The air in the gym didn't just smell like sweat; it smelled like ozone and a glitch in reality.
The Tevvez remix surged through the speakers, a crushing wall of hardstyle bass that felt like a physical weight. As the vocals—Alec Benjamin’s haunting, fragile plea—spiraled through the air, the gym walls began to fracture.
Elias stood before the heavy bag, but his reflection in the floor-to-ceiling mirror wasn’t mirroring him. It was three seconds ahead. In the glass, the "other" Elias was already mid-swing, his movements blurred by a rhythmic, neon-blue static that pulsed to a beat only he could hear. Then, the drop hit.
He didn't want a soft landing. He wanted the burn. He pushed off the crumbling reality, soaring through the Parallel Universe, a lone figure silhouetted against a sky of pulsing waveforms. As the final kick-drum faded, the neon bled back into fluorescent white.
"Don't cut me down, throw me out, leave me here to waste," the lyrics echoed, now warped into a digital roar.
With every kick, the floor beneath Elias dissolved. He wasn't in a suburban gym anymore. He was suspended in the "In-Between," a void where every regret he’d ever had manifested as towering, obsidian pillars. This was his sanctuary—the place where the music allowed him to outrun his own gravity.