The vines were humming again.
Kael sat in the center of the field he had birthed, knees drawn to his chest, watching light pulse through the translucent leaves. The rhythm had always been steady — the breath of a newborn world. But now, it faltered.
The pulse shivered. The glow stuttered like a candle in wind.
He pressed his palm to the soil. "What's happening?"
The answer came as vibration rather than voice: a discordant tone, something foreign in the melody of his creation. It was faint, but wrong — like another song bleeding through a wall.
Then came the sound.
A low hum, metallic and sharp, slicing through the natural rhythm of his world. Kael's runes flared to life, reacting instinctively. The vines around him curled inward, defensive, whispering in agitation.
"An echo," he murmured. "But not mine."
He rose, scanning the horizon. Above, the gray sky pulsed once, like an eye flickering open. Within that flicker, Kael saw something — a streak of blue. Cold, artificial.
And then it was gone.
He frowned. "Someone else is planting."
The soil's voice finally returned, distant and uneasy. "The weave trembles. Another seed grows beyond the fold."
Kael clenched his fists. "Beyond? You mean—"
"Another world. Parallel to yours. It was never meant to touch, but…" The earth shuddered. "…the rhythm is unstable."
Kael remembered the Watcher, its wings of smoke. The idea that the multiverse had layers was no longer abstract. It was alive — and dangerous.
"What happens if we touch?"
"Creation does not merge," the soil said. "It devours."
Kael stood there for a long time, watching the faint golden mist of his world twist in confusion. He could feel something calling through the fracture — not a voice, but intent. Calculating. Cold.
"Then I'll find whoever's reaching through," he said. "Before the devouring begins."
He pressed his glowing hand into the earth. The world responded — a tendril of light coiling up his arm, embedding patterns into his skin. A compass born from the soil itself. The direction was clear: the veil.
Kael began to walk.
The wind rose around him, carrying whispers of leaves that weren't there, the faintest trace of an unknown hum that didn't belong.
Somewhere far beyond, the same hum filled a mirrored sky.
---
Astra stood at the edge of her crystalline forest, eyes locked on her gauntlet's flickering holographic display.
> "Unidentified waveform detected," the AI said in its steady monotone. "Organic resonance. Source: extradimensional."
"Organic?" Astra frowned. "You mean alive?"
> "Affirmative. Probability of artificial construct: 0.03%."
She stared into the sky, where faint distortions shimmered like heat haze. For a moment, she swore she saw golden light bleeding through the cracks between colors — faint but rhythmic.
Another signal pulsed across her visor. The pattern repeated three times, almost melodic. It wasn't noise. It was response.
Astra's pulse quickened. "It's communicating."
She turned to the crystalline spire nearest her. The structure had grown erratically since she'd stabilized it last — expanding in strange, curved forms that almost resembled… vines.
That shouldn't be possible.
Astra touched the spire's surface. It felt warm. The crystal shimmered faintly with veins of green light — alien, organic energy worming through the geometry.
"Something's rewriting the lattice," she muttered. "Like… it's being infected."
The AI beeped weakly. > "Foreign code detected within construct substrate. Signal origin unknown."
Astra's jaw tightened. "Not unknown anymore."
She traced the distortion's coordinates. The readings suggested a dimensional distance so small it defied logic — two universes brushing, their borders vibrating at the same frequency.
She zoomed in. The waveform spiked in response, as if aware of her attention.
Then a voice — faint, barely audible through static.
"…Who… are you…"
Astra froze. "Playback!"
> "No playback detected," the AI replied.
She wasn't hallucinating. The sound had been real — brief, ancient, and unbearably human.
She took a step back, suddenly aware of how quiet her mirrored world had become. Even the wind had stopped. The glass dunes around her reflected her face again and again, each reflection slightly off — delayed by heartbeats, each one whispering something just out of sync.
Her voice trembled despite herself. "Is that you, other world?"
No answer came. Only the hum.
Astra straightened her back, pulling herself into the certainty of science again. "If there's intelligence on the other side, I can map it. Contain it. Understand it."
She began recalibrating her gauntlet, tuning the energy to match the resonance she'd detected. The blue glow around her intensified, slicing through the mist.
---
Far away, Kael reached the edge of his world.
The land simply ended — the vines dissolving into mist. Beyond that, an endless chasm shimmered with blue fire.
He stood at its edge, the soil beneath his feet vibrating in terror. "This is the veil?"
"Yes," whispered the voice. "The barrier between creations. The tremor you feel is not natural. It's an intrusion."
Kael knelt, pressing his hand into the ground. The runes on his arm brightened, resonating with the same metallic hum that bled through the air.
Then, faintly — a flicker of something on the other side. A figure. Distant. Surrounded by mirrored light.
Astra.
Kael couldn't see her clearly, but he felt her presence — sharp, precise, driven by cold curiosity. It was like staring at his opposite reflection.
He reached toward the light, palm outstretched.
The veil quivered. The air cracked with energy.
Across the Multiverse, Astra's scanners exploded with readings. "Dimensional interference! Source proximity increasing!"
Her gauntlet flared white-hot. Through the glare, she glimpsed a hand — not human, not digital — reaching toward her from the shimmering rift.
For a heartbeat, their worlds touched.
Kael's vines reached through the tear, curling like tendrils of light into Astra's mirrored air. She gasped, stumbling back as her crystal trees absorbed the contact, their surfaces warping into impossible hybrid forms — part glass, part living root.
The contact lasted only seconds. Then the veil screamed — a tearing sound like all creation folding in on itself — and the worlds snapped apart.
Kael fell backward into the soil, the glow on his skin dimming. The ground trembled beneath him, angry, confused.
Astra collapsed to one knee, smoke rising from her gauntlet. Her visor flickered, showing static and ghostly images of a forest that wasn't hers.
Two worlds. Two creators.
And now, a bridge between them — broken, but not gone.
Kael stared into the horizon. "It felt alive," he whispered. "Who are you?"
Across the void, Astra whispered the same words. "Who are you?"
And in the unseen space between their worlds, something vast and ancient — the Watcher — stirred once again. Its wings spread wide across the void, unseen by either of them, yet very much awake.