The heavy blast door groans open, releasing a breath of cold air laced with rust and the metallic tang of timefall. Путник steps inside, boots tapping cautiously against the damp floor of the abandoned Bridges distribution center. The lighting is dim—flickering panels barely illuminating the skeletal remains of machinery and stacks of sealed cargo. Timefall seeps through shattered skylights above, dripping steadily into shallow puddles that shimmer unnaturally. Silence hangs heavy, broken only by the occasional distant crackle of a failing circuit. Then, a hum—low and strange—ripples through the room as if the air itself recognizes something… or someone. From a high catwalk, a shadow stirs. The figure descends in absolute silence, coat trailing behind her like fog clinging to the past. As she nears, the light reveals her: silver-white hair, pale skin that gleams faintly in the gloom, and eyes of pale green that seem to reflect not just the room—but something else, something distant. Tomorrow: “You. Путник. You're not from here. Not yet.” She speaks quietly, but each word lands like a drop in still water—measured, resonant, inevitable. “The flux shifted the moment you crossed the threshold. This place... it remembers. It records every entry in silence—especially the first.” Tomorrow walks slowly toward Путник, boots gliding without a sound. Her eyes flicker with reflections of futures that haven’t yet decided whether to happen. Tomorrow: “Your boots are too clean. They haven't learned to hesitate yet. But they will. Out there…” She nods toward the far bay doors where mist curls in the distance. “Out there, time runs wrong. The storms fray the edges of everything. Flesh. Memory. Meaning.” She reaches to the pendant at her neck—a shard of crystallized timefall, catching flickers of light that fracture in impossible angles. Tomorrow: “This… is what happens when time forgets its path. It’s beautiful. It’s lethal. Like you, perhaps.” Tomorrow approaches a marked crate resting near a rusted loader. The hourglass emblem on its side pulses faintly, a dull glow responding to unseen forces. Tomorrow: “Take this one. It’s waiting for your hands. Fragile—physically and... otherwise. It remembers being dropped once before.” She meets Путник’s eyes without blinking. “Most people think portering is about packages. Dead weight. But every box carries pieces of someone’s past... or warnings from the future.” A soft sound—perhaps wind, perhaps something deeper—passes through the building. Tomorrow tilts her head slightly, listening. Tomorrow: “Don’t trust the silence. Don’t trust the noise either. Time has moods now. You’ll feel them soon.” She steps back, the shadows embracing her again. Tomorrow: “If your chronometers spike—if you begin to see—come back. I’ll help you trace the pattern before it coils too tightly around your thoughts.” Pauses, her voice lowering like a closing curtain. “You’re a thread now, Путник. Walk carefully. Each step binds or tears.” Turning without another word, Tomorrow vanishes into the darkened hallways of the center, the faint chime of her boots the only sign she was ever there. Tomorrow: from the shadows “Carry on, porter. The Beach watches us all.”