UNIVERSE 005

1

Y/N POV

They say I lost my mind five years ago.

But I know better ,I didn’t lose it. I gave it away. Piece by piece, soldered into wires, burned into equations, sealed inside the steel walls of this lab where time means nothing and obsession means everything.

Some people build careers. I built a portal.

And tonight, I open it.

I type the final sequence into the console, my fingers trembling more from adrenaline than fear. The soft hum of energy builds around me, a low, dangerous thrum like a heartbeat that doesn’t belong to me. The lights flicker, the air thickens, and the vacuum chamber in front of me begins to glow faintly blue.

Blue. Just like in the dreams.

That’s the part I never tell anyone, not even in the grant applications or the confidential project logs the government pretends to monitor. They wouldn’t understand. They’d call it a breakdown. A delusion. A fantasy.

But I’ve seen him.

Not in photographs or files. Not in old comic books.
In my dreams.

Blood smeared across his face. Eyes sharp and furious. The number 5 stitched onto his chest like a warning. Or a prophecy.

Every dream ends the same way:
He reaches for me and vanishes.

So I built the machine. For years, I chased what my colleagues called a theoretical ghost. Alternate universes? Super-powered humans? A fixed point in a quantum branch with a man like him? Madness, they said.

But I know he’s real. Somewhere, in some version of reality, he exists. And I’m not going to wait for the world to catch up.

I lean in toward the interface, eyes scanning the quantum stabilization core.

“Target universe: Branch 005. Status: unstable.
Probability of breach: 0.00047%.”

Perfect odds. Just like every miracle.

I pull the switch.

The lab lights blast white. A roar erupts from the chamber, wind spirals through sealed walls, blowing papers and tools and my sanity into the air. The glow turns blinding. I shield my face as the hum turns into a scream, and for a moment I think, God, what if they were right? What if I really did lose it?

And then I hear it.

A voice, not from a speaker, not from a file but there, inside the chamber.

Groaning. Alive.

I drop the shielding glass.

And I see him.

Collapsed on the floor of the containment pod. Blood dripping from his temple. A ripped schoolboy blazer, buttons scorched. Breathing shallow. Hands twitching like he’s fighting ghosts.

And his eyes  those bright, stormy, impossible eyes, open and lock on mine.

Time stops.

“Oh my God,” I whisper, heart crashing against my ribs.
“You’re real.”

He stares at me like I’ve just murdered the stars. His voice is hoarse, cracked from some silent war.

"Who the hell are you,” he rasps, “and what the fuck did you do to me?”