CHAPTER 1
The headache had been unbearable.
At first, it was a dull throb behind her eyes, something she thought would go away after a long nap or a few sips of water. But then it grew—pounding, rhythmic, like something was hammering from the inside out. By the time she reached the emergency room, she could barely walk straight.
"Miss, are you alright?" a nurse had asked as she stumbled into the sterile, overlit hallway of the hospital.
"I think… I think I need help," she whispered hoarsely.
Her vision blurred at the edges, the hospital walls seemed to bend, and the floor tipped beneath her feet. A sharp pain pulsed through her skull, and then everything turned to black.
Then silence.
Then the buzz.
She came too slowly, her body heavy, as if submerged in water. The first thing she felt was the chill of something hard beneath her. The second was a deep, mechanical hum—low, steady, and close.
Her eyes fluttered open.
It was dark except for the faint outline of a curved ceiling above her. She couldn't move. Her limbs felt stiff, her head pounded with a dull, aching throb.
She was lying inside something.
Enclosed.
Trapped?
MRI machine, her sluggish brain supplied.
A pair of padded headphones hugged her ears, and a sterile voice filtered through, distorted and distant.
“Aria? You fainted earlier. You’re in the MRI now. Just lie still. We’re running a few quick scans to rule out anything serious.”
The voice was calm and rehearsed. Someone used to people panicking.
Her throat felt dry, and she tried to speak, but her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth.
Another thrum of the machine. A ticking sound, then a sharp click-click-click as if something were shifting behind the panels.
The light was too bright and too dim at the same time. The world tilted. That hum was growing louder like it was inside her skull.
Her vision pulsed in sync with it.
She blinked again.
And suddenly—silence.
Total.
No hum.
No clicks.
No voice in her ear.
The lights in the machine flickered once, then cut out entirely.
The air stilled.
She wasn’t sure how long the darkness lasted—seconds or minutes.
She blinked again.
Darkness.
And then...
Light.
Not the sterile white of hospital fluorescents, but natural light—sunlight filtered through sleek, glass walls.
She gasped and sat upright.
She wasn’t in the hospital.
The air smelled different—sharper, cleaner, oddly metallic.
Her body felt… the same, but her surroundings didn’t match anything familiar.
She was outside, standing on an elevated terrace in front of a building. Sleek black panels lined the walls, reflecting the skyline of a futuristic city that looked like something from a science fiction film.
Hovercrafts zipped silently through the sky.
The sky itself looked too perfect.
Too blue.
“What the—” she whispered, turning around, heart pounding.
A digital sign above the automatic doors lit up:
BIOLOGICAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE.
Below that, something scrolled across in small, flashing letters: Internship Assistant:
Aria Edwards – Entry Day One.
Her name.
She blinked.
"What the hell is going on?"
She looked down at herself.
Her hospital gown was gone.
She was wearing a white lab coat over sleek grey slacks and polished black boots.
Around her neck was a lanyard with a work card clipped to it.
Name: Aria Edwards
Position: Internship Assistant
Date: March 19, 2125
Division: Experimental Neurogenetics
She almost dropped the card.
2125?
"This isn’t possible," she muttered, stepping backwards until she hit the glass railing behind her.
One hundred years?
How?
She rubbed her eyes hard.
“Wake up, Aria. You’re still in the MRI. You're hallucinating.”
But everything around her felt real.
The soft wind brushed against her cheek. The sharp scent of antiseptic mixed with high-tech air filters. The hum of machines beneath the surface of silence.
“Excuse me?”
She turned sharply.
A young man stood at the entrance, holding a clipboard and an e-tablet. He was tall, clean-cut, and wore a uniform with the same institute emblem that was on her ID.
“You must be the new intern,” he said with a polite but curious smile.
“Aria Edwards, right?”
Aria hesitated. “Uh… yeah. That’s me.”
“Great. I’m Dr. Kieran Voss, your department supervisor. You’re with Division 3—Neurogenetics and Temporal Studies.”
