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Chapter 35: The Watchers
Zak Carter drifted through endless nothingness.
He no longer had a body. No form. No weight.
Just consciousness.
Time no longer had meaning.
He wasn’t sure if he had been here for seconds… or millennia.
But he wasn’t alone.
The Watchers were here.
And they had been waiting.
The Forgotten Council
Shapes began to form around Zak—vast figures, towering beyond comprehension.
They weren’t physical.
They weren’t entirely energy, either.
They existed in a way Zak’s mind struggled to process.
One of them spoke.
"Zak Carter, you have breached the cycle."
Zak’s thoughts surged with a thousand questions.
Where was he?Who were they?Had he… died?
The being’s presence pressed against his mind.
"You are not dead. But you are no longer bound to your world."
Zak tried to move. He couldn’t.
"You interfered with an ancient war. The Architects. The Banished Ones. You believed you chose a side."
Zak felt his mind reel.
He had thought he understood.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
He had thought the conflict was simple.
But the Watchers were telling him otherwise.
"There were never only two sides, Zak Carter. The Architects and the Banished Ones were both blind to the truth. They believed they shaped the universe."
The space around him shuddered.
"But we have always been here."
Zak’s consciousness trembled.
"Watching."
EOSA’s Hidden Fear
Dr. Raines tapped his fingers against his desk, staring at the encrypted files flashing across his screen.
EOSA had stopped looking for Zak.
Officially, at least.
But in secret…
A group of engineers were still tracking an anomaly.
Something was moving beyond their detection range.
Something they had never seen before.
A pattern.
A frequency.
Zak Carter’s energy signature.
It wasn’t gone.
It was changing.
And it was returning.
The Dominion’s Panic
Agent Connors gripped the edge of the war table, his expression grim.
“What do you mean he’s still out there?”
The analyst swallowed. “His energy displacement was never fully erased. Something—or someone—is maintaining it.”
Connors’ jaw tightened.
He had assumed Zak Carter was dead.
But if he was still active…
Then he wasn’t human anymore.
And that meant one thing.
He was becoming something else.
Zak’s Test
The Watchers surrounded Zak.
"You are no longer bound to the laws of your world. You exist beyond the material realm. But your mind still clings to human limitations."
Zak felt his thoughts unraveling.
He saw memories shifting.
His childhood.His wife.His children.
"Let them go."
Zak struggled.
No.
No, he wouldn’t.
"The past is an illusion, Zak Carter. You stand at the edge of infinity. You can either become… or be erased."
Zak’s consciousness trembled.
"Make your choice."
Zak felt the weight of existence itself pressing down on him.
If he let go…
He would become something greater.
But if he held on…
Would he be destroyed?
Or would he be the first to resist?
Zak took a final breath.
And then—
He made his choice.