The Wraithling shuddered as the void around it quivered, then fractured. They weren't escaping no. They were being pulled. Ethan's heart skipped as the distortion in front of them grew.
A mirror unfolded.
Not glass. Not solid. Just a seam of light that pulled at the edges of space, stretching until it was the size of a moon.
The Wraithling tried to resist, but it was too late. The ship groaned, its hull screaming against the forces.
"Brace!" Aelira yelled, gripping the nearest console.
But it wasn't enough.
The ship passed into the mirror into nothing.
For a heartbeat, there was no sensation. No sound. Just the frozen moment between dimensions.
Then snap.
Reality bent.
The stars vanished. The ship spun wildly as the very fabric of existence shifted around them.
[SYSTEM UPDATE: LOCATION INCONSISTENCY DETECTED][Void-Thread Navigation: Faulted][Dimensional Boundaries: Breach][Entity Recognition: Refraction-Class Anomaly Detected][New Objective: Assess Dimensional Integrity][Warning: Temporal Displacement in Progress][Warning: Secondary Entity Present]
Aelira swore under her breath, eyes scanning the holographic projections of the distorted stars outside. "We're… somewhere else. This is wrong."
Ethan gripped the console. "No kidding."
Aethra's voice came through, ragged. "Whatever happened… we've been drawn into an unstable pocket. The thread itself is being rewritten."
The ship's lights flickered, the console glitching as it tried to reconcile two different sets of coordinates. Above them, the mirror pulse flickered again and this time, their reflection was different.
They were no longer just the Wraithling crew.
Inside the ship's mirror, the captain's chair was occupied by a version of Ethan. Kaelen Varros. Eyes black as void, sigils burning on his skin like brands.
The figure smiled