She blinked. “Temporal… what?”
“Temporal Studies,” he repeated, already turning to walk into the building.
“Come on. Orientation starts in ten minutes, and we don’t like to keep Dr. Sorelle waiting.”
Aria followed him without meaning to, her feet moving on their own. Temporal
Studies? Was this a joke?
She tried to ask, “Dr. Voss, I think there’s been a mistake—”
“Call me Kieran,” he said over his shoulder.
“Kieran,” she said breathlessly, trying to keep up with his fast stride,
“This might sound crazy, but I think I’m not supposed to be here. I mean, I’m not from... here.”
He paused and turned to face her, studying her with a strange glint in his eyes.
“You’re not the first one to say that.”
Her heart skipped.
“What do you mean?”
“You’d be surprised how many interns say strange things on their first day. The neural orientation process tends to scramble short-term memory. It'll fade in a few hours.”
“No, you don’t understand,” she pressed,
“I was in an MRI—at a hospital—in 2025. There was a blackout. And then I woke up here.”
He stared at her for a moment. “Interesting.”
“That’s all you have to say?”
He smiled faintly.
“Let’s get inside.”
Inside, the institute was even more surreal. Floors that responded to the movement. Walls that shifted colour with touch.
Transparent elevators that moved sideways as well as up and down.
Every room seemed to hum with quiet intelligence, as though the building itself was alive.
She was led through a large lab with glass partitions and glowing equipment.
Researchers in smart suits and augmented lenses worked silently, scanning data and moving between stations.
They finally stopped in front of a door labelled: Division 3 – Lead: Dr. Sorelle Hayne.
Kieran knocked once and stepped in.
A woman in her fifties looked up from a glowing screen.
Her eyes were sharp, unnervingly focused, and her dark silver hair was pulled into a low twist.
“You’re late,” she said simply.
“Apologies, Dr. Hayne. Power fluctuation on the arrival floor. This is Aria Edwards, our new assistant.”
Dr Hayne’s eyes flicked over Aria.
“Sit.”
Aria sat.
“Do you know why you’re here?” Dr. Hayne asked.
“No,” Aria said honestly. “I don’t even know how I’m here.”
Dr. Hayne narrowed her eyes.
“Medical student, top of your class in 2025. Participated in a synthetic neuro-interface project. Strong aptitude for cognitive mapping. Exceptional data retention. You’re precisely the candidate we needed.”
“But I didn’t apply for anything. I didn’t even know this place existed.”
“Few do. This institute does not belong to any known registry. You were selected through a classified quantum scan sequence triggered by the blackout event.”
Aria stared. “A what?”
Kieran leaned in slightly.
“Temporal rift. Your blackout was a convergence moment. Rare, but not unheard of.”
“You’re saying I was… pulled here? Through time?”
Dr. Hayne nodded.
“The human brain leaves temporal echoes during moments of high electrical disruption. You were caught in one. A neural bridge formed.”
“I didn’t consent to any of this.”
“You didn’t need to,” Dr. Hayne said, voice like steel.
“But you are here. And now that you are, you have two options: stay and contribute to the most advanced biological research on the planet—or return, memory wiped, and forget this ever happened. You won’t be able to come back.”
Aria's pulse thundered in her ears.
Stay?
In the future?
Work in a lab that might explain what happened to her—or go back to the hospital bed, pretending this never happened?
She looked at Kieran. He wasn’t smiling anymore. His expression was calm, but there was a weight in his eyes—as if he knew just how big this choice was.
She turned back to Dr. Hayne.
“I’m a medical student,” she said.
“I came here by accident, but I can’t walk away from this. If I can help, I will.”
Dr. Hayne’s lips curled ever so slightly.
“Good.”
Kieran handed her a tablet.
“Welcome to the Institute, Aria.”
She took it, still trying to breathe normally.
A hundred years from everything and everyone she knew.
But this place—this mystery—might just hold the answers she didn’t know she was searching for.
And somehow, deep in her bones, she knew this was only the beginning.