The mansion went dark.
Every light.
Every screen.
Every system.
Gone.
For one endless second, darkness swallowed everything.
Then emergency power activated.
Red lights flickered to life throughout the room.
Casting long shadows across the walls.
Nobody spoke.
Because nobody knew what to say.
The transmission was gone.
But its final words remained.
They Found You.
Elena stood motionless.
Her heartbeat loud in her ears.
Across from her, Alessandro's expression had become dangerously unreadable.
The kind of expression people learned to fear.
"Valentina."
His voice cut through the silence.
"Status."
A brief pause.
Then—
"I have no status."
That immediately got everyone's attention.
"What does that mean?" Adrian asked.
"It means I have no data."
The AI sounded disturbed.
Which should have been impossible.
"All records of the transmission have disappeared."
Silence.
"Gone?"
Elena asked.
"Yes."
"Deleted?"
"No."
Another pause.
"It is as if they never existed."
Nobody liked that answer.
Not even slightly.
Iris looked pale.
"That shouldn't be possible."
Valentina responded instantly.
"I am becoming increasingly tired of hearing that phrase."
For once—
nobody argued with her.
Because impossible things kept happening.
And every time they did, the consequences seemed to grow larger.
Elena walked toward one of the dark screens.
Nothing.
No symbol.
No warning.
No trace.
Yet she knew what she had seen.
All of them did.
"Original status: deceased."
The words escaped her before she realized she had spoken.
The room became still.
Because that message had frightened everyone.
Not because it mentioned death.
Because it implied something else.
A different timeline.
A different future.
One where she never survived.
Iris slowly lowered herself into a chair.
"I need access to your records."
"No."
Alessandro's answer was immediate.
She looked up sharply.
"If what that message said is true—"
"It doesn't matter."
His voice remained calm.
Cold.
Absolute.
"No one is accessing her information."
Iris opened her mouth.
Then stopped.
Because there was no point arguing.
Everyone in the room knew it.
Elena glanced at him briefly.
Part of her appreciated the protectiveness.
Another part knew they needed answers.
"We need to understand what happened."
Alessandro looked at her.
His eyes softer than his voice.
"I know."
The words hung there.
Because he wasn't refusing to help.
He was refusing to let anyone treat her like an experiment.
There was a difference.
Suddenly—
Valentina interrupted.
"Wait."
Everyone turned.
"What is it?" Adrian asked.
The AI remained silent for two seconds.
Three.
Then—
"I found something."
The tension in the room sharpened instantly.
"Show us."
A single screen flickered back to life.
This time displaying only one file.
One recording.
Timestamped twelve seconds before the blackout.
The beginning of the transmission.
"Play it."
The video activated.
Static filled the display.
Then the strange symbol appeared.
Nothing new.
Nothing unexpected.
Until the image froze.
Valentina zoomed in.
Closer.
Closer.
The symbol expanded across the screen.
Elena frowned.
Because it wasn't actually a symbol.
Not entirely.
It was made of smaller shapes.
Thousands of them.
Interwoven together.
Like a massive structure viewed from impossible distance.
"That's not writing," Iris whispered.
Nobody answered.
Because they were beginning to realize the same thing.
It wasn't a message.
It was a map.
The room fell silent again.
Valentina isolated sections of the image.
Rotating them.
Enhancing them.
Slowly revealing details hidden inside the pattern.
Coordinates.
Not Earth coordinates.
Something larger.
Much larger.
Adrian stared.
"Please tell me that's not what I think it is."
Nobody did.
Because it was exactly what he thought it was.
A star chart.
An enormous one.
The symbol wasn't a warning.
It wasn't language.
It was a location.
A destination.
Or worse—
an origin.
Valentina's voice lowered.
"There is more."
Nobody liked those words anymore.
"Show us."
A section of the chart illuminated.
One point glowing brighter than the others.
A single star system.
Far beyond anything humanity could currently reach.
Far beyond anything they could even properly observe.
Yet beside that point—
a marker appeared.
A familiar marker.
The same symbol that had represented Earth in Iris's records.
Except this one wasn't beside Earth.
It was beside the unknown system.
Elena stared.
"What does that mean?"
Iris answered before anyone else could.
Her voice barely above a whisper.
"It means Earth wasn't the first."
Silence.
Heavy.
Dangerous.
Earth wasn't the first.
Not the first civilization.
Not the first signal.
Not the first world to be noticed.
A cold feeling settled in Elena's chest.
Because suddenly—
the warning made sense.
Do not respond.
It hadn't been directed at humanity.
It had been directed at someone else.
Someone who had already gone through this.
Someone who knew what came after.
The realization sent a chill through the room.
And before anyone could speak—
another message appeared on the screen.
Not from the recording.
Live.
Fresh.
One sentence.
Only six words.
THE COUNTDOWN HAS ALREADY BEGUN.
This time—
nobody doubted it was meant for them.