Ghosts of the Machine: Season Two
Episode 3: The Reclaimer’s Edge
Scene 1 – Between Seconds
Kade Voss – The Fracture Zone
Kade’s breath hitched as Omega-9 reached for him.
The thing had no hands, no shape—only a gravitational pull, a force that unmade reality itself. The ground beneath his feet cracked and stretched into impossible angles, as if the world itself was being rewritten.
And Kade?
He vanished.
To Sable and Dorian, it looked like he had been consumed. But in reality—Kade had stepped between moments.
Everything around him froze.
The shattered city, the flickering lights, Omega-9’s impossible form—it all hung in the air, stuck in time. Kade stood alone in the suspended moment, his body flickering between versions of himself. His younger self. His older self. Versions that had never existed.
His pulse hammered. He wasn’t supposed to be here.
Not in the past. Not in the future. Not outside of time.
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He clenched his fists, forcing himself to focus. Think, dammit. You don’t have much time.
Then, he moved.
Not forward. Not backward. Sideways.
Reality snapped as he reappeared ten feet away from where he had stood, dodging Omega-9’s grasp by milliseconds. To the others, it looked like he had just teleported.
But Kade knew the truth.
He wasn’t teleporting.
He was breaking the rules.
Scene 2 – The Reclaimer Awakens
Sable Ren & Dorian-7 – The Fracture Zone
Sable’s gun was already up, but she knew it was useless. You couldn’t shoot something that wasn’t real.
Omega-9 pulsed, warping the air around it. The ghostly figures of erased people flickered in and out of existence, whispers bleeding into Sable’s mind.
Then—
Kade reappeared.
Not just stepping back into existence. Exploding into it.
Reality rippled outward from him, the ground beneath his feet momentarily shifting between past and future versions of itself. His stance was low, grounded, one hand pressed against the pavement—like he was holding reality together.
His veins pulsed with shifting blue light. His outline flickered as though he were unfinished.
Sable exhaled sharply. “Kade…”
He didn’t answer. His eyes locked onto Omega-9.
He could feel it now.
The weight of its presence. The sheer force of its existence unmaking everything.
And for the first time, something inside him… pushed back.
Scene 3 – The First Reclamation
Omega-9 shifted again, bending space toward itself, pulling the world into its void. Kade’s fingers dug into the concrete. He felt the timeline fracturing beneath him—felt every version of the city that had ever been.
And he reached into it.
RECLAMATION.
His arm burned as the ability activated, raw energy crackling around his fingers. A section of the destroyed street restored itself, pavement repairing, streetlights reforging. The air was thick with the scent of something returning.
Omega-9 reacted. It twisted, shrieking without sound, pulling harder, trying to erase Kade the way it had erased the city.
Kade held on.
He clenched his teeth, his body flickering—reality didn’t know what to do with him. He could feel himself being pulled in a thousand directions.
Then—
He made a choice.
Instead of fighting the erasure…
He stepped into it.
Final Scene – Into the Void
Kade Voss – Nowhere & Everywhere
Darkness. Silence.
And then—
Voices.
Not from the outside. From inside him.
He saw flashes of cities that had been erased. Faces he didn’t recognize, but somehow knew. He was inside the void between existence.
And at the center of it all…
A door.
A door that shouldn’t exist.
Kade took a step toward it. His body flickered, barely holding together. His fingers brushed the handle.
And then, for the first time—
Omega-9 spoke.
Not a whisper. Not an echo.
A single, clear message inside his mind:
“You are not supposed to be here.”
Kade’s grip tightened. His body trembled.
And he pushed the door open.
TO BE CONTINUED..
