The coordinates led them to the cliffs outside the city, where sea met stone in jagged defiance. Kayla's dreams had hinted at this place for weeks—a black door beneath crashing waves, a buried vault sealed before the Collective ever rose.
Elias parked the van near a crooked lighthouse, now abandoned. "This part of the coast was closed off after a quake in the '90s," he muttered. "Official story. But the Collective used it as a testing ground."
The spiral lock pulsed in Tylor's pocket as the group descended the rocky path. At the base, nestled between two sea-worn arches, was a solid cliff face… until the locket began to hum. A spiral mark shimmered on the stone.
Tylor inserted both keys—memory and regret—into the pattern.
The cliff groaned. Stone split open, revealing a narrow tunnel descending into shadow. Cold air rushed out, carrying whispers in a language none of them knew.
"Stay close," Kayla said, activating a dim light. "This place… it's older than anything we've faced."
They moved deeper. The walls were smooth, metallic, like an ancient machine. Symbols pulsed faintly, as if reacting to their presence.
Halfway down, Amaira stopped.
"There's something beneath this place," she said. "It's not just a vault. It's a prison."
At the bottom of the descent, they reached a massive chamber. In the center stood a sealed door, round like a vault hatch, covered in thousands of tiny rotating discs—each one engraved with spiral motifs.
Above the door, etched in steel:
"Here lies the Null Echo. The fracture that never healed."
Tylor stepped forward, his voice shaking. "This… this is the first experiment, isn't it? The one Hale and Sarah tried to erase?"
Daniel nodded slowly. "Before they were the Collective, they tried to pull someone back from time. A scientist. But the experiment went wrong. It created a fracture that refused to close."
Elias stepped closer, pale. "They locked him in this vault. Buried the memory. Burned the records."
Kayla studied the discs. "But he's still here. And he's conscious. I feel him watching."
Suddenly, the discs began to rotate on their own.
A voice—metallic, hollow, human and not—spoke from behind the door.
"You have opened memory. You have unlocked regret. Now face truth."
A screen beside the vault lit up, displaying a face none of them recognized—gaunt, eyes glowing with fracture light, skin etched with spirals.
"I am Dr. Niko Serran," the voice said. "First traveler. First failure."
The chamber began to tremble. The door pulsed with life.
"I've seen your timelines. All of them. You think you ended the Collective. You think this world is yours."
The screen glitched, and Niko's face distorted, voice echoing across dimensions.
"But you've only trimmed branches. I am the root."
As the door began to open, Tylor stepped back, breath shallow.
"We just woke something older than time."
And it was no longer trapped.