Rayan's fingers trembled as he adjusted the frequency dial on the Temporal Compass. The needle inside ticked erratically, jerking between directions, refusing to settle. He stared at the readings: the rift was expanding.
Each time-travel event left behind an echo, and those echoes, like cracks in a frozen lake, were spreading—intersecting, bleeding into one another.
"Silas," he called out, his voice flat, "come here."
The young man hesitated but stepped closer, wide-eyed. He had been pacing nervously since arriving, his mind struggling to catch up with the consequences of what he had done.
"You said you ran the machine only once?" Rayan asked.
"Yes," Silas said quickly. "I didn't even mean to go far. I just pressed the sequence and—next thing I knew, I was outside your house."
"That shouldn't have created a fourth echo."
Silas blinked. "Then… what did?"
Rayan looked at the compass again.
A fifth signal had just appeared.
It was moving.
Amira stood at the edge of the garden, hands buried in the soil. Her sunflowers were wilting, though they'd been perfectly healthy days before. The leaves were yellowing in strange patterns—like fingerprints left by invisible hands.
She glanced at the sky.
For a moment, she saw two suns. One of them shimmered like glass and then vanished.
Reality was folding.
She clutched her chest. Not from pain—but from instinct. From the memory of a moment that hadn't happened yet.
Or had it?
That evening, Rayan placed a small device in the center of the living room. It looked like a bronze orb wrapped in coils. As he activated it, the orb floated upward and glowed faintly, casting a gentle hum through the room.
"Temporal stabilizer," he said. "It'll protect this property from collapsing… temporarily."
"How long is temporarily?" Amira asked.
"Days, maybe. Less if more fractures appear."
Silas sat on the couch, face pale. "I didn't mean to destroy the world."
Rayan didn't respond. He didn't need to. The weight of it already sat on the boy's shoulders like a lead coat.
But in truth, Rayan didn't blame him. Not entirely.
This was his own sin. He had built the first machine. He had disrupted the natural flow of time out of desperation. And now others were following the echo.
There would be more.
At 2:14 a.m., the alarms rang.
Rayan jolted awake, grabbing the compass. The needle pointed east. The fifth echo was no longer moving randomly—it was heading toward them.
Amira was already awake, clutching a blanket to her chest. "It's coming."
Rayan nodded grimly. "Pack a bag. We're leaving."
"What about the house?"
"I've set it to self-seal. It'll delay the collapse."
Silas stumbled down the stairs, having barely gotten any sleep since he arrived. "What's happening?"
"We've been found," Rayan said. "Or maybe… they're lost. Either way, it's not safe here anymore."
They drove through the dark countryside, rain falling in slow, heavy drops. It felt almost too slow—like the sky itself was trying to catch up to a time that didn't belong.
Amira sat in the back seat, holding Silas's hand. She looked out the window and saw her reflection flickering between ages. Young. Old. Sick. Healthy.
Time was no longer a straight line.
It was a circle unraveling from the center.
And somewhere at that center—was her.
They reached an abandoned observatory atop Windmere Hill. It had been closed down for years, ever since the solar flare incident. But Rayan had secretly reinforced it years ago, back when he'd first completed his project. It was meant to be a backup shelter in case something went wrong.
Now, it was their last hope.
Inside, machines hummed to life as he reconnected the stabilizer to the mainframe. Amira walked through the dust-covered dome, gazing up at the glass ceiling where stars peeked through.
"I used to come here as a girl," she said softly. "With my father."
Rayan turned toward her. "I didn't know that."
"You do now," she smiled faintly. "In this life."
By morning, the sixth echo arrived.
This time, it wasn't a person.
It was a tear.
A visible rip in space, floating above the field outside the observatory. It pulsed like a heartbeat, its edges glowing white and violet. Birds avoided it. The wind didn't blow near it.
Rayan stared at it through a drone camera feed.
"This is bad," he said simply.
"What is it?" Silas asked.
"It's the beginning of the collapse. If it stabilizes, it will draw the others toward it. Like a black hole for time."
"What happens then?"
"Then everything ends."
But Rayan had one more secret.
The backup core.
A second prototype of the time machine's heart. One that didn't allow travel—but allowed closure. A failsafe that could lock the timeline again. At a terrible price.
He looked at Amira.
She nodded.
They both knew.
That night, as Silas slept in the corner, Amira and Rayan sat beneath the stars.
"I remember everything now," she whispered. "The other you. The one who came back."
"I hoped you wouldn't," he said.
"I think I always did. Even when I didn't know. It was there. In the spaces between seconds."
She leaned her head against his shoulder.
"Do you regret it?" she asked.
"No," he said, kissing her hair. "I'd die a thousand times again, just to have one more day with you."
She smiled. "You already have."
At dawn, Rayan powered up the core.
Its red light bathed the entire dome.
Silas stirred awake, blinking against the light. "What is that?"
"It's the key to closing the fractures," Rayan said. "But it requires an anchor."
"An anchor?"
"Someone who is both a cause and a solution."
"Someone like you," Amira said gently.
Rayan looked at them both. "This is my responsibility. I broke time. I'll fix it."
"But you'll die," Silas said.
"No," Rayan replied. "I'll simply never have existed in this form."
The plan was simple.
Inject the stabilizer into the sixth echo.
Use the backup core to anchor it.
Let the universe mend the cracks.
And in exchange…
Erase the versions of Rayan that ever traveled through time.
Rayan stood before the rift, core in hand.
Amira held onto his other hand tightly.
"I love you," he whispered.
"I know," she whispered back. "And I always will."
He turned to Silas. "Don't follow in my footsteps. Build something that brings life, not loss."
Silas nodded, tears in his eyes.
And then Rayan stepped into the light.
The field pulsed.
The sky tore open with brilliance.
Then silence.
And then…
Everything was still.
Back at the observatory, Amira stood alone.
The storm had passed.
Silas emerged slowly, looking at her.
"…You okay?"
She smiled, a strange peace in her face.
"I will be."
She didn't cry.
Because somewhere, somehow—she could still feel his warmth in the morning sun.
The timelines had healed.
But the memory?
The memory would never leave her.
To be continue...