They moved at dusk.
Six in total: Jonas, Mara, and four Mnemosyne agents clad in reactive armor, faces hidden behind visors tuned to shimmer-light.
Above them, the sky wept gray mist over the fractured Earth. No birds. No engines. Just the soft crunch of boots on broken pavement and the whisper of something watching through the fog.
Mara kept her rifle close, her body tense. "Feels like we're walking into a dream we forgot we had."
"Because we are," said one of the agents, a woman called Sera. "Once you cross the boundary, it doesn't matter how strong your mind is. The shimmer wants in."
They reached the first zone checkpoint an old billboard marking the former government evacuation line.
Jonas paused. The metal was rusted over, but the writing had changed.
He read it aloud.
"FORGET TO SURVIVE. REMEMBER TO SUFFER."
One of the agents shivered. "It's rewriting language now."
Mara stepped beside Jonas. "We need to keep moving."
They crossed the boundary.
The shimmer welcomed them.
It began subtly.
Footprints in the mud that didn't match anyone's boots.
Flickering shadows that moved opposite to the light.
A warm breeze carrying whispers in languages no one spoke.
Jonas felt a pressure behind his eyes. Not pain. Recognition.
As if the air itself remembered him.
They passed what had once been a small town. The buildings were still intact, but not right. Windows melted at the edges. Cars sunk halfway into the ground. Trees growing from rooftops.
Jonas turned a corner and stopped.
There, in the middle of the road, was him.
Or rather, the boy he used to be.
Eight years old. Scared. Holding a broken music box.
Mara grabbed his arm. "Don't move."
Jonas didn't.
The child looked up.
And smiled.
"You finally came back."
Then vanished.
"Projection," Sera said. "The shimmer's digging."
"It's not trying to scare me," Jonas said. "It's testing what still hurts."
They pressed on.
Hours passed. Maybe more. Time began to slip, folding in on itself.
They climbed a hill, and beyond it.
Site Twelve.
A brutalist mass of concrete and steel, half-swallowed by earth and time. Floodlights flickered around its edges, powered by something far too new to be natural.
But the shimmer had gotten there first.
The outer walls pulsed with energy memories looping across the concrete like film on a projector: flashes of faces, places, histories that never happened.
As they approached the entrance, Mara spoke softly. "What happens if we succeed?"
Jonas stared at the injector in his hand.
"Then the world will return back to normal " he said.
Mara nodded. Understanding what Jonas was saying.
Sera keyed the door open.
A long hallway waited inside, dark and humming with data.
Above them, the shimmer stirred as if it's aware.
Waiting.
Watching.
You returned, Jonas Hale.
Now let us make you whole.