# Chapter One:
It was three in the morning, or maybe four, who knew? In his chaotic laboratory, which he sardonically dubbed the "Citadel of Madness," Dr. Leonardo Chang, known among the few colleagues who hadn't given up on him yet as "Leo," was fast asleep atop a pile of scattered papers. The smell of cold coffee, some moldy potato chips, and remnants of yesterday's pizza was the signature fragrance of this scientific sanctuary. Leo, with hair resembling a mushroom cloud after a storm and tilted glasses barely perched on his nose, embodied the stereotype of the mad scientist, but with a touch of self-deprecating humor only he understood.
"Reality, gentlemen, is merely a collective illusion," Leo muttered in his sleep, a faint smile playing on his lips. "A boring one, by the way. That's why I'm here, to add some spice." This was one of his favorite mottos, repeated to himself and anyone who dared to listen—usually a lab rat or a broken coffee machine.
Suddenly, the table shook violently. Not an earthquake, but the ringing of his ancient phone, blaring an annoying Chinese pop song. Leo jolted awake, his head hitting the edge of the table hard. "Ah! Damn the laws of physics!" he yelled, clutching his aching head. "Who dares disturb a scientist at the peak of his inspiration?" It wasn't inspiration, just a weird dream about cats discussing string theory.
He picked up the phone, his eyes barely open. The caller was Dr. Isabella Wu, or "Izzy" as he preferred to call her, though she hated the nickname. Izzy, a brilliant neuroscientist, was his complete opposite. Organized, practical, and utterly lacking a sense of humor, according to Leo. "What is it, Izzy? Finally discovered the human brain is just a slow processor?" Leo said in his raspy voice, trying to hide his pain.
"Leo, are you okay?" Izzy's calm voice came through, but with a subtle hint of concern. "I've called you several times. Something strange is happening. The conference..." Izzy paused, as if searching for the right words. "It vanished."
"Vanished?" Leo repeated, rubbing his eyes. "You mean they canceled it? Expected. Nobody cares about real quantum physics anymore. Everyone wants smartphone apps."
"No, Leo," Izzy said, her voice more serious. "The conference wasn't canceled. It vanished from existence. There's no record of it. No one remembers it. As if it never happened."
Leo froze. Vanished from existence? That was big talk, even for him. "Izzy, are you sure you haven't had too much coffee?" he asked, but his sarcastic tone began to fade. "This sounds like one of my crazy scenarios."
"I'm on my way to you," Izzy said, ignoring his question. "I need your help. My mind can't process this."
Leo hung up and looked around his lab. The chaos was the same, but something felt different. There was a strange feeling in the air, as if reality itself had trembled. He remembered the weird dream about the cats. Was it just a dream?
Leo stood up and walked towards the lab window. The city was still asleep, faint lights illuminating the empty streets. But something in the sky caught his attention. The moon. It was crimson red, brighter than ever before. "A crimson moon?" Leo muttered. "That's not normal."
At that moment, Leo felt a throbbing headache, stronger than ever. As if something was trying to break through his skull. He remembered Izzy's words: "Vanished from existence. No one remembers it." Was this headache related to what was happening?
Ignoring the pain, Leo headed towards the main control panel in his lab. It was a complex assembly of wires, gauges, and flashing lights, which he ironically called the "Primitive Time Machine." He had built it hoping to prove his crazy theories about time, but it had done nothing but make strange noises and consume vast amounts of electricity.
But this time, the flashing lights were behaving erratically. They blinked randomly, as if trying to send a message. "What's going on here?" Leo asked himself, staring at the lights. "Have I finally gone mad? Or has the world gone mad?"
He remembered Dostoevsky's quote: "Insanity in individuals is something rare; but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs, it is the rule." Was this mass insanity? Or was Leo the only one seeing the truth?
Suddenly, an image appeared on the old computer screen connected to the machine. It was blurry, but Leo could make out the face of a young woman. It was Kayla Lin, the university student he had met at the conference that had "vanished." She looked terrified, her eyes filled with horror. "Leo... help me..." the image whispered, before disappearing completely.
Leo froze in place. This wasn't just a hallucination. It was real. Kayla was in danger. And that meant the conference hadn't completely vanished. Something had happened, something very serious.
"Alright, crazy world," Leo said to himself, a sarcastic smile forming. "Looks like your adventure has just begun. Let's see if you can save this boring reality from itself."
Just then, Leo heard a knock on the lab door. It was Izzy. Time to face reality, or what was left of it.
Izzy opened the door, her eyes looked tired, but her gaze was sharp as ever. "Leo, are you okay? You look like you've seen a ghost."
