July 5, 2057 – 11:59 p.m.
Mile Marker 67, I-75
The illusion snaps tight like a noose.
One heartbeat the highway is there—cracked asphalt, guardrails, distant sirens.
The next heartbeat it's gone.
They stand on red dirt under a merciless sun. Wooden stakes mark fresh graves in endless rows. The air reeks of sage smoke and gunpowder. Hundreds of bodies wrapped in blankets lie half-buried, faces uncovered so the spirits can find the sky. Children's shoes poke from the earth like forgotten flowers.
Sand Creek, 1864. Kayden's loop.
Kenji drops to his knees, sandstone shard cutting into his palm. Blood drips onto the dirt and the ground drinks it like it's been waiting.
Maya's golden light flares, pushing against the vision, but the massacre presses back harder. The kids behind her start to cry—real tears for ghosts they never met.
Jonah clutches his head, blue glow leaking from his eyes. "He's forcing it into every mind within ten miles. Drivers, truckers, late-night commuters—everyone's seeing this right now."
Aisha skids to a stop beside Elijah, chest heaving. "Livestreams are blowing up. Hashtag #SandCreekNow trending nationwide in thirty seconds."
Kayden stands in the center of the vision, untouched by the heat or the horror. His voice carries without shouting, calm as a prayer.
"This is what the road remembers. Every mile of this interstate was paid for in blood. You want to save a few kids tonight? Fine. But tomorrow they'll build another highway. Another pipeline. Another cage."
Elijah steps forward. Shadows coil around his legs, fighting the bright desert light. "You're hurting the people you say you're saving."
Kayden turns to him. "Pain is the only language this country ever learned."
Kenji rises slowly, blood and dust caking his hands. "You think our ancestors want this? Using their deaths as a weapon?"
Kayden's face twists—first time the calm cracks. "They want justice."
"They want rest," Kenji says. "Not revenge from a kid who never had to bury anyone."
The ground rumbles again, deeper this time. Fissures open between the graves, swallowing stakes, exhuming blankets. The land itself rejecting the loop.
Maya moves to the children, her light wrapping each one individually now—small golden shields against the horror.
Jonah staggers to his feet. "He's losing the edges. People are fighting back—posting their own histories, Black Wall Street, Manzanar, the Trail. The algorithm can't keep up."
Kayden's illusion flickers. For a split second the massacre fades and they're back on the highway, vans smoking, escorts zip-tied on the shoulder.
Then it slams back—harder.
But something's different.
Now the graves hold modern clothes. Sneakers. Hoodies. Cell phones clutched in dead hands. The faces are younger. Familiar.
Elijah sees Marcus staring up from the dirt, chest blooming red.
Kenji sees his grandmother.
Maya sees her little cousin, the one still in the van behind her—except his eyes are open and empty.
Kayden's voice wavers. "See? It never stops. It just changes uniforms."
Elijah's shadows explode outward, no longer fighting the light but cutting through it. He walks straight through the graves, through the bodies, until he's face-to-face with Kayden.
"You want to teach history?" Elijah asks, voice low. "Fine. But you don't get to write the ending."
He reaches out—not to strike, but to grab Kayden's wrist.
The shadows pour into the illusion like ink in water.
The massacre dissolves.
They're back on the highway for good this time. Sirens close in—real ones, minutes away.
Kayden stumbles, illusion shattered. He looks at his cousin, at the freed children boarding Jonah's van, at Maya herding the last stragglers with steady golden light.
For the first time he looks seventeen.
"I just wanted them to stop forgetting," he whispers.
Kenji steps forward, earth settling back into silence around his feet. "They won't. Not tonight."
He offers his hand—bloodied, steady.
Kayden stares at it like it's a trick.
Helicopter rotors thump in the distance.
Kayden takes the hand.
The Liberty Line—now six strong—vanishes into the breakdown lane shadows just as the first floodlights sweep the road.
Behind them, mile marker 67 stands quiet again.
But somewhere across the country, millions of people just woke up crying for ghosts they finally have names for.