Raith stood frozen, his hand hovering near the hilt of his weapon. The woman before him looked fragile, disoriented—her wide, fearful eyes scanning the wreckage around her. The faint hum of the Dimensional Nexus vibrated through the air, a constant, unsettling reminder that reality itself was warping. The city of San Francisco, once familiar, now seemed alien, as if torn from different times and places.
She had to be a casualty of the rift. Yet her gaze... it was far too familiar. Like a face Raith had seen before, but in a different world. A different time.
"I've seen you before," she whispered, her voice trembling. "In my memories. I know you."
Raith's hand twitched, instinctively reaching for his weapon, but he paused. Memories? His mind raced, but his voice remained steady, a low growl beneath the weight of uncertainty. "Who are you?"
The woman shook her head violently, as if trying to shake loose the fragments of a dream. "I don't... I don't remember. My name is... lost." Her fingers clutched at her head, as if her very identity was slipping through her grasp. "But I know you. Your face, your name, they're in my mind. In my other selves."
Raith narrowed his eyes. Other selves? The Nexus had caused distortions, yes, but this? This wasn't just a side effect—it was something deeper, something that didn't belong.
"Other selves?" Raith repeated, his voice a little sharper now. His grip on his weapon tightened, but something in the woman's gaze made him hesitate.
"Yes," she replied slowly, her voice haunted. "Different versions of me... from other worlds. They all feel like me, but they're... they're not. I've been here before, in other lives. I've seen this place... and I've seen you." She stepped forward, her expression desperate. "I think I was supposed to find you. Or maybe... maybe you were supposed to find me."
Raith fought to keep his thoughts from spiraling. Alternate realities. The rift was pulling them all together, warping time and space. But this woman... was she a product of that chaos? Or something else entirely?
"You're talking about alternate realities?" His voice was calm, but inside, his heart pounded. There was no time to waste, no room for error.
She nodded, eyes wide. "Yes. Yes, that's it. I can feel them, all of them." Her eyes darted to the ruins around them, as if she could sense the fractured timelines clashing, colliding. "The worlds... they're blending together. It's all happening now."
Raith's chest tightened as he looked around. The city was no longer what it had been. It was a patchwork of time itself—streets frozen in chaos, buildings from different eras jumbled together, skies swirling in unnatural hues. The air was thick with the energy of collapsing worlds. He had seen the damage before, but this was something new. The very fabric of reality was fraying.
"You're not the only one," Raith said quietly, his gaze distant, his voice grim. "The Nexus... it's pulling everything together. It's not just this world—it's all of them. And when this one falls, they'll all follow."
The woman swallowed hard, her voice small but unwavering. "That's why I'm here. To stop it. To fix it."
Raith studied her closely, trying to decipher her certainty. She was unsteady, haunted, but there was a fire in her eyes. The Nexus wasn't just affecting reality—it was affecting her, too. "You think you can fix this? How?"
"I don't know," she said, her voice cracking. "But I feel it. There's something inside me. Something tied to all of this. If I can understand it, if I can... make sense of it, maybe I can stop it."
Raith felt a ripple of doubt, but there was also a strange sense of urgency in her words. She didn't seem like a threat, but the stakes were too high to trust blindly. Still, there was no time to waste on second-guessing.
"Come with me," he said finally, his voice soft but resolute. "We need to find answers—together."
She hesitated for a moment, but then nodded, her expression a mixture of fear and determination. As they moved through the wreckage, the city shifted with them. Streets that should have been empty now teemed with people—figures flickering in and out of existence, pulled from different times and places. Soldiers in archaic armor marched past workers from a distant, utopian future. Children with expressions far too old for their years wandered by, as if caught between their past and their future.
Raith's mind raced as they moved quickly through the city. He kept his eyes on the road ahead, avoiding the strange, flickering figures, his instincts constantly on alert. They had to find shelter, find answers—and soon.
Finally, they reached a makeshift barricade, hastily thrown together by the few remaining survivors. But even here, there was no safety. The survivors' eyes were wide with fear, unsure whether the new arrivals were a blessing... or a curse.
"Raith?" a voice called from the shadows.
Raith turned, his hand instinctively going to his weapon once again. But the voice was familiar—too familiar. He relaxed, but only slightly, as a figure stepped into the dim light. Zeke Thorn, the mercenary who had fought beside him in another world. Zeke's form was a blend of human and machine, his body scarred from countless battles, his cybernetic eyes glowing faintly as they took in Raith and the woman.
"Who's this?" Zeke asked, his voice low, suspicion heavy in his tone.
Raith didn't hesitate. He introduced her briefly. "She's... confused. She believes she can help. Says she's been to other versions of this world. Other versions of us."
Zeke grunted, looking the woman up and down. "Another one who thinks she can fix everything? Great. Just what we need." He stepped closer, giving the woman a piercing look. "I hope you know what you're getting into."
The woman didn't flinch, meeting his gaze with quiet resolve. "I don't know much. But I do know one thing. If we don't stop the rift from spreading, this world will be the first to fall. And when it does... all the others will collapse with it."
Raith didn't need to hear more. His eyes turned to the horizon where the rift tore the sky apart, a living, pulsating wound that threatened to consume everything in its path. "She's right," he said, voice firm. "We don't have much time."
Zeke looked at him, his eyes calculating, before he nodded. "Alright. I'm in. But we need a plan. We're not going to fix this by just wandering around."
Raith glanced at the woman, then back at Zeke. "We find the source of the Nexus. We find the heart of this chaos—and we shut it down. We end this now."
And with that, the group began to move out, pushing deeper into the fractured city. The streets twisted before them, but Raith couldn't afford to lose focus. Reality was collapsing. They needed to act—and fast. The world was ending, but maybe, just maybe, they could stop it.