Ryder felt a chill crawl down his spine.
"A shadow?" he repeated slowly. "You expect me to believe that breaking this… Chronos Shard released some kind of ancient monster?"
Anya shook her head.
"Not a monster," she said quietly. "Something worse."
The lights above them flickered.
Just once.
Then again.
Both of them looked up.
The museum hall, normally bright and pristine, seemed to dim for a brief second as if the air itself had blinked.
Ryder frowned. "Tell me that's just bad wiring."
Anya didn't answer.
Her eyes had moved past him, toward the glass case holding the jade hummingbird.
The tiny statue had begun to vibrate.
Very slightly.
Almost like a heartbeat.
"That's impossible," Anya whispered.
Ryder turned.
The hummingbird's wings shimmered faintly with a pale green glow. The artifact had been still for decades—just another forgotten relic catalogued and archived.
But now the air around it warped faintly, like heat rising from a road.
Then something else happened.
A shadow appeared on the wall behind the display case.
But it didn't match anything in the room.
The security guard was at the other end of the hall.
The lights were above them.
Yet the shadow stretched long across the marble floor—thin, tall, and shifting like smoke.
Ryder instinctively stepped closer to Anya.
"Please tell me you see that."
"I do," she said.
"And that's bad, right?"
"Very."
The jade hummingbird suddenly rang with a high metallic chime.
CRACK.
A thin fracture spread across the glass display case.
The security alarm instantly blared through the museum.
Red lights began flashing along the ceiling.
The guard shouted from down the hall.
"Hey! Step away from the exhibit!"
But Ryder barely heard him.
Because the shadow on the wall had begun to move.
Not sliding.
Not stretching.
Moving.
Like something trying to push through a door that was only half-open.
Anya grabbed Ryder's arm suddenly.
"We have to go."
"The alarms are going off!" he said. "We'll be arrested in thirty seconds!"
"Arrested is the best outcome if we stay."
The crack in the glass spread wider.
Another chime echoed through the hall.
And then—
The jade hummingbird opened its wings.
Ryder stared in disbelief.
"That thing is not supposed to—"
The glass case exploded outward.
A burst of green light filled the hall.
When the light faded, the hummingbird was gone.
And the shadow on the wall had grown larger.
Much larger.
Anya's voice dropped to a terrified whisper.
"It's starting sooner than I thought."
"What is?" Ryder demanded.
She looked straight at him.
"The unraveling."
From the broken display case, a small object slid across the marble floor and stopped at Ryder's feet.
It was a fragment.
A shard of glowing green crystal.
The Chronos Shard had just awakened.
And somewhere in the darkness of time—
Something had noticed.