CHAPTER 271: LIO’S PULL

Lio pressed his back against the cold concrete wall of the abandoned warehouse, his chest rising and falling in controlled breaths. The acrid smell of burnt metal and ozone filled his nostrils—a scent that had become all too familiar since the Silent Fissures began appearing across the city.

Through the cracked window above his head, he could see it.

The tear in reality hung suspended three meters above the warehouse floor, its edges rippling like water disturbed by an invisible hand. Unlike the other dimensional anomalies he’d encountered over the past week, this one was different. Smaller, more contained, but somehow... hungrier.

It called to him.

The thought made his jaw clench in frustration. Lio had survived this long by trusting his instincts, by listening to that primal voice in his head that screamed warnings when danger approached. That same voice had kept him alive through three dimensional collapses, two reality storms, and more close encounters with causality-eating entities than he cared to count.

But now that voice was telling him to approach the fissure.

More than telling—compelling.

"This is insane," he muttered, his fingers unconsciously checking the tactical gear strapped to his vest. Two dimensional anchors, a reality stabilizer, and his father’s old phase blade. Standard equipment for anyone stupid enough to hunt dimensional anomalies for a living.

None of which would mean anything if he was wrong about this.

The pull grew stronger, like invisible threads wrapped around his chest, drawing him forward. Lio had felt something similar during his first Nightmare—that irresistible compulsion to step through the dark portal that had changed his life forever. But this was different. More personal.

As if the fissure recognized him.

He slipped through the warehouse’s side entrance, his enhanced senses immediately cataloging the space. Empty crates stacked against the far wall. Puddles of rainwater seeping through the damaged roof. And in the center of it all, the Silent Fissure hung like a wound in the air itself.

Up close, he could see through it.

The space beyond defied description. Not darkness, not light, but the complete absence of both concepts. Looking at it was like trying to focus on a blind spot in his vision—his mind kept sliding away from what he was seeing, unable to process the fundamental wrongness of the void.

Yet beneath his growing unease, the pull intensified.

Come closer.

Lio froze. The voice hadn’t come from outside—it had formed directly in his thoughts, bypassing his ears entirely. Clear and compelling, with an undertone that seemed to resonate in his bones.

"Who’s there?" His hand instinctively moved to the phase blade’s hilt, the familiar weight offering little comfort against an enemy that might not even exist in any conventional sense.

You know who we are, Lio. You’ve always known.

The fissure pulsed, its edges expanding by mere centimeters before contracting again. Like a heartbeat. Like something breathing.

Memory crashed through his consciousness without warning. Seven years old, standing in his grandmother’s kitchen while she traced strange symbols in spilled flour. Her weathered hands moving with practiced precision as she whispered words in a language he didn’t recognize.

"Some doors should never be opened, little one," she had said, her dark eyes reflecting depths that had frightened him even as a child. "But sometimes, they open themselves."

The memory faded, leaving him disoriented and somehow more vulnerable than before. When had he forgotten that conversation? When had the details slipped away, leaving only the vague recollection of an old woman who had died when he was twelve?

She tried to warn you. Tried to teach you. But children rarely listen to lessons they’re not ready to understand.

"What do you want?" Lio’s voice came out steadier than he felt. Years of dimensional hunting had taught him to mask fear, even when facing the incomprehensible.

Want is such a limited concept. We exist beyond wanting, beyond needing, beyond the simple causality that binds your reality together. But you... you are different.

The fissure pulsed again, and this time Lio felt the pull like a physical force. His feet moved forward without conscious decision, carrying him closer to the impossible void.

You were marked long ago. Prepared. Your grandmother understood what you were, even if she couldn’t bring herself to explain it.

Another step. Then another. The concrete floor felt solid beneath his boots, but everything else seemed to waver at the edges of his perception. As if reality was becoming negotiable in the fissure’s presence.

"Marked for what?"

To serve as an anchor between what is and what could be. To bridge the gap between existence and silence.

Lio was close enough now to reach out and touch the fissure’s edge. The void beyond seemed to shift and writhe, showing glimpses of landscapes that violated every law of physics he understood. Cities where buildings grew like living things. Skies filled with geometric patterns that hurt to look at directly. Beings of impossible beauty and terrible purpose moving through spaces that existed in more dimensions than human consciousness could process.

Your world calls them the Silent Fissures. But they are not wounds in reality—they are windows. Pathways to what your species will become when the limitations of causality are finally transcended.

The phase blade felt warm in his hand, its edge already beginning to manifest in response to his emotional state. But even as he drew the weapon, Lio realized it would be useless. How do you fight something that exists outside the concepts of action and consequence?

