Ch. 10

  Carmen moves forward to Elena, she gets up and her glasses disappear as she does.

  Elena doesn't even look up. She simply lets go of her book, and it doesn't fall—it just floats. A soft hum vibrates in the air as crackling, red-glowing particles swirl beneath it, keeping it suspended. Carmen freezes. His first instinct is that he's seeing things again.

  "Задерживаться не надо." (No need to hesitate.)

  Her voice is soft, but her Russian words slice through the quiet. He doesn't understand them, but he feels them, like an unspoken warning. The book remains in the air, pages shifting as if an invisible hand is turning them.

  Before he can say anything, Cinna—no, Molina—raises her hand. She forms a mock gun with her fingers, flicks them from her hip to the sky, and a thin crack splits open in the air before them. At first, it's nothing but a hairline fracture in reality itself. Then, with a violent, electric snap, it expands—flashing green, jagged edges pulsing.

  Elena walks forward, completely unfazed. "Come, before anyone sees us."

  Carmen doesn't move.

  He doesn't even breathe.

  "Molina" exhales through her nose, rolls her eyes, and shoves him.

  The second he stumbles forward, the crack devours him whole.

  Carmen stumbles through. He braces himself for the impossible—falling into nothingness, getting torn apart, something violent.

  Instead... the world barely changes.

  The park is still a park. The birch tree is still a birch tree. But the air feels thinner, the light is weaker, the colors—drained. Not absent, just... dim. It's like reality itself has been watered down.

  He looks up, his heartbeat hammering against his ribs. The people here—their faces are blurred. Their features move like shifting ink, refusing to settle. Some of them stare. Others whisper to each other, their voices muffled. And then—

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  "Omega!"

  They greet her normally. Some even smile and wave. She acknowledges them with a nod but doesn't slow down.

  Molina leans in slightly, whispering, "Don't say our real names here. Call her Omega, and me Molina."

  Carmen clenches his jaw. "What if I don't?"

  She hums, amused. "Then they'll start calling you something else, too."

  The way she says it makes his skin crawl.

  They weave through the streets of this dimmed world, Carmen's eyes flicking between the blurred figures watching him. His own reflection in a glass window doesn't quite match his movements. A half-second delay. A faint distortion. Like he's an image someone forgot to finish rendering.

  Carmen watches the exchange, narrowing his eyes. "I don't get it. If this place is just a copy of ours, why are some things different?"

  "Потому что не все копии совершают одни и те же ошибки." (Because not all copies make the same mistakes.)

  Carmen frowns. "Can you stop doing that?"

  She finally glances at him, unimpressed. "What?"

  "Speaking in codes like I'm supposed to figure it out."

  She raises an eyebrow. "Would you prefer I lie?"

  "Molina," he mutters under his breath, testing the name. It feels foreign on his tongue.

  She doesn't even turn to look at him, just keeps walking. Omega moves ahead of them, small but steady, like she's walked these streets a hundred times.

  They pass a marketplace where the fruits on display look... off. The apples are slightly too round. The bananas curve in the wrong direction. The people manning the stalls don't blink. Not once.

  Carmen swallows hard. "This place—"

  "You're an outsider." Molina interrupts before he can finish. "It's normal to feel it."

  He exhales sharply. "You don't even know what I was gonna say."

  She finally glances at him, the faintest smirk curling at the edge of her lips. "Sure I do."

  He scowls. She keeps walking.

  Then, finally—

  They reach it.

  Cinna grins. "Welcome to the fun part."

  Arrival at the Hideout

  The building is massive. No sign, no windows—just a heavy set of steel doors that swing open on their own the moment they step near. Inside, it's nothing like he expected.

  People. So many people.

  Some are gathered in quiet conversations, others sit against the walls, writing in notebooks. A few glance up at them, nodding to Elena and Cinna before going back to their business. There's a strange sense of order despite the randomness.

  Carmen suddenly realizes they all belong here.

  He doesn't.

  Elena glances back at him, her glasses reappears as she fidgets absentmindedly with the flash drive.

  Cinna nudges him forward. "Get comfortable. You'll be here for a while."

  Carmen clenches his jaw. He already knows—comfort isn't an option.

  And neither is leaving.

  -you can always go back to another chapter, but whatever you do, you will need to cross this to understand all bombs that are supposed to drop.