The five-minute window was not a countdown to destruction, but a threshold of transformation. During those five minutes, everyone on the planet was given the same opportunity that the monks in Tibet had been offered. Everyone could feel the approach of the ancient consciousnesses, could sense the changing nature of reality, could perceive the choices available to them.
Sarah stood in the monastery in Tibet, surrounded by transformation, and she understood that her next action would determine not just her own fate, but potentially the fate of millions. Whatever she chose would ripple outward, influencing others, creating precedents that would shape how humanity responded to the approaching change.
"If I merge," Sarah said to Marcus, or what had been Marcus, "will I still be myself?"
"The