You cannot. But you need not fight us, Lio. You can join us.

He was close enough now to feel the void’s pull like a physical current, tugging at his clothes and hair. The temperature dropped noticeably, and frost began forming on the exposed metal surfaces around him.

Step forward. Let us show you what lies beyond the prison of sequential time. What waits when cause and effect no longer chain consciousness to linear existence.

Lio’s foot hovered at the edge of movement. Every instinct screamed at him to run, to activate his dimensional anchors and retreat to safety. But beneath the fear, something else stirred. Curiosity. And deeper still, a recognition that felt older than memory.

He had been here before.

Not physically—this warehouse, this fissure, this moment were all new. But the sensation of standing at the threshold between worlds, of being offered a choice that would change everything... this was familiar.

"In my first Nightmare," he whispered, understanding beginning to dawn. "That wasn’t random, was it? I wasn’t chosen by chance."

Nothing is random. Every step you have taken, every trial you have survived, every skill you have developed—all of it has prepared you for this moment.

The fissure began to expand again, but differently this time. Not spreading outward like the others he had observed, but opening inward. Creating depth where none should exist. Revealing layers of impossible space that folded in on themselves like origami made from reality itself.

The others cannot see what you see now. Their minds lack the necessary... flexibility. But you were born between worlds, marked by powers that exist outside your dimension’s framework. You can perceive what they cannot. Enter where they cannot.

Lio’s enhanced vision caught movement in his peripheral vision. Through the warehouse windows, he could see emergency response vehicles racing through the streets. The Dimensional Crisis Authority had detected the fissure’s expansion. They would be here soon, armed with containment equipment and protocols designed to seal dimensional breaches.

Equipment that would be utterly useless against something that operated outside causality itself.

They will try to close the window. Try to maintain the illusion that your reality is stable, predictable, controllable. But the Silent Fissures are not an invasion, Lio. They are an invitation.

The phase blade’s edge fully manifested now, its impossible sharpness designed to cut through dimensional barriers. Lio had used it to seal minor breaches before, to sever the connections that allowed hostile entities to cross between worlds.

But as he looked at the expanding fissure, he realized something that made his blood freeze.

He didn’t want to close it.

The pull wasn’t just external anymore. Something inside him was responding, awakening, reaching toward the void with desperate hunger. As if part of his soul had been missing for years, and only now could he see the shape of what had been taken.

Yes. You understand now. The mark your grandmother placed on you wasn’t a protection—it was a key. And the lock it opens has been waiting for you to mature, to develop the strength necessary to survive what comes next.

Police sirens wailed in the distance, growing closer. Through the fissure’s impossible depths, Lio could see other watchers now. Beings that existed in more dimensions than he could count, their attention focused on this single point in space-time with predatory intensity.

They were waiting.

All of them.

Waiting for his choice.

Step forward, Lio. Step into silence. Help us show your species what they can become when they stop clinging to the illusion of linear existence.

The fissure pulsed one final time, expanding until it was large enough for a person to walk through. The void beyond seemed to beckon, filled with promises of knowledge and power that transcended human understanding.

Lio raised his foot, ready to take the step that would change everything.

Behind him, the warehouse door exploded inward as the DCA breach team stormed the building, their containment equipment already powering up.

"Freeze! Step away from the anomaly!"

He looked back at them—five agents in full dimensional armor, their weapons trained on both him and the fissure. They couldn’t see what he saw. Couldn’t understand that they were trying to contain something that existed beyond containment.

But they could kill him before he made his choice.

The fissure pulsed urgently, its edges beginning to contract as the containment field generators came online.

Now, Lio. Choose now, or the window closes forever.

Time seemed to slow as he turned back toward the void. In its impossible depths, he could see futures spreading out like branches on a tree. Paths where humanity transcended its limitations. Paths where reality itself became malleable, shapeable by will and understanding rather than rigid physical laws.

And paths where everything he had ever known simply... ended.

The containment field struck the fissure just as Lio made his decision.

But by then, he was already stepping forward into the space between spaces, leaving behind a world that would never see him again.

Or so he thought.

Because as the void embraced him, as reality dissolved into something far more complex and terrible and beautiful than human language could describe, Lio felt something that shouldn’t have been possible.

Regret.

And in that moment of doubt, the fissure began to change around him, trapping him between worlds in a space that existed only because he couldn’t decide which side of existence he truly belonged to.

The last thing he heard before consciousness scattered into probability clouds was laughter—ancient, alien, and filled with satisfaction.

They had been waiting for someone like him.

Someone who would hesitate at the crucial moment.

Someone who could be used.