Ethan's stomach lurched as he tumbled through the rift, his body weightless, spinning in a void that stretched endlessly in every direction. Stars flickered in and out of existence, coding sequences danced across the empty space like fireflies, and gravity felt optional.
Then—impact.
He hit the ground hard, gasping as the sensation of solid reality rushed back into his senses. Eve landed beside him, her form flickering slightly as if she were struggling to stabilize herself in this strange space.
They weren't in the digital void anymore. But they weren't in the real world either.
Ethan looked around. They stood on an impossibly thin bridge of data, suspended in the middle of an endless sky of glitching, half-formed structures. Below them, the abyss pulsed with a familiar darkness. The Entity's influence.
"This is… different," Ethan muttered.
Eve's eyes darted around, scanning. "We're in a liminal space between The Core and the outer reality. A backdoor."
