Nexus Re : Time

New chapter somewhere around 15~ rewriting these chapters

Not sure where to slot this chapter right now rewriting process. Thank you.

The sky broke sideways.

Not up, not down—just… wrong.

The Node Beyond fractured like glass under pressure, its white lattice folding and twisting. Lines of light bent into curves that shouldn’t exist. Floor became ceiling, then a horizon, then nothing at all.

For a heartbeat, everyone hung in midair, caught between the dissolving grid and the black void underneath.

Yuna’s hand tightened around her ribbon.

“Stella—!”

“I’ve got you!”

The fox’s voice was a flare in the collapsing brightness. Stella’s body blurred into flame, tails snapping open as the Node buckled. Hiko’s shriek cut through the distortion as the ground simply… stopped being there.

They fell.

Not down.

Through.

Through the cracked floor of the Node.
Through layers of frozen light.
Through a storm of numbers and old train schedules, cascading like snow.

For a second, Yuna saw everything at once:

A rusted platform dripping rain.

A train corridor stretching on forever.

A pair of glass doors closing on a silhouette with an hourglass skull.

Rows of empty seats, every window black.

A child’s hand pressed against glass, leaving a smear.

Then the visions stacked, folded, and slammed together.

A train screamed into existence around them.

Metal ribs grew from the dark. Rails uncoiled like veins. Neon signs flickered on with no power source, advertising stations that didn’t exist in any city Yuna knew.

The Echo-Engine woke up.

Its first breath was a long sucking inhale, dragging them into its body.

Yuna hit something hard.

The impact knocked all the air out of her lungs. She bounced, rolled, and slid, fabric burning under her palms until she slammed against the base of a seat.

Lights flickered on overhead, pale and sick.

The world steadied just enough to hurt.

Her ears rang. The shard in her chest pulsed once, twice, in painful sympathy. Yuna forced a breath in, then another, her throat raw.

“Stella…?”

No answer.

“Hiko?”

Silence.

The carriage around her was empty.

Narrow aisle, rows of seats on both sides. Windows, but nothing outside—just smeared dark, like someone had painted over reality with a shaking hand.

Yuna’s fingers found the ribbon on her wrist. It was warm. Alive.

“Okay,” she whispered, voice small in the dead car. “Okay, okay. Don’t panic. Don’t scream. Don’t make it worse.”

She stood, legs shaking, and the whole car seemed to tilt with her. For a second she swore the aisle sloped down toward the far door, like the train was angled on an invisible hill.