POV: Aya
The world folded in on itself—once, sharply and then flung them into place.
They hit the ground hard. Aya kept her feet; Kael didn't.
He groaned behind her, coughing from impact. Aya didn't check—she knew he'd manage. He had to. The burst-trigger she'd used wasn't just rare. It was extinct. She had carried it for years like a lifeline, a one-use teleportation device meant for survival. Not for rescues. Certainly not for dragging unknown anomalies through half-dead timelines.
And yet here they were.
The base shuddered around them—a hybrid of lost tech and stolen architecture, built into a buried fragment of forgotten transit lines. The walls glowed faintly from residual chrono energy, with ghost-wires pulsing like veins along the stone. Time here didn't behave. It warped in slow circles, skipping moments and replaying seconds like a broken reel.
She turned to Kael, who had just started standing. "Don't puke," she said.
"Too late," he grumbled, holding his side.
She cracked the edge of a smile, then motioned him forward.
A few others were already approaching—the core crew.
"Let me do the talking," Aya said under her breath.
They emerged from deeper chambers like shadows peeling from walls. These were the ones Aya had fought beside. Escaped with. Some she trusted. Some she tolerated. All of them broken, like her.
Kael stood straight, scanning them quickly, but his hands stayed low—open.
The first to speak was Kura, lean and sharp-eyed, still wearing a shredded militia coat. "You used the burst-trigger? On him?"
Aya's chin lifted. "He moved forward. Voluntarily. Returned. And triggered a Pursuit Protocol. I had no time."
The glitching man beside Kura—Elrik—flickered into static and back. "He's unstable."
"He's new," Aya snapped. "But he's the reason I intercepted the Authority raid before they caught our last signal flare. So maybe let's not start with a death stare."
They fell quiet.
Kael looked between them, clearly aware he didn't belong—but not afraid. Just… tense. Intrigued.
Aya stepped aside. "This is Kael. He broke the forward barrier."
Murmurs stirred. Even Elrik paused mid-glitch.
Aya looked to Kael. "This place… It's where I ended up after I left the Time Authorities. Every one of them—" she gestured to the crew "—was a thread I found after I unraveled. Some of them were hunted. Some were lost in loops. A few, like Kura, barely made it out."
Kura didn't flinch at the name-drop. Aya kept going.
"We built this place to study time the way it really behaves. Not how the Time Authorities write it. We survive on fractures, on anomalies. We live where cause and effect crack open just wide enough to breathe."
Kael slowly nodded, still absorbing.
"I didn't plan to bring anyone else in," Aya said. "But you're a piece I didn't see coming."
Silence. Until Kura stepped forward again and gave a slow, guarded nod. "He'll need scanning."
"Already did a passive sweep," Aya said. "Clean. Chrono-marked but intact."
They let that stand.
Aya turned to Kael. "Come on. You need air."
She led him through a side corridor that blinked in and out of real alignment. Then, a twist—through a hidden archway—and they emerged onto the ruins of an abandoned surface, a platform bent under rusted metal and half-buried stone. This had once been a city hub. Now, it was just memory.
Above them, broken glass skylights shimmered in fractured evening. Pale light leaked in, slicing through floating dust.
Kael looked around. "You built all this from scratch?"
"No. We inherited most of it. But we modified the structure. Chrono-fields keep the walls from decaying too fast. They also shield us from Time Authority scanners… most of the time."
She let the quiet settle. Let him breathe.
Years ago
She had worn the gray.
She remembered the first time she activated a time-lock—the thrill of controlling the present like it was a dial. The Time Authorities praised her as a prodigy, the kind who could walk beside time and never get burned. They taught her that time needed protection. That anomalies were glitches. That only the Authority could restore order.
And she believed them.
Until the Ivory Mission.
That was the first time she was ordered to erase a child.
A six-year-old girl whose only mistake was seeing two versions of her mother in the same morning. Aya had argued—pleaded even. The child didn't fracture time. She was just in the wrong place.
But orders were orders.
Aya refused.
They sent others. The girl disappeared.
And Aya disappeared with her conscience burning through her veins.
She hadn't looked back. Not until now.
Kael stood beside a massive suspended ring—a fragment of an old time engine. Its surface rippled like water.
"What is this place?" he asked.
Aya didn't answer immediately.
She was still watching the people. Some of them glanced her way. A few nodded. One turned and walked off.
This wasn't a family. It was a fracture held together by shared danger.
Aya turned to Kael. "This place isn't meant to exist. None of us are. We were meant to be erased, fixed, or forgotten."
"Why are you showing me this?"
"Because you need to understand what you are now."
"I didn't ask for this—"
"No one does."
He paused. Then asked, quieter, "So what now?"
Aya looked away. "Now you decide what you'll do with it."
Later, they sat in a quieter section of the base. A former server room, still humming faintly with repurposed energy. Aya leaned against a wall, watching a flickering hologram of a spinning clock. Her hand rested on a small, old watch—cracked, unmoving. She hadn't wound it in years.
Kael sat across from her, eyes tired.
"You were with them," he said. "The Time Authorities."
She didn't flinch. "I was their favorite."
"What happened?"
Aya exhaled slowly. "I started listening to time. Not them."
Kael looked down. "Why are you helping me?"
Aya didn't answer immediately.
Because you remind me of who I was before I broke.
Because I don't want you to become what they fear you'll become.
Because… maybe I don't want to be alone in this anymore.
She swallowed the answers.
"Because if I don't help you," she said instead, "they'll rip you apart."
They sat in silence a while longer.
Kael fidgeted. "They'll come again, won't they?"
Aya nodded. "You embarrassed them."
"Good."
She looked at him, searching his face. "That confidence will get you killed."
"You don't think I can handle them?"
"I think you haven't realized what kind of war you're in."
He looked at her again—seriously this time. "Then teach me."
Aya studied him.
He meant it.
Something settled in her chest. Heavy. Familiar. Dangerous.
"All right," she said finally. "Tomorrow, we begin."
But even as she said it, a whisper stirred at the edge of her thoughts.
She'd felt it during the last jump—just a flicker. A tremor. Like something watching from beyond the standard weave of time.
She hadn't told Kael yet.
She didn't dare.
Because if what she feared was true, Kael wasn't just a target.
He was bait.