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Chapter 3: The Bleeding Glacier

  The ice was learning.

  Elias realized it when he found Jenkins in the supply tent, methodically arranging their canned food into perfect Fibonacci spirals. The boy’s fingers left blue smudges on the tin labels—the same shade as the sample in the lead-lined box.

  "It’s teaching me," Jenkins whispered. "The patterns… they’re in the bonds."

  


      
  1. The Coffee Cup Test (Thermodynamic Violation)

      Eleanor set her mug on the ice sample. The coffee froze instantly—but the mug’s handle burnedher fingers.


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  "Heat’s not disappearing," she hissed, shaking her hand. "It’s being moved. Like a thief stealing from one pocket to fill another."*

  Rourke eyed the frost creeping up the tent poles. "So it’s magic ice now?"

  "No." Elias pointed to the condensation forming upside-down on the ceiling. "It’s a topological cheat. The ice defines what ‘cold’ and ‘hot’ even mean here."

  


      
  1. The Blood Mirror (Biological Corruption)

      Jenkins pricked his finger, dripping blood onto the ice. The red cells shattered like glass, rearranging into a silver lattice.


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  "Hemoglobin shouldn’t do that," Eleanor said.

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  "It’s not hemoglobin anymore." Elias adjusted the microscope. "It’s building fractal hemoglobin—each cell smaller, more efficient. Like Russian nesting dolls made of oxygen."

  Jenkins touched the blood-ice. "Pretty."

  


      
  1. The Radioactive Whisper (Quantum Echo)

      The team’s Geiger counter crackled near the sample—not from radiation, but from words:


  2.   


  "…wrong isotope…" (Elias, yesterday)

  "…kill it with fire…" (Rourke, an hour ago)

  "It’s not recording us," Eleanor realized. "It’s echoing versions of us from other timelines."

  Kettering arrived as the ice began bleeding—viscous blue droplets welling from its surface like sweat. He caught one in a vial, where it swam against gravity.

  "You’ve met the Fragaria abyssi, I see." He stirred the droplet with a silver needle. "Its roots drink time. Its fruit is knowledge."*

  "Bullshit," Rourke said.

  Kettering smiled. "Then why does your shadow have teeth?"*

  "Jenkins?" he calls into the storm.

  The reply comes from every direction at once: "Not anymore."

  The team splits:

  Elias follows Kettering into the glacier’s luminous veins, where the ice sings in chorded chemistry.

  Eleanor stays to dissect Jenkins’ rewritten DNA, finding equations where his genes should be.

  Rourke prepares for war—but the enemy is already inside the walls.

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