, I didn’t even do anything wrong.”

“You understood what you saw,” he corrected. “That was enough.”

An eerie silence surrounded us. Then suddenly, somewhere in the structure above, metal groaned softly as it settled.

“Why are you here?” I asked. “Why save me?”

He studied me for a long moment.

“Because,” he said slowly, “this is bigger than you. Bigger than me. Bigger than the program you think you were entering.”

“And you expect me to trust you?”

A faint smile touched his mouth. 

Not kind. 

Not cruel.

“No,” he said. “I expect you to survive.”

He nudged the apple slice closer.

“You can’t stand yet,” he added. “And you don’t know where you are. Looks like you don’t have much of a choice.”

He stood in one smooth motion, already scanning the shadows beyond the room.

“Eat,” he said. “Then we move.”

I stared at him, the executioner, the Shadow, the only person who hadn’t lied to me yet.

I didn’t know if I could trust him.

But the room was shaking somewhere above us, and my body still felt half-disconnected from itself.

He was right.

I didn’t have a choice.

And as the truth settled in, I understood something the program never intended.

I wasn’t being relocated to save my life.

I was being removed because the truth I carried couldn’t be allowed to return.

And The Shadow was the only one who knew where they hid people like me from the prying eyes of the officials from Inner Earth.

“Welcome to the Outside, your life will never be the same.”

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I wasn’t supposed to be there.

That was the first thing I realized, not in words but in my body. The way my steps slowed. The way the corridor felt narrower, quieter, like sound itself had been filtered out. I felt them before I saw them.

Inside, the room was small and clean and far too bright.

A polished floor that reflected light like water. There were no restraints bolted to the furniture, no weapons visible. Nothing that looked violent.

A man stood in the center of the room.

He was bound. He was on his knees. He wore a tailored jacket, dark fabric, pressed clean. His hands were folded in front of him as if he were waiting for a meeting to begin.

Two officials stood a few feet away, reading from a tablet. Their voices were low, professional, and boring.

“This action has been approved under Stabilization Clause Twelve,” one of them said. “Regional impact projections show a net reduction in Outer-zone volatility.”

The man didn’t interrupt.

A third figure stood slightly behind them. A Shadow. I recognized the mark on his wrist immediately. He wasn’t tense. He wasn’t alert.

He was waiting.

I should have left.

I should have turned around and pretended I’d never taken the wrong corridor, never misread a clearance map. But my feet stayed rooted to the floor, my breath shallow and quiet, as if my body had already decided silence was survival.

The man finally spoke.

“You’re outsourcing violence again,” he said calmly. “You’ll destabilize the zones faster than you can contain them.”

One of the officials sighed. “You’re no longer in a position to speculate.”

“I built those projections,” the man replied. “You’re feeding scarcity into a system that…”

“That will be all…” the other official said.

There was no argument. No raised voice.

Just a nod.

The Shadow stepped forward.

It happened quickly.

Not dramatic. Just, final.

The Shadow moved behind the man, placed the old school pistol to the base of his skull, and pressed.

The man stiffened once, just once, and then he was gone. His body folded to the floor like something powered down. Vaguely robotic.

I remember staring at his shoes.

Perfectly polished. Untouched.

One of the officials tapped their tablet again.

“Witness exposure?” they asked casually.

The other glanced toward the doorway.

Toward me.

Our eyes met.

For a fraction of a second, something flickered across his face. Not guilt. Not fear.

Calculation.

“No,” he said. “Containment protocols held.”

The Shadow dragged the body away, efficient and silent, leaving behind nothing but a faint smear where the man’s shoulder had brushed the floor.

The room returned to stillness.

I stepped back, slowly, carefully, my pulse roaring in my ears. I didn’t run. I didn’t scream. I didn’t report what I’d seen.

I went back to my assigned corridor. I completed my shift. I smiled when spoken to. I followed every instruction precisely.

That night, my wrist chimed softly.

“Protected Timeline Relocation Program.

Exposure Risk Identified.

Relocation Recommended.”

They didn’t accuse me.

They didn’t threaten me.

They thanked me for my compliance.

I understood then what I had really witnessed.

Not a death.

A decision.

It was the truth that they couldn’t afford to let me come back with.

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