Raith didn't know why he'd been called here—San Francisco, of all places—but he trusted his orders. He wasn't the kind of man to ask questions, especially after the war that had ravaged his world. He wasn't supposed to be here, not in this version of reality, but the strange signal had reached him all the same. The rift, the Dimensional Nexus, had sent ripples through the world—through all worlds.
As he walked down the war-torn street, the air was thick with the scent of burning metal and the sharp bite of ozone. Something was off—something he couldn't put into words. His memories, already fractured from the constant battle in his dimension, began to stir in unsettling ways. Faces, unfamiliar yet hauntingly real, flashed before his eyes—people he'd never met, places he'd never been.
Raith clenched his jaw, forcing himself to steady his breath. He wasn't the man he once was. He couldn't afford these distractions. There was no room for them. Not in a world like this.
But the city around him was unraveling, just like his mind.
The ground trembled beneath his boots, a faint but constant vibration, as if the very earth beneath him was trembling with a shared uncertainty. He looked around, feeling the atmosphere shift, the air growing heavier with every step.
Then, a voice cut through the chaos.
"Captain Raith?"
He spun, his hand instinctively reaching for his weapon. His eyes locked onto a figure standing amid the wreckage—a woman, pale and disoriented, her eyes wide with fear, her face streaked with ash and grime.
"Who are you?" Raith demanded, his voice sharp, his hand hovering near his sidearm. But something in her expression gave him pause. There was a vulnerability there—a flicker of something that made him hesitate.
"I don't know who I am," she said, her voice trembling, as if speaking through a fog. "But I know who you are. I've seen you… in my memories."
Raith froze.
The words lingered in the air between them, charged with an eerie resonance. His breath caught in his throat, his heart skipping a beat. A thousand thoughts collided in his mind, but he couldn't focus on any of them. This woman, this stranger—how could she know him?
"I don't know how I know you," she continued, her gaze never leaving his. "But I remember your face. It's like… I've seen you in dreams. Or visions. In another world."
Raith's stomach twisted. Memories of his own flashed unbidden—strange, fractured moments of a life that wasn't his. Faces, places, and events that shouldn't have been possible. Had he seen her in those visions? Had she been a part of them?
He clenched his jaw, trying to shake off the unsettling feeling. "This is impossible," he muttered, more to himself than to her.
He had to focus. This wasn't the time for distractions.
But everything around him was unraveling. The city—this world—was falling apart, and nothing made sense anymore.
Raith's grip tightened on his weapon, though he made no move to draw it. His instincts were sharp, honed by years of war, but this—this was different. The world itself seemed to be shifting under his feet, distorting reality like a broken mirror.
"We need to get out of here," he said, his voice low and commanding. His eyes scanned the surrounding streets, which were filled with flickering, distorted figures, like ghosts trapped between realities. The city wasn't just damaged—it was coming apart at the seams, as though time itself had started to tear.
The woman nodded, her eyes wide with a mix of fear and disbelief. "Where… where do we go?"
Raith looked toward the distant horizon, where the sky—once clear—was now filled with swirling, chaotic clouds. The air hummed with unnatural energy, and the faintest glow from above illuminated the city like a dying ember.
He turned back to her, his jaw set with grim determination. "I don't know yet. But I'll figure it out. We have to find the source. If we can close the rift… maybe we can fix this."
The woman looked at him, her fear momentarily replaced with a flicker of hope. "And if we can't?"
Raith's gaze hardened. "Then we survive."
Without another word, they began moving through the wreckage-strewn streets, the trembling city around them growing louder and more unstable with each passing second. The ground shook, and the sky above seemed to crack open, revealing a rift—a jagged tear in the fabric of the universe itself. A shimmering vortex pulsed, its presence undeniable, drawing everything around it toward its center.
The woman gasped, stepping back in awe and fear. "Is that… the rift?"
Raith didn't answer. His eyes were locked on the vortex, his heart pounding. It was the Nexus, the force that connected all dimensions, and it was pulling everything into its gravitational pull. The air was thick with its power, and Raith could feel it—a pull deep inside his chest, like a tug at the very core of his being.
"We're running out of time," Raith muttered, his voice steady despite the rising dread in his gut. "We need to get to the source of the Nexus. If we can close it… maybe we can save this world."
The woman's eyes were wide with fear, but there was something else in them—a glimmer of something deeper, something unspoken. "But how do we stop it?"
Raith turned to face her, his expression grim. "I don't know yet. But I will find a way."
Together, they stepped forward, not knowing what lay ahead, but knowing this was only the beginning of something much larger than either of them could understand.