October 14, 2025. 4:17 p.m. EDT. Brooklyn.

The air had a strange weight to it—like the city was holding its breath. Lyra Chen stepped out of the capsule hotel and into the courtyard behind the old temple. It wasn’t marked on any map. It had no signage. But it had always been there. The breach had rehearsed it into her memory.

The courtyard was quiet. Then, movement.

A group of people emerged from the temple’s side door, dressed neatly in multicolored garments—each shade slightly off from the spectrum, like they’d been dyed in a different dimension. Their faces were calm. Their steps were synchronized. They were being guided, almost pushed, into formation.

Five stood side by side, shoulder to shoulder. Then a sixth joined, facing perpendicular, his shoulder meeting theirs. Another five aligned beside him. Then another perpendicular sixth. Another five. The pattern repeated until they formed a perfect square—twenty-six people, arranged like a living glyph.

Lyra watched, breath caught. The formation pulsed. The air shimmered. The temple’s shadow bent toward them.

Then, without sound, without warning, they vanished.

Not exploded. Not erased. Just… legally gone. As if the laws of reality had signed off on their departure.

Lyra ran forward. The man who had guided them—a tall figure in a coat stitched with mirrored thread—turned and walked swiftly away. She chased him. But the street bent. The angles changed. He was always just out of reach.

She stopped. The pavement beneath her glowed faintly. A phrase was etched into the stone in ultraviolet ink:

“Mereka harus menunggu.”

She didn’t know the language. But she felt the meaning.

Later, in a café built from coral and glass, she found a book. It described beings like her. Not duplicates. Not clones. Types. Variants rehearsed into different timelines. Some were echoes. Some were anchors. Some were flowers.

The square had been a ritual. A rehearsal. A departure.

She whispered the phrase again:

“Mereka harus menunggu.”

They must wait.

But for what?

The breach was blooming. The temple was watching.

And Lyra was no longer the only scar