Ash stumbled backward, nearly falling as his eyes locked on the billboard. His face—no, not his face—that face stared back at him from above the city, polished and perfect, an impossible mirror.
ASHEN VIREL.
The name was etched in silver text, flickering with each pass of a sleek aerial drone that zipped overhead. People didn't stop to stare at the image; they nodded, murmured, some even saluted. The man on the screen wasn't just famous.
He was worshipped.
Ash took three steps back and slammed into a glass-paneled kiosk. It chirped angrily at him, displaying a cheerful voice warning: "Citizen ID not detected. Please scan or stand aside."
His pulse spiked. His hands were shaking. This wasn't right. This wasn't real.
It couldn't be.
The world had shifted, and Ash wasn't sure if it had dragged him along or left him behind.
He darted down a side street, nearly colliding with a man in a red cloak who mumbled something in a language Ash didn't recognize. Neon-lit towers loomed overhead, humming with invisible energy. The air smelled sharp—too clean. As if the city had been bleached of dirt, of rust, of reality.
Every screen he passed showed images of Ashen Virel. Speeches. Campaigns. Public addresses. But none of them were him. Ash couldn't speak with that calm authority. He couldn't look people in the eye and convince them to follow him. He had never commanded anything more than a half-eaten slice of pizza to stay put on a trash can.
He kept moving until the city opened into a vast plaza.
That's when he saw her.
---
She stood beneath a silver arch, arms folded, visor down, coat billowing like a cape. Tall, poised, dangerous.
Rei Kaelith.
Ash didn't know her name yet, but he knew the type. Calculating. Unreadable. She was scanning the crowd with a scanner device glowing faint blue in her hand.
When their eyes met, something clicked. Her gaze sharpened instantly.
Ash turned to run.
Too late.
"You," she said, voice cold, clear, and sharp as winter.
Ash froze.
"You're not him."
The next thing he felt was a crackle in the air, a tug at his limbs, and then—darkness.
---
He woke up strapped to a chair in a room that looked like a minimalist tech lab crossed with a surgical bay. White lights, white floors, chrome walls. His head ached. His mouth was dry.
Rei sat opposite him, reading something off a sleek tablet.
"Vitals stable," she said aloud. "No memory contamination detected. Quantum signature reads... fluctuating."
Ash groaned. "Could you not do science stuff while I'm trying to recover from being abducted?"
She didn't look up. "You're not him. You look like him. Talk almost like him. But you're not Ashen Virel. So, who are you really?"
"Just a guy who made a bad deal," Ash muttered. "Name's Ash. Ash Verdan. I'm from..." He paused. "From a place where this city doesn't shine. Where I don't own a wardrobe like that."
Rei raised an eyebrow. "Alternate layer?"
Ash blinked. "Layer?"
She stood, walked over to a wall, and tapped a button. A hologram flickered to life—two Earths, twisted together like strands of DNA.
"You're not the first anomaly," Rei said. "But you are the first with his face. That makes you dangerous."
Ash gave a hollow laugh. "Lady, I've been dangerous for years. Just not in the sexy sci-fi way."
Rei walked back to him and leaned in. "How did you get here, Ash Verdan?"
He hesitated.
"Touching a thing I wasn't supposed to," he finally said. "Some orb Juno gave me."
Her face went still.
"Juno Raith?" she asked.
Ash nodded.
"That's impossible," Rei whispered. "Juno Raith died six years ago."
---
Ash sat in stunned silence. His brain tried to catch up with the implications, but kept tripping over itself.
"You're lying."
"No," Rei said. "You crossed from another dimension. Possibly a collapsed parallel reality. And you used a device connected to a man who's dead here."
Ash shook his head. "This can't be real."
Rei turned off the hologram. "You'll need to adapt quickly. Because if Ashen Virel finds out there's another version of him walking around... this city will tear itself apart."
Ash swallowed hard. "So what do we do?"
"We hide you," she said. "And we figure out how you got through."
"Why help me?"
Rei hesitated, then said quietly, "Because once, a long time ago... I made something that did this. And now I need to fix it."
---
For the next few hours, Rei drilled him with questions. About his world. His life. The Collapse. Juno's warehouse. Every answer brought more disbelief to her face.
"You live in a version of this world where the Collapse succeeded," she said. "Where everything fell apart."
Ash nodded."Feels like I lost a bet with the universe."
Rei didn't smile. "Our world prevented the Collapse. Barely. But at a cost. Ashen rose in the aftermath, promising control. He got it."
Ash leaned back. "So he's... a dictator?"
"A Chancellor," Rei corrected. "But yes. More or less."
Ash processed that slowly. "Great. So I've swapped a broken world for a pretty cage."
"You haven't seen the cages yet," Rei said softly.
---
The door opened. A boy entered—young, maybe twelve. Pale. Barefoot. Eyes too old for his face.
"This is Nyx," Rei said. "They can feel anomalies."
Nyx stared at Ash, unblinking.
"You're wrong," the child whispered. "You're... reversed."
Ash stared. "Okay, cool. That's not cryptic at all."
Nyx turned to Rei. "He's not infected. Yet."
Ash's skin crawled. "Infected with what?"
Rei stood. "We'll talk more soon. For now, rest. You'll need it."
She pressed a button. The restraints released. Ash slumped forward, exhausted.
"Where will I go?" he asked.
Rei paused in the doorway. "Somewhere Ashen wouldn't look."
"And if he finds me?"
She looked back. "Then you'll meet the other you... and one of you won't walk away."
---
Ash sat alone for a long time.
His reflection stared at him from the chrome wall across the room. The same eyes. Same bones. But it felt like he was looking at a stranger.
He whispered to himself, voice low and shaky:
"I'm not him."
The mirror didn't answer.
But it didn't disagree, either.