The corkscrew ended in an explosion of light.
Not sunlight. Not neon. Something older. Something that hummed in the bones before it reached the ears.
Omega burst out into a void the size of a planet, yet filled with fragments of streets, bridges, and racetracks suspended in midair. There was no ground. No up or down. Just an endless ocean of floating asphalt, twisting like strands of DNA in a storm.
And there, waiting across the abyss—The Ghost.
Their silver machine hovered inches above the black nothing, calmly idling as if gravity itself had chosen to leave them alone. Marcel's hands tightened on the wheel. Omega wasn't hovering—yet—but the grip on the tires felt… wrong, like the ground had stopped caring whether they stayed on it or not.
Adrian stared at the fragments swirling in the void. "The entire track is shattered. We're in a drift field."
Marcel arched a brow. "Meaning?"
"Meaning there's no gravity here… unless the car makes it."
The Ghost moved first, sliding forward into the open air—and didn't fall. They rotated mid-drift, gliding across an invisible curve in space. Their taillights carved red arcs through nothingness, marking paths only they seemed to see.
Marcel gunned Omega. Tires screamed, but the sound wasn't rubber on asphalt—it was more like cutting through static. The car tipped, weightless, but instead of falling, it floated along the Ghost's path.
The first corner wasn't a corner at all—it was a full loop suspended in midair. No walls, no guardrails. Miss it, and you'd spin into the void until reality forgot you.
Omega took it sideways at 200 kph, body twisting as the loop itself spun, dragging them into a spiral where every drift was a gamble on which way "down" was going to be next.
Halfway through, the Ghost yanked the physics rug out.
Their silver glow pulsed—and the loop broke apart. The pieces spun into different directions, and suddenly Marcel had to build his own track by drifting between floating chunks.
Adrian's voice cut through the chaos. "Your momentum decides your gravity vector. Lose speed, and you drop into—"
A black tear opened beneath them. Not empty space—something darker. Shapes moved inside, shifting like they were made of absence.
"—THAT."
Marcel's grin was pure defiance. "Then we don't slow down."
They pushed Omega harder. The HUD screamed warnings about traction, pressure, heat, but Marcel ignored them. Every drift across a fragment of road created a new invisible path forward, snapping reality into place just long enough to use it.
The Ghost countered, leaping between road shards without touching the same one twice, their path a flickering, impossible dance. Every time Omega caught up, the Ghost would change their gravity mid-air, flipping sideways or upside down, daring Marcel to follow.
They did.
The final checkpoint floated in the center of the void, tethered to nothing. Reaching it meant hitting a perfect drift in three dimensions, carving a curve in space that didn't exist until the car made it.
The Ghost went first—effortless, flawless, untouchable.
Marcel closed his eyes for half a second, feeling the steering wheel like it was part of him. Then Omega lunged.
Sideways.
Backwards.
Upside-down.
Every flick of the wheel rewrote gravity for a heartbeat. The void bent around them. The last drift burned through space like a comet's tail—white-hot, defiant, unstoppable.
They hit the checkpoint at the exact same millisecond as the Ghost.
The void shattered.
Reality came rushing back like a punch to the chest.
The race wasn't over.
But now… the city knew their names.