Ayla arrived near Jeff's residence in Bratislava at dusk.
The streets functioned as usual.People jogged through the park. Children chased one another across the grass.The supermarket doors opened and closed, their sounds steady and predictable.
But when she stepped onto the road circling the UFO Park, her pace slowed naturally.
She sensed something off.
She stopped by the roadside and watched a couple pass by.
They laughed as they talked, their rhythm light, sharing small, pleasant details from their travels.
Ayla frowned without realizing it.
She could feel a thin layer of resistance in the air.
A boundary that had existed for some time, yet had never been marked.
She took one step forward.
The resistance became clearer.
As if her body had entered a frequency not meant for everyone.
She stopped and looked back.
The couple had already walked on, their steps still relaxed.
So not everyone could feel it.
The thought didn't surprise her.
It only confirmed her position.
She continued forward.
The closer she came to the center of the park, the clearer the sensation grew.
Its source lay in the direction of the UFO installation.
Ayla stopped at the outer edge and did not approach.
She simply looked at the spot, thoughtful.
Something had happened here.
As if someone had adjusted the focus of this area once.
And she happened to stand within the range of its residual effect.
Ayla took a deep breath.
She suddenly understood something deeply uncomfortable.
She had reached the edge of the level he once occupied.
And at that time,
she had not been beside him.
In ARC Operations' temporary meeting room, the lights were cold white.
Report after report failed to align.
Same location.Different teams.Completely inconsistent sensory results.
Some reported normal conditions.Some noted minor displacement.Others wrote only unable to determine.
Alden stood by the table, hands folded, his expression steady as ever.
"This isn't loss of control," he said. "It's stratification."
No one objected immediately.
Researchers lowered their heads, flipping through data.Fingers paused on a page, then turned it.
The data itself wasn't wrong.
It just couldn't form a complete picture.
Emilia sat on the other side, silent the entire time.
As she read the reports, she understood clearly.
ARC was no longer facing a simple anomaly.
It was facing a choice.
If they used those who could sense it as the standard,they would have to admit that not everyone lived in the same reality.
If they used those who could not,they would be abandoning everyone already standing at the boundary.
"Who do we protect first?"someone asked quietly.
Alden didn't answer right away.
Because the question had already moved beyond what the execution layer could handle.
Emilia stared at the screen and realized something.
ARC was no longer an organization judging the world from the outside.
They had been pulled in.
And they hadn't been given time to prepare.
At night, the Black Book was turned to a new page.
No event code.No timestamp.
Only a single line marked as an observation note.
Like a reminder that could not yet be classified.
The ink dried slowly.
It was simply left there,
waiting for the next confirmation.
Perhaps there was never only one version, one standard, by which to measure.
Layered reality was quietly expanding its boundary.