The world snapped back in pieces.
Kael collapsed onto a cracked tile floor, the air thick and hot like a furnace had just shut off. His hands trembled against the surface—sweat-slicked, numb, barely feeling real. The tile beneath him was chipped and scorched, part of it rippling as if not sure it wanted to stay a floor.
His breath came in shallow gasps.
Too fast. Too fast.
He rolled onto his back, blinking hard. The sky—or what should have been sky—arched above in shifting layers of concrete and rusted metal. The space around him echoed like a tunnel, but no sound had caused it. Lights flickered in rhythms that didn't belong. Kael's vision blurred. He was cold and burning at once.
Somewhere behind him, he heard the snap of a device being adjusted—metal against metal, fast, precise. He turned, slowly.
Aya stood in the middle of the flickering hallway, one knee down, her hand gripping a chrome, spindle-like tool that pulsed with violet light. She didn't look at him.
She didn't have to.
"You okay?" she asked flatly, eyes still on the stabilizer.
Kael couldn't speak. He sat up, clutching his ribs. Pain flared. He'd hit something during the escape—he didn't even remember what. His shirt stuck to his skin with sweat, and his heartbeat wouldn't settle.
"I—" he finally choked. "What… what the hell just happened?"
The walls rippled again. A broken sign flickered into existence: "West 16th Platform – 1959." Then it vanished.
Aya stood.
"This pocket won't hold," she said. "Two minutes, maybe less."
Kael stared at her, breathing hard. "They were about to kill me."
Aya turned. For the first time since they landed, she looked at him. Really looked.
"They weren't trying to catch you, Kael," she said quietly. "They were trying to bait me."
The words struck harder than the fall.
Kael's mind scrambled for meaning. "Bait you? Why—"
She held up a hand. "Don't ask questions you're not ready to hear answers to."
"No," he snapped. "You don't get to pull me out of a death trap and drop cryptic lines like you're in a spy movie. What the hell is going on?"
Aya looked tired. Not weak—but weighed down, like she'd been carrying truths for too long.
"I used to be one of them," she said. "Time Authorities. Back when they still believed in preserving time. Before they started twisting it."
Kael's lips parted, but nothing came out. He felt a chill crawl down his spine.
"You're saying you… defected?"
Aya nodded once. "Long story. One you don't need yet."
"But they wanted me," Kael muttered. "I've barely done anything. Why are they even—"
"You've already changed too much," she cut in. "You don't see it yet, but you will."
Suddenly, the hallway shuddered. Sparks burst from a broken panel near the ceiling. A pipe began to whistle, leaking something cold and colorless.
Aya grabbed Kael's arm.
"No more time. Move."
She pulled him up, and pain lanced through his side. He stumbled after her, still groggy, still trembling.
The world fractured again.
One step—he was walking through a hallway of broken train benches.
Another—he stepped into a field of yellow grass under a blackened sky.
Then a kitchen. Then a rooftop. Then nothing but light.
Kael felt his insides twist.
He wanted to scream. He didn't.
Aya gripped his hand tighter, dragging him across thin slices of time stitched together by barely-there bridges of light. They ran through an echo of the café—only it was burnt, abandoned, its walls covered in glitching clocks.
They ran through a version of his street—but every house was gone.
They ran until the world collapsed behind them into static.
They landed hard.
Kael dropped to his knees, coughing, shaking. He smelled oil. Dust. Time.
He looked up.
The space was underground—huge and broken, made of stolen things. A tunnel bent in two, a library half-filled with empty books, a staircase that led to nowhere. Light hung in the air like fog, and the walls pulsed like lungs.
Aya stood above him, unscathed.
Kael turned, still gasping, still raw, and saw people.
Four. No—five.
They stood like statues, watching him.
The first was a girl—young but her eyes were far too old. The second wore a military coat and a thousand-yard stare. One man glitched every few seconds—face replaced by static, then back again. Another looked like she hadn't slept in years.
Aya spoke without turning.
"He's with me."
One of the figures stepped forward. "You brought him here? You know what that means, Aya."
Aya's voice didn't waver. "He crossed their threshold. He saw too much."
Kael staggered to his feet. "Saw what?"
"You're not like us," the girl said. Her voice was soft. "You're worse."
Kael blinked. "Thanks?"
She tilted her head. "You can move forward."
Silence.
Kael's stomach dropped. "What?"
Aya's eyes met his. For the first time, her voice softened too.
"Most of us are stuck. Locked in loops. We navigate the cracks, yes—but we're still bound to what was."
"But you…" She stepped closer. "You went forward. You returned. That breaks every rule we know."
Kael didn't speak. His chest rose and fell fast, breath shallow. He didn't understand. Not fully. But he knew something now:
He was different.
Aya walked past him, toward the back wall—a massive board made of pulsing memory threads and shifting blueprints. Kael followed slowly.
One section glowed white-hot, then dimmed. Entire lines of time were missing.
"Something's feeding on time itself," she whispered. "Whole decades. Gone."
Kael stared at the blank space. "What could do that?"
Aya didn't answer.
Later, Kael sat alone in a looping room—the sun always rising through cracked blinds. He stared at the floor, still sweating, still shaking, but calmer now.
Behind one of the walls, he heard a voice whisper:
"If he's really seen the future… he'll lead us to it."