Aris felt a pull in his chest. Home. He didn’t know this place, but his bones did. He pressed his palm flat against the pane. The lock mechanism clicked.
“Aria,” he said to the apartment’s AI, his voice dry. “New screensaver?”
“Aris, don’t,” Kael whispered.
The update note on Aris’s screen read: Version 25H1. Stability improvements. Minor bug fixes.
Then the second wave of the update hit.
In the shard closest to his face, he saw the woman from the library. She was standing up now, her teacup forgotten, her eyes wide as she stared back at him. She raised her hand and pressed it against her side of the glass.
The overlay flickered again, a final line of text appearing in sharp red: Every window in the building went black. Then white. Then they shattered—not inward, but outward , exploding into a million shards that didn't fall. They hung in the air, each one a mirror, each one showing a different sky, a different life, a different version of Earth. 25h1 windows
Aris stood in the sudden wind, cut on his cheek, and realized the truth: they had not been looking out at other worlds.