The whispers had followed Reed beyond the sanctuary's walls, threading through his damaged consciousness like golden chains binding him to impossible hope. Three weeks had passed since Shia's voice had reached him from beyond the Reality Firewall, and Reed had done nothing but chase that ethereal promise through every theoretical framework his vast intellect could devise.
The Laboratory of Lost Souls existed in a reality pocket of his own creation, hidden within the dimensional gaps that surrounded the Sanctuary of Broken Heroes. Here, beyond the watchful eyes of Kira and the sanctuary's monitoring systems, Reed had built something that would have horrified his former self—a place where the fundamental laws of existence could be bent, twisted, and if necessary, broken entirely.
