The nausea came without warning. Jas doubled over, clutching their stomach, as a wave of dizziness hit. They could smell something acrid, almost like burnt sugar, and their vision blurred, splitting into double images.
“Ivy Mae!” Roman’s voice sounded distant.
Jas blinked hard, trying to focus. In their mind’s eye, they saw shapes—metal buildings slumping like melted wax, then reforming in an instant. Was it a memory? A vision? A warning?
Then the words came, disembodied, like a whisper from another time:
"They thought they had won. With their algorithms, their artificial wealth, and their cryptographic chains of digital control, they moved nations like pieces on a board. The market was theirs to manipulate, the people theirs to distract. But hubris is a blindfold, and greed has no patience."
The images shifted. A sea of glowing numbers flickered across their mind—bitcoin wallets drained, market graphs plunging, digital fortresses crumbling from within. Jas gasped. It wasn’t a memory. It was a collapse.
"The wealthiest players were the weakest link."
Jas’s knees hit the ground. They saw it now—cities abandoned overnight, power shifting not to governments but to those who had predicted the fall. The Oligarchs had set their own trap, and their greed had sprung it.
"And so the Oligarchs fell—not by revolution, nor by war, but by their own hands."
When they opened their eyes, Ivy Mae was standing over them, worry etched on her face. “Are you okay? You just...collapsed.”
Jas swallowed hard, the acrid taste still sharp in their mouth. They didn’t know how they knew these things, or why the words felt burned into their mind like a brand. But one thing was clear.
The past wasn’t done with them yet.