"Worse than a ghost, Izzy," Leo replied, pointing to the blank computer screen. "I've seen the future, or maybe the past, or maybe both at the same time. Dimensions are intertwining, reality is collapsing, and all this before my morning coffee."
Izzy ignored his usual sarcasm and entered the lab. She looked around with some disgust. "Do you live in a dumpster?" she asked, trying to avoid a pile of books scattered on the floor. "No wonder you're seeing ghosts."
"This is the temple of science, Izzy," Leo said with mock seriousness. "A place where great minds transcend the limits of human perception. But let me tell you something, this temple is about to crumble."
Leo sat down in his chair and pointed to the control panel. "The conference," he began, "didn't just disappear. It was erased. Which means someone, or something, has the ability to manipulate time. And that, my friend, is what I've been trying to prove for years."
Izzy looked at the control panel, then at Leo. "You're talking about your time machine? Leo, I've told you a thousand times, it's just junk. It doesn't work."
"But it did," Leo interrupted, his eyes gleaming with a mad excitement. "It sent me a message. A message from the future, or maybe an alternate reality. A message from Kayla Lin."
Leo told Izzy about the image he saw on the screen, about Kayla's whisper. Izzy listened attentively, but her expression didn't change. "A blurry image and a whisper? Leo, are you sure you weren't dreaming?"
"Dreaming is the new reality, Izzy," Leo said. "And reality is the nightmare we can't wake up from. But this time, the nightmare is real. Kayla is in danger. Which means we are in danger."
Izzy started to feel a little uneasy. She knew Leo well. He was eccentric, but not entirely crazy. When he spoke with such seriousness, it meant something was really happening. "What do you want me to do?" she asked.
"I want you to help me understand this," Leo said. "I want you to use your logical mind, your ghost-free mind, to help me decipher this madness. First, we need to find out what happened to Kayla. Second, we need to find out who's behind this."
"And where do we start?" Izzy asked.
Leo looked at the crimson moon through the window. "Where it all began," he said. "At the conference that never happened."
The two began to work. Leo, with his chaotic but brilliant mind, and Izzy, with her precise logic. They made an odd pair, but they were effective. Izzy started searching academic databases, trying to find any trace of the conference. Leo, meanwhile, tinkered with his machine, trying to reconnect with the alternate reality that had sent Kayla's message.
Hours passed, the sun slowly began to rise, but the crimson moon didn't disappear. It still hung in the sky, a silent witness to the unfolding madness.
"Nothing," Izzy finally said, lifting her head from the computer. "There's absolutely no record of the conference. It's like it never existed. This is impossible."
"Impossible is just a word humans invented to comfort themselves," Leo said. "But we, Izzy, are not ordinary humans. We are the ones who break the impossible."
Suddenly, the lights on the control panel started flashing faster. Leo had managed to reconnect. Kayla's image appeared on the screen again, clearer this time. She was in a dark place, tied up, her eyes filled with tears.
"I'm in the old research building," Kayla said weakly. "There's... something happening here. They're... they're trying to..."
The connection broke.
"The old research building?" Izzy asked. "But that building has been abandoned for years. There's no one there."
"That's what they want you to think," Leo said, standing up. "That's where they're hiding. That's where the real madness is happening."
Leo's tone had changed. It wasn't entirely sarcastic anymore. There was a seriousness in his voice, a determination. The mad scientist had found his cause.
"What are we going to do?" Izzy asked.
"We're going there," Leo said. "We're going to the old research building. We'll find out what's happening. We'll save Kayla. And we'll save reality."
Izzy looked at Leo. He looked like he was about to embark on a suicide mission. But she knew there was no other choice. She was already involved.
"Fine," Izzy sighed. "But if we die, I'm haunting you in the afterlife."
Leo grinned. "That's the spirit, Izzy. That's the spirit."
They left the lab, leaving the chaos and the crimson moon behind. The sun had fully risen now, but the world didn't look the same anymore. Something had changed. Something had broken. And Leo and Izzy were about to find out what.
Elsewhere in the city, Professor Zhang Wei, Leo's former mentor, sat in his luxurious office. He wore an elegant suit and sipped green tea calmly. On his desk, a screen displayed blurry images of Leo's lab.
"The mad scientist," Zhang Wei muttered, a faint smile on his lips. "The game has finally begun."
And in a dark corner of the room, the secret agent known only as "Shadow" watched the screen. His eyes were cold, expressionless. He had received his orders. Leo Chang was a target.
