Chapter 18 Dimensional Collapse

Ryan Cross - POV

Reality tears apart around us like tissue paper, and for the first time in my life, I wish I could feel physical pain. At least then the agony of watching Emma disappear into multiversal chaos would have a familiar framework. Instead, I'm left with the cold analytical part of my brain trying to process impossible physics while my heart screams that we're losing her.

"Emma!" Blake shouts into the dimensional storm, but his voice gets swallowed by the sound of infinite realities grinding against each other.

The psychic bond that connects us to her stretches like a rubber band about to snap. Through it, I feel fragments of her consciousness scattered across multiple dimensions, each piece experiencing a different version of our story. My medical training kicks in automatically—this is what dissociative episodes look like on a multiversal scale.

"We have to go after her," Cole growls, his protective instincts refusing to accept that some threats can't be fought with violence.

"The dimensional barriers are collapsing," Kai says, his synesthesia painting the chaos in colors that hurt to imagine. "If we get caught in there—"

"Then we get caught." I grab onto the nearest dimensional rift before my rational mind can stop me. "She's dying in there. I can feel it through our bond."

We plunge through the tear in reality, and immediately everything goes wrong.

I land hard on familiar marble floors, but when I look up, I'm staring at myself. This other Ryan wears the same clothes, has the same inability to feel pain, but his eyes hold something mine never have—cruelty.

"Interesting," he says, studying us like specimens. "Dimensional travelers. Dr. Kane will want to examine you before we harvest your organs."

Behind him stand Blake, Cole, and Kai—but these versions move with military precision instead of the casual coordination I know. Blake's charm has been replaced by cold calculation. Cole's gentleness has become brutal efficiency. Kai's artistic chaos has transformed into mechanical predictability.

"Where's Emma?" I demand.

The other Ryan smiles, and it's like looking in a mirror that reflects everything I could have become if I'd never learned to care about anyone. "The conduit? She served her purpose. Her neural tissue is being preserved in the medical wing for future enhancement procedures."

The words hit me like a physical blow I can't feel. In this dimension, we failed her completely. We became exactly what she feared we were—men who saw her as a resource instead of a person.

"She's not dead," Blake whispers beside me, his psychological training reading micro-expressions I can't see. "He's lying about something."

The other Ryan's smile falters slightly. "Dimensional laws require verification," he says, pulling out a tablet that shows medical readouts I recognize but wish I didn't. "The subject expired during extraction. Brain death occurred at—"

Cole doesn't let him finish. His protective fury explodes outward, but when he tackles the other Ryan, reality ripples around the impact point. The medical facility dissolves, reforming into the university chapel where our binding ritual first took place.

But this time, Emma is the one standing over four bodies. Our bodies.

"The conduits were incompatible with the binding process," she explains to Dean Mills with clinical detachment that mirrors my own voice. "Their neural pathways couldn't handle the psychic feedback. Death was instantaneous."

I stare at my own corpse, noting the expression of surprise frozen on my face. In this dimension, Emma was the predator and we were the prey. The irony would be fascinating if it weren't so terrifying.

"This isn't right," Kai says, his artistic soul rejecting the wrongness of what we're seeing. "None of these realities feel stable. They're all—"

The scene shifts again, more violently this time. Now we're in a version of Blackwood where Emma never existed at all. The university runs exactly as it should—prestigious, conventional, completely mundane. Students study normally, professors teach standard curricula, and absolutely nothing supernatural exists.

It's peaceful. It's safe. It's everything Emma said she wanted.

And it's horrifying.

"Without her, we're just ordinary," I realize, watching my alternate self give a perfectly normal lecture on standard anatomy to regular students. "No enhanced abilities, no supernatural bond, no—"

"No purpose," Blake finishes, his voice hollow. "Look at us. We're exactly what we were before she changed everything."

The Blake in this reality is charming but shallow. The Cole is athletic but directionless. The Kai is artistic but uninspired. The Ryan is brilliant but emotionally empty.

"We need her," I admit, the words scraping my throat raw. "Not just for power or abilities. We need her because she makes us better than we are."

The dimensional storm responds to my admission, pulling us toward something that feels like the eye of a hurricane made of pure possibility. We crash into what looks like a medical bay that extends beyond the horizon, filled with monitoring equipment I've never seen before.

At the center, Emma floats in a sphere of crackling energy, her body motionless but her mind clearly active across planes of existence I can't begin to understand. Thousands of cables and conduits connect her to screens showing vital signs from every dimension simultaneously.

"Emma," I call out, moving toward her despite the energy that makes my teeth ache.

Her eyes snap open, but instead of warm brown, they swirl with depths that hold every possibility that has ever existed. When she looks at me, I see myself reflected infinite times—every choice I've made, every path I've avoided, every version of Ryan Cross that could exist.

"You came for me," she says, and her voice carries harmonics from realities I can't imagine. "I knew you would. I've seen it happen in 847,293 different timelines."

The casual precision of that number makes my medical mind recoil. "Emma, what's happened to you?"

"I'm connected to every version of myself across the multiverse," she explains with terrifying calm. "I can see every possible future, every choice we might make, every ending we're racing toward."

She turns to Blake, and her smile holds knowledge that makes him step backward. "I know about the psychological manipulation techniques you're planning to use to convince me to return. I've seen you try them in 23,447 different realities."

To Cole: "I know you're preparing to carry me out of here by force. It works in 8,291 timelines but fails catastrophically in 156,783 others."

To Kai: "I know your synesthesia is showing you colors that don't exist in normal reality. I've experienced what that feels like from your perspective in 67,829 different dimensions."

Finally, she looks back at me, and her expression softens with something that might be pity. "And I know what you're thinking right now, Ryan. You're wondering if the Emma you love still exists, or if she's been replaced by something that merely remembers being her."

The question I hadn't been able to form freezes in my throat. Through our psychic bond, I feel her consciousness brushing against mine—vast, alien, containing multitudes I can't comprehend.

"The answer," she whispers, "is both.”