They stepped inside together.
The world outside was still screaming. Helicopters roared overhead. Sirens pulsed in waves. The heavy pounding of soldiers' boots echoed faintly through the neighborhood. But in here, the noise was muffled, almost distant, like it couldn't fully breach the safety of their home.
Lin Feng felt the warmth of the house wrap around him—a strange contrast to the chaos outside. The familiar scent of jasmine tea hung faintly in the air, mixing with the cool night breeze that had slipped through the open door.
The living room looked exactly the same as when he had left. The same couch, the small wooden table, the framed pictures on the walls. The calm of the house clashed violently against what his mind had just endured.
The television was already on, displaying the same terrifying images that filled every screen outside. Tower after tower. Each city. Each country. Perfectly identical structures reaching endlessly into the sky, vanishing into clouds and beyond.
The news anchors spoke rapidly, their voices blending with the bold red emergency banners flashing across the bottom of the screen. The global emergency council had already convened. Experts debated their theories in real-time—alien technology, divine judgment, unknown dimensional breaches.
None of them knew the truth.
But Lin Feng knew.
It wasn't aliens.
It wasn't gods.
It was something else.
Something ancient.
He stood silently near the entrance, taking everything in as if he were still not fully there. His mind was torn between two worlds—the impossible one he had just walked through, and the familiar one he was somehow back in.
Zhao Wen, his father, was seated at the edge of the couch. His normally composed face was tight, pale, as his eyes remained fixed on the television. Even with his tie loosened, his shirt slightly wrinkled from rushing home, he looked like a man desperately trying to hold on to structure while everything crumbled outside.
Mei Lin stood near the window, her arms crossed, watching the flashing lights of emergency vehicles dancing against the neighboring buildings. Her sharp eyes, always filled with analytical fire, were trying to make sense of what no science could yet explain. She had spent years studying the mind—its patterns, its mysteries—but tonight, even her disciplined mind struggled to wrap around the scale of this.
They were both brilliant, calm, steady parents. But neither of them had answers tonight.
Lin Feng's sister, Lin Xiu, still clung tightly to his arm. She hadn't let go since they found him. Her eyes were red, but her breathing had finally begun to slow.
She was fifteen. Bright, creative, always sketching creatures in her notebooks—wolves with wings, dragons twisting through clouds, wild animals made of fire and shadows. But all that was just imagination. Innocent fantasy. She was still a child standing in a world that had just broken its own rules.
He had always protected her, quietly, without ever letting her see the full weight of it. She never knew how many times he had stood between her and the world. And now, she held on to him like he was the only stable thing left.
The house, once their sanctuary, now felt impossibly small. The television continued to blare.
Across the screen, live footage showed world leaders speaking behind thick wooden podiums, military vehicles surrounding the towers, drones scanning endlessly, and scientists in hazmat suits examining samples they couldn't understand.
Mei Lin finally broke the heavy silence.
"Ten twenty," she whispered, glancing at the digital clock on the wall. "You left at nine. You were gone for an hour and twenty minutes."
Lin Feng didn't react.
He had already noticed it outside.
He had already done the math.
He simply stared at the screen, his mind heavy with the impossible weight of what he had lived.
Inside that place—inside the tower—he had walked for what felt like hours. He had wandered endless black corridors, stood before a tree that shouldn't exist, spoken to something ancient that had no face, only questions.
And yet, here, only eighty minutes had passed.
Time had broken its rules.
He couldn't explain it. Not yet. Not here.
Because how could he possibly explain what he had seen? Who would believe it?
Outside, the world still panicked. Police controlled the streets, soldiers barked orders, and the giant black tower stood unmovable above it all. In every city across the planet, the same tower had risen, as if orchestrated by something far beyond human comprehension.
Lin Feng stood silently, breathing slowly, as one thought echoed through his mind.
The tower was real.
And this…
This was only the beginning.