Leo stared at the crimson moon, which seemed to watch him back. It wasn't just reflected light; it had a physical, heavy presence, as if pressing down on the air. Leo remembered an old saying he'd read in one of his tattered books on ancient Chinese mythology, about blood moons appearing before great disasters. "Nonsense," he muttered to himself, trying to dismiss the superstitious thoughts. "Just old wives' tales to scare children." But something deep inside screamed that this wasn't nonsense. This was real. This was different.
When Izzy entered, it wasn't just the smell of cold coffee and leftover food that greeted her. There was also the scent of ozone, that sharp metallic smell accompanying high-voltage electrical discharge. It was a familiar smell to Leo, but new and unsettling for Izzy. "What's that smell?" she asked, sniffing the air suspiciously. "Were you blowing something up again?"
"Just some minor experiments," Leo replied with an innocent smile, the kind Izzy knew always preceded some disaster. "Nothing to worry about. Just trying to rearrange the air molecules to suit my mood."
Izzy sat on a broken plastic chair, which barely held her weight. She looked at Leo, who was staring intently at the control panel. His face was pale, his eyes red from lack of sleep, but there was a spark of madness in them Izzy hadn't seen before. "Leo," she said quietly, "you're scaring me. What's really going on?"
Leo sighed and closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, the spark was still there, but calmer, more serious. "Izzy," he said, "I've been working on a theory for years. A theory that time isn't linear, but a complex web of possibilities. Every decision we make, every event that occurs, creates an alternate reality. And this machine," he pointed to the control panel, "is my attempt to communicate with those alternate realities."
"And did you succeed?" Izzy asked, feeling a chill run down her spine.
"I don't know," Leo answered. "But what I do know is that the conference that was supposed to happen today has been erased from our reality. And Kayla Lin, the girl we met there, sent me a message from another reality, or perhaps a possible future. She's in danger, and that danger threatens our reality too."
Izzy started to feel dizzy. She was a scientist, believing in logic and science. But what Leo was saying went beyond everything she had learned. "This is crazy, Leo," she said. "Pure madness."
"Madness is the first step towards discovery, Izzy," Leo said, flashing his sarcastic smile again. "Remember what Nietzsche said: 'And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.' Maybe we're just the ones hearing the music."
Izzy didn't reply. She thought about Kayla. The young, vibrant girl she had met just yesterday. Was she really in danger? Was any of this real?
"What about the moon?" Izzy asked, pointing to the window. "Why is it crimson?"
Leo looked at the moon. "That's the part I don't understand yet," he said. "But it's connected. Everything is connected. This moon, the conference disappearing, Kayla's message. They're all pieces of a much larger puzzle."
Leo began explaining his theories to Izzy, using complex terms and diagrams on the equation-filled whiteboard. Izzy listened intently, trying to absorb every word. Her scientific mind resisted, but a part of her was fascinated, a part wanted to believe there was something bigger than the reality she knew.
As Leo talked, Izzy noticed small details in the lab she hadn't seen before. Old books, some written in strange languages, were scattered on the floor. Weird drawings adorned the walls, looking like maps of complex networks. The lab looked like a place inhabited by someone on the edge of madness and genius.
"Now," Leo said, finishing his explanation, "we need a plan. A plan to save Kayla, and a plan to understand what's happening to our reality. And the first step is going to the old research building."
"But that's dangerous, Leo," Izzy said. "We don't know who's there, or what they're doing."
"Danger is part of the game, Izzy," Leo said, his eyes gleaming. "Remember what Albert Einstein said: 'Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.' We're not going to do the same thing. We're going to break the rules."
Izzy put on her coat. She still felt hesitant, but she knew she couldn't let Leo go alone. He was crazy enough to do anything, which made him dangerous and interesting at the same time.
"Alright," Izzy said. "But if anything happens, I'm the one saving your ass."
Leo laughed. "That's the spirit, Izzy. That's the spirit."
They left the lab, their footsteps echoing in the empty streets. The air was cold, but Izzy felt a warmth in her heart. She was about to embark on an adventure she had never imagined. An adventure that might change everything she knew about reality.
Elsewhere, in the old research building, Kayla Lin struggled against her restraints. Her eyes were filled with tears, but there was a spark of defiance in her gaze. She heard strange noises, whispers, as if the walls themselves were talking. She felt scared, but she knew she had to resist.
"I won't give up," she whispered to herself. "I won't give up."
She knew someone was coming to save her. She trusted Leo, the mad scientist she had met just a day ago. She knew he wouldn't leave her.
In a dark room, the secret agent "Shadow" watched Kayla through a screen. His face was expressionless, but something in his eyes indicated deep interest. He knew Kayla was the key to something much bigger.
"The final piece of the puzzle," Shadow muttered. "Soon, she will be ours."
The game had just begun. And the stakes were higher than ever.