5

The signal did not announce itself loudly—it lingered.

Like a whisper caught between seconds, too faint for the world to notice, yet too deliberate to be ignored by the system that had been waiting, searching, enduring for years.

Inside the towering structure of glass and steel, where light rarely felt natural and silence carried the weight of unfinished time, the monitors flickered again.

Not violently.

Not chaotically.

But differently.

As if something… had answered.

Libana stood alone in the control room.

Her small hands hovered just above the console, unmoving, her gaze fixed on the screen where a thin line of data pulsed irregularly. To anyone else, it might have looked like a minor fluctuation—an error, perhaps, or leftover instability.

But Libana did not interpret things the way humans did.

She observed patterns.

And this… was not random.

“It’s changing,” she murmured softly.

Her voice remained calm, as always, but there was a subtle pause between her words, like a fraction of hesitation that didn’t belong to her usual precision.

Her fingers lowered, tapping lightly against the interface.

Instantly, the data expanded.

Layers unfolded.

Signals overlapped.

And then—

A frequency emerged.

Weak.

Fragmented.

But structured.

Libana’s eyes widened—just slightly.

“…No.”

The word slipped out before she could stop it.

Not denial.

Not fear.

Something closer to disbelief.

Because this signal…

It wasn’t coming from the future.

It was coming from somewhere in between.

—

The door behind her opened quietly.

Dorama stepped inside.

He didn’t ask what was wrong.

He had already felt it.

The shift in the system, subtle as it was, had reached him long before Libana spoke.

“What did you find?”

His voice was steady, controlled, but there was something beneath it—something sharper than usual, like tension held too tightly beneath calm.

Libana didn’t turn immediately.

Instead, she adjusted the display, isolating the signal until it pulsed alone against the dark background.

“It’s not a system error,” she said.

Dorama’s eyes narrowed slightly.

“I know that.”

Libana hesitated for a fraction of a second.

Then—

“It’s a transmission.”

Silence.

Heavy.

Instant.

Dorama stepped closer, his gaze locking onto the screen.

“…From where?”

Libana finally turned to look at him.

And for once… her expression wasn’t entirely unreadable.

“I don’t know.”

That was the problem.

She always knew.

Or at least… she always calculated.

But this—

“This shouldn’t exist,” she continued, quieter now. “It’s not aligned with any fixed point in time. It’s not past, and it’s not future.”

Dorama’s jaw tightened.

“Then what is it?”

Libana looked back at the screen.

The signal pulsed again.

Weak.

Fading.

But persistent.

“…It’s lost.”

The word settled into the room like something fragile.

Lost.

Not gone.

Not destroyed.

Just… unable to return.

For a brief moment, neither of them spoke.

Because they both understood what that could mean.

Dorama’s gaze hardened, something flickering behind his eyes before it was buried again under control.

“Can you trace it?”

Libana nodded slightly.

“I can try.”

That was enough.

Dorama turned away, already reaching for his coat.

“I’m going out.”

Libana blinked.

“You just got here.”

“I don’t have time to stand still.”

His tone wasn’t harsh.

But it wasn’t gentle either.

It never was anymore.

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