The dorm lights hadn’t even cycled on when the four were already awake. None of them had really slept; the hum of the ventilation had carried the weight of the coming day through every hour. They moved in quiet efficiency, gear already packed, fatigues sealed, movements precise but slower than usual. Each checked and rechecked the same straps, the same clips, only to fill the stillness.

  By the time they stepped into the corridor, the air felt heavier, charged with the tension of a thousand held breaths.

  The cafeteria glowed with white light when they entered, the sound of murmured conversation rolling like low thunder. The entire cohort had gathered. Trays of rations sat mostly untouched. Fourteen teams, ranging from six to ten Spartors each, filled the long hall. Some sat shoulder-to-shoulder, whispering tactics; others stared into nothing, counting the seconds.

  Then Jouk entered.

  He didn’t raise his voice or his hand, but silence rippled outward in a perfect wave until the only sound left was the faint whir of the ceiling fans. He walked to the center dais, posture rigid, hands clasped behind his back, the faint light of the holoboards outlining the sharp planes of his face.

  “Teams,” he began, voice steady and resonant, “you’ve done what few ever do. You crossed eighty percent faster than any cohort in recent record. That is not luck; that is discipline.”

  His gaze swept across them, sharp and proud in equal measure.

  “But hear this, scores are not survival. The portals will not care how well you performed in simulation. What you face beyond them will not forgive hesitation or pride. You will go in as Novarchs and, if you return, you will come back changed. Some of you may not return at all.”

  The silence was absolute.

  “Trust your training,” Jouk continued, “but more importantly, trust each other. In the portals, there are no individual victories, only teams that move as one. Multiple hearts, one rhythm. That’s what keeps you alive.”

  A faint hum built overhead as the holo-board came alive, projecting rows of team designations and glowing numbers.

  Team Bash - Portal 937

  Rixor leaned sideways, muttering, “Why’s it your name on it and not mine?”

  Jouk’s head turned just enough for his voice to cut through the quiet. “Teams are listed by their highest performer. Yesterday’s scores decided that.”

  A few smirks rippled through nearby groups, quickly silenced as Jouk shifted focus back to the board.

  Bash’s eyes scanned the list instinctively until he found Zicof - Portal 944. He didn’t even know why he looked. No one knew what lay beyond their assigned gates. Only the Nexus did.

  He felt a small pulse through his neural link, S-C’s tone, calm and clinical.

  “It doesn’t matter what’s on the other side of yours. You’ll know soon enough. There’s nothing to change now.”

  He exhaled slowly. “Right,” he murmured. “Soon enough.”

  Jouk’s voice drew him back.

  “You will have three days. Return punctually, late arrival means penalties and possible disqualification. Your recall beacon remains your last resort. If activated, extraction will be immediate, your run frozen at its current score. Survival comes first, but you will not progress.”

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  He paused, letting the gravity settle before continuing.

  “Your fragments and kills will be evaluated upon return. Seventy-five percent of your recovered fragments remain yours. The remaining twenty-five contribute to the Spartor Council Military. The top three teams will earn further reward, ten pieces of equipment of their choosing, distributed or exchanged as they see fit.

  A ripple of restrained excitement ran through the crowd.

  “Remember,” Jouk finished, “this is not ceremony. This is the beginning of your real assessment. The Nexus will measure every decision, every reaction, when you sync on exit. What you do in there defines what you become.”

  He raised one hand toward the long corridor of portals behind him. “Proceed to your assigned gates. Synchronization begins in five.”

  The corridor opened into a circular chamber alive with white resonance. Fourteen gates shimmered in a perfect arc, each numbered in cascading light. The air thrummed with contained power; it buzzed in the teeth and the bones.

  Bash’s team halted before 937, the portal’s surface rippling like liquid glass. Energy pulsed outward in silent waves that sent a shiver down his back.

  Jouk walked the line one last time, eyes scanning every face. “You’ve trained for this. Now trust it. Trust yourselves.”

  He stepped aside. “Enter.”

  One by one, the teams vanished into the light.

  Crossing the threshold was like stepping through the skin of a storm.

  Sound vanished first, every breath ripped away, every heartbeat silenced. Bash felt his body twist and scatter, the world folding around him like liquid glass. Gravity flipped, dissolved, returned. His stomach churned, his vision blurred to white, then black, then nothing.

  For a moment, there was no up, no down, only the crushing weight of disorientation. He tried to inhale, but there was no air. Then there was too much, flooding his lungs all at once.

  Light tore across his vision, brilliant, blinding, merciless.

  He hit ground. Hard.

  A breeze touched his face.

  Cool. Real.

  He blinked against the brightness, his breath catching as his vision struggled to adjust. The world around him was a swirl of color, vivid blues and greens bleeding into greys and whites. He could hear something, wind in branches, water moving somewhere nearby, distant birdsong that felt both familiar and impossible.

  He pressed a hand to the ground. The texture startled him: soil, coarse and damp, clinging to his fingers. He rubbed it between his thumb and forefinger. Dirt. Not simulation dust, not synthetic grit, real, heavy earth.

  His heart began to pound.

  The air smelled of pine and stone and water, sharp, clean, alive. It filled his chest in a way recycled Nexus air never could. The wind carried faint chill, brushing against his neck like breath.

  He lifted his head. Through the blur, shapes began to resolve: tall pines swaying, sunlight spilling through fractured canopy, mountain ridges rising in the distance like massive sentinels. The light had depth to it, soft, golden edges filtered through mist.

  It shouldn’t have felt familiar. And yet it did.

  The others materialized behind him, one after another, groaning, steadying themselves. He heard Rixor curse quietly, the crunch of boots on rock, Nyra’s rifle locking as she tested her grip. But Bash barely processed their voices.

  The wind shifted again, bringing with it a scent so achingly real that it hollowed him out. He remembered mornings before deployment, dew on concrete, tree-line mist over the base perimeter, the same exact pitch of wind moving through branches.

  The sky overhead was a washed-out blue. The kind of blue you only saw on clear Earth mornings.

  He swallowed hard, his pulse echoing in his ears. The illusion, or whatever it was… was perfect. Too perfect.

  The horizon stretched endlessly, ridgelines overlapping like folded paper. A stream glittered below the incline where they stood, cutting through moss and stone in a winding path.

  Every sound, every smell, every glint of sunlight carried familiarity that burned.

  He took one step forward, boots sinking slightly into damp soil. It gave way beneath his heel with that same soft crunch he hadn’t heard since that day.

  His throat tightened.

  For a heartbeat, he wasn’t in the Nexus anymore. He wasn’t in a portal.

  The others were still orienting, but Bash couldn’t move. His gaze drifted over the trees, the misted peaks, the glint of water below. Every sense screamed Earth even as reason whispered it couldn’t be.

  He didn’t argue with either.

  He just stood there, heart sinking under the weight of recognition, the ghost of a world that should’ve been unreachable filling his lungs like the first breath after drowning.

  And for the first time since his family’s deaths, Bash felt something he couldn’t name, hope, fear, disbelief, all blending into the same unbearable ache.

  The mountain wind carried the faint echo of something distant, lost in the valley haze.

  Bash didn’t move.

  Didn’t speak.

  His heart sank.