Chapter 36 · Echoes From the Wrong World

"Don't touch it."

I froze, fingers an inch from the cracked core surface. The voice came from inside the thing—my voice, but wrong. Older. Flat.

"Who the hell are you?" I said.

The crack widened. Light bled out, cold and white, and something moved behind the fracture. A silhouette. My height. My build.

"I'm you," the voice said. "Three years from now. And you're about to make the same mistake I did."

Kael stepped up beside me, sword still drawn. "Nora. Step back."

"No." I kept my hand where it was. "If she's me, she knows I don't run."

The light pulsed. The silhouette pressed closer to the crack, and I saw her face. Mine. Older, yeah—lines around the eyes, a scar splitting the left eyebrow I didn't have yet. But the worst part was the look. Blank. Done.

"You think you can fix this," Future-Me said. "You think if you break the loop, you go home. You save Kael. You stop the war."

"I'm going to," I said.

"No. You don't." She tilted her head, and the scar pulled. "I tried. I broke the loop on reset forty-seven. Kael still died. The war still spread. And Earth—