"What flows isn't water. It's memory clotting, history unravelling—rivers carrying what never should've been seen."
At 4:01 a.m., Nairobi River turned red. It suddenly became a red flood.
Not crimson like blood—but a luminous, shifting red, glowing with pulses that beat like a slow heart.
Eric stood at the upper banks with Tano beside him. Both were silent. Both observing, keenly.
The water made no sound as it flowed.
Not a ripple. Not a splash. Just a thick, slow slide, like oil… or something alive pretending to be liquid.
It was indeed liquid memory which was very toxic. The system made Eric aware of this through its prompt update again.
"[System Notification]"
"Phenomenon Class: Memory Spill Detected – Origin: Rift Vault 3 Leak."
Hazard Level: 5/5 – Liquid Memory Exposure is Psychotoxic.
"Do not touch. Do not breathe vapors. Do not stare too long."
But Eric couldn't look away because the river was calling him.
He ignored all the warnings given by the system just seconds ago. He kept staring.
In the water, he saw his own reflection—but it wasn't him. The reflection was older, scarred, eyes hollow.
Then the older Eric smiled—and whispered something only he could hear.
"You opened the first seal. That was a mistake."
A figure approached from the shadows beneath Kipande Bridge.
She walked barefoot. Her coat was stained with red. But not from the river. The red came from her own arms which were carved with thousands of tiny incisions.
She carried a metal case chained to her wrist.
"Do not speak unless you want to forget," Tano whispered. "That's a Keeper."
She was the Hydrologist keeper.
Eric stepped forward.
The woman stopped and stared at him.
"You've seen the Ice-Tongues," she rasped. "They made you bleed... inside your mind."
"Who are you?" Eric asked.
"Hydrologist Unit 49-C. We were tasked with burying the Rift Vault under nine million tons of concrete. But someone reopened it... you reopened it."
She held out the case.
"Inside this is a memory condenser mask. It lets you relive the moments trapped in the red water. You'll find a man. You'll find you. You'll find what we tried to forget."
"Why are you giving it to me?"
"Because I was supposed to be the Seeker. But I'm not stable anymore."
She smiled, and her teeth fell out—rotted by time-warp radiation.
Then she stepped backward… and into the river.
The red water welcomed her, pulling her under without a ripple. Not a single bubble rose.
Tano helped Eric fit the Memory Condenser Mask over his eyes. The inside was lined with bone, etched with glyphs.
"Only wear it for a few minutes," Tano warned. "More than that and you'll lose who you are."
Eric nodded and activated the mask. The forbidden mask!
Instantly, the world vanished.
Eric saw himself inside the Mask, but there he was someone else.
He was an old man—older, darker-skinned, wearing tactical gear with a sigil: "ARK UNIT 7 – Temporal Containment."
He was in a corridor lined with screaming people—not screaming from pain, but from knowing.
Each person whispered a date, over and over.
"March 15th, 2027… March 15th, 2027…"
But the date hadn't come yet.
The man, the older Eric, pushed into a steel room where three bodies floated in liquid stasis.
Again, one of the bodies was Eric.
And he was older. "How is this possible?" He asked.
"System Override: Glimpse Class – Identity Breakpoint,"
"Your body is in the present. Your mind is in a future they tried to lock away."
Then alarms sounded.
And the man in the memory—Eric's future self—looked straight at the mask viewer.
> "DON'T COME HERE. YOU WON'T SURVIVE THE 65th HOUR. THE SYSTEM LIES."
Then the memory shattered.
Eric tore the mask off, gasping. Seeing his future was draining enough.
When Eric came to, Tano was gone.
In his place stood a tall man wearing a shredded coat of church robes. His skin flickered like bad signal—part of him wasn't anchored in time.
"Seeker 04-02," the man said. "We have waited."
"Who are you?"
"I am one who has no Core Vow. I am what comes when belief collapses."
Eric stood slowly. His System pulsed a warning:
"[Entity Detected: Null Shepherd – Vowless Class. No known defense.]"
"Flee. There is no counter-pattern."
Null Shepherds are not villains.
They are survivors of broken timelines—souls who lost their Core Vow.
In this world, a Vow is what anchors your existence. Everyone has one, though they may not know it. It can be anything; from a mother's promise to protect her child, or a researcher's oath to preserve memory, to a madman's vow to destroy everything that outlived his love.
When that vow is broken or erased by the storms, the person becomes null—drifting between hours, incapable of dying, incapable of fully existing.
They are drawn to Seekers, feeding on memory, belief, and fate.
They can bend weather. Speak future languages. Walk backward through time.
But they cannot lie.
This one told Eric:
"You walk with a piece of the Architect's Key," the man said. "You awaken vaults you do not understand. And you carry the memory of one who was erased."
"You know about me?"
"I know you failed before. You were not supposed to return."
Then the man raised his hand and snapped his fingers.
Behind Eric, the red river froze in mid-air—then shattered.
The fragments floated around them like a shattered aquarium, each holding a scene from Eric's future:
A girl screaming his name as lightning tore the sky.
A city buried in black sand.
Eric, hanging by a cord of silver veins in a dark chamber… begging something not to activate Hour 1.
"You see now?" the Null Shepherd said. "Your hours are borrowed. They never belonged to you."
He vanished.
At 4:56 a.m., the earth beneath Nairobi River cracked.
A circular shaft opened, pulsing with light.
Tano returned, bleeding from his ears.
"The Rift Vault's protective barrier just failed."
"Why?"
"Because your mask woke up something buried beneath it."
"What?"
"Your name."
Eric looked down.
Etched into the newly revealed shaft's wall—thousands of feet below—was a giant symbol.
A sigil of the System.
And beneath it, in capital letters, was the name ERIC.
Not once. But a thousand times. In different scripts. In future languages.
"System Broadcast: Causal Loop Triggered." "Countdown Now Unstable."
"Hour 67 will be altered based on actions taken in Hour 68."
"WARNING: YOU ARE OFF-PATTERN."
"You are not supposed to be alive."
The earth trembled.
And from the shaft… something ancient began to crawl upward.