The loop spat Omega out like a bullet into pure silence.
No wind. No storm. No road.
Just… upside-down skyscrapers hanging from an invisible sky, their glass facades shimmering like molten chrome. Below—or maybe above—was a mirror of the same city, perfectly reflected but shifting at random, pieces swapping between worlds like they couldn't decide where they belonged.
The Ghost was there. Waiting. Engine idling, bodywork pulsing faintly with that eerie silver glow. They didn't move, but Marcel could feel them watching.
Adrian's voice was hushed, as if afraid the city might hear."This place shouldn't exist. Every reading says we're in two locations at once."
Marcel rolled Omega forward. Tires didn't make a sound on the surface—not because it was smooth, but because there wasn't a surface in the usual sense. The "road" was an endless, transparent layer that reflected light like water, yet held them like concrete. Underneath, the city shifted with every heartbeat.
A row of lights flickered ahead—ten sets, bright red. They hovered in the air, and as Marcel drew closer, they solidified into a starting grid. A voice—synthetic yet ancient—echoed from everywhere at once:
"Drivers. Prepare for the Shift."
The Ghost slid into the first slot without hesitation. Marcel lined up beside them, Omega's reflection beneath showing… something else. It wasn't Omega at all. It was a jagged, black silhouette of the car—an anti-Omega—idling in perfect sync, as if waiting to be let loose.
Adrian muttered, "That's not a reflection. That's us, if we lose."
The lights above began to count down, but with each number, the city changed. Entire skyscrapers warped into giant arcs. Streets folded into spirals. Whole blocks flipped, sending glass and steel crashing into the mirrored city below.
Marcel realized the truth—the track wasn't set. It would shift every time they reached a checkpoint. The race wasn't just about speed anymore—it was about surviving the next reality-bending transformation.
The light hit zero.
The world exploded forward.
The first corner was a vertical hairpin. Omega's G-force slammed Marcel into his seat, the city spinning around them in a blur of upside-down neon. The Ghost took it without slowing, their car locking into a perfect wall drift across the mirrored surface.
Marcel followed, but halfway through the turn, the wall vanished. For a split second, they were falling—not down, but sideways—until the track snapped back under them, now glowing with jagged red cracks.
"Every drift changes the city," Adrian realized. "Every move we make rewrites the track."
Marcel grinned, foot pressing deeper on the throttle."Good. Let's rewrite it our way."
They took the next section hard, slingshotting through two collapsing towers just as they merged into one. The Ghost countered by drifting along the underside of a floating expressway, their taillights leaving streaks in the air like burning comets.
The city roared—not with engines, but with its own shifting heartbeat. Roads split, doubled back, then reconnected somewhere impossible. The reflected anti-Omega stayed just beneath them, always an inch away from breaking through the mirrored surface.
Checkpoint one flashed.
The city screamed.
In an instant, everything inverted—sky became ground, buildings twisted into tunnels, and the road turned into a spiraling corkscrew that ran straight into the heart of the mirrored city below.
The Ghost didn't hesitate. They dove first, their silver glow vanishing into the black depths. Marcel followed, Omega howling like a wild animal set loose.
For a heartbeat, it felt like falling into their own reflection.
And somewhere in that endless spiral, Marcel realized—this wasn't just a race to the finish. This was a race for the right to exist.