"Why don't you just go back to your life?" I asked Arthur.
He let out a sharp breath, somewhere between a scoff and a laugh. "What sort of daft question is that?"
I opened my mouth, but he waved it off like I wasn't worth the effort.
"I told you already. I'm not built for normal anymore. Time doesn't hold me like it holds you. I move through it wrong. Like a splinter. Can't settle too long or things bend around me. Doesn't end well."
His voice didn't change, but something behind it tightened.
"I'm not immortal. Not invincible. Just… untethered. Maybe I'm above humans, but not above what made me this way."
"So your life's properly fucked then?"
He gave me a tired grin. "Neck-deep in shit, yeah."
Then he held out his hand. "Keys."
I didn't move. I didn't want to watch my car get destroyed by a time-travelling lunatic with a shotgun and emotional trauma shaped like a black hole.
I hesitated. Gripped the keys tighter.
He noticed. Of course he did.
Arthur raised an eyebrow. "You serious?"
"It's a new car," I muttered.
"You just got saved from extradimensional parasites by a bloke who's technically died five times," he said, dry as dust. "And this is the hill you want to die on?"
I looked at the keys. Then at him. Then back again.
Eventually, I handed them over like I was giving away a limb.
Arthur smirked. "Good lad."
We stepped outside. The night had changed. Not colder—just wrong. Still, but not peacefully. The sky above looked flatter than it should. Almost oily.
The house behind us sagged, like whatever was left inside was rotting from the inside out. The Dusk Society weren't hanging around.
Arthur slid into the driver's seat like the car had always been his. I barely had the door closed before we were moving.
"Where are we going?" I asked.
"To find Ethan," he said. "Or what's left of him."
I stared ahead. "Jesus."
"If you're gonna pray," Arthur said without blinking, "pick something older."
We sped through the backroads of Ashmoore, headlights cutting through thick fog that clung like cobwebs. Arthur drove like someone who'd already died and didn't mind trying again.
After a while, I asked, "You keep talkin' about this Rathadium thing. What the hell is it?"
Arthur tilted his head slightly, as if weighing how much to tell me.
"It's not a substance," he said. "Not something you mine or inject or bottle. Rathadium's pressure. It's what's left behind when timelines collide."
"A what?"
"There are places outside time. Not ahead, not behind—outside. One of them's what we call the Dusk Society. Not its real name. It doesn't have one. It's a rip. A fracture running alongside our reality."
"That's the Dusk Society?"
"No. That's the hole. Inside it, there are factions. Dozens. Some want to remake us. Others want to wipe us out. They don't agree on much, but they all agree we're dangerous. Or useful. Or both."
I didn't speak. I didn't really know what to say.
Arthur continued, his voice low and steady. "Rathadium forms when someone's birth crosses one of those ripples in time. You get marked. Most people never know. But they do. The Society. They feel it. Like a splinter under their skin."
"And I'm one of them?"
"You're not just marked," Arthur said. "You're bloody loud. That box you found, the accident—that wasn't random. That was ignition. They didn't plant it. It found you."
"And you?"
"I've had it longer. I've survived it. Took years. Loops. Deaths. But I've learned to move with it. I'm strong next to people like you. But next to them, I'm just breathing borrowed time."
He reached into his coat and tossed me a folded paper. I opened it. It was a map of Ashmoore, but not the Ashmoore I knew. Older. Scribbled with circles, red Xs, lines, and messy notes in black ink.
"That's how they see this place," Arthur said. "Layered. We're heading to the old freight station. If they've got Ethan, he'll be there."
"How do you know?"
Arthur didn't blink. "I died there once."
I turned to him. "You what?"
"Ritual loop. Bloke in a deer skull slit my throat. Took me weeks to break out of it. Eventually killed him with his own antlers."
I blinked. "You'd make a terrible guidance counsellor."
Arthur smirked. "I'm not here to guide you. I'm here to stop you from unraveling."
Then the car jolted.
Arthur slammed the brakes.
A figure stood in the road.
Tall. Cloaked. Head tilted like it had no bones in its neck. Limbs too long. Shape all wrong.
Arthur muttered, "Oh, bollocks."
The figure raised one arm. Slowly.
The car shut down. Lights. Engine. Radio. Dead.
Arthur didn't panic. He just sighed and reached into the glovebox, pulling out a small metal cylinder, etched with glowing blue lines. It hummed when he flicked the switch.
"Stay in the car," he said.
"What the hell is that?"
"Stabiliser. Temporarily flattens time distortions. Doesn't work if they're looking right at you."
The thing was definitely looking right at us.
Arthur stepped out.
The air changed. Not colder—denser. My ears popped. Something pressed on my chest.
Arthur walked forward, holding the device out like a torch. "You're not meant to be this far out," he said calmly. "This isn't your ground."
The figure didn't answer. Just stared. Then its mouth opened—not to speak, just to open. And the pressure in the air doubled. Like I'd been dropped into deep water.
I couldn't move.
Arthur twisted the top of the device and tossed it.
The hum turned into a pulse. Then a flash. No sound. Just blinding white. The figure buckled inward like a folding chair, then vanished.
Arthur stood alone in the road, breathing hard. He walked back, slid into the driver's seat, and restarted the car like it hadn't just died.
"They're scouting now," he said. "Means they know where we're heading."
"How many are coming?"
He looked out the windscreen. "All of them."
We drove the rest of the way in silence, cutting off the main road and onto an old gravel path. Trees thickened around us. The air felt static-heavy.
An old rusted sign passed on the left:
Ashmoore Freight Terminal
The map in my lap had it circled. A note beside it read:
Convergence Point.
Arthur killed the engine just outside a broken gate. He reached into his coat and pulled out a flat black shard, like a sliver of obsidian.
Without warning, he pressed it to my chest.
It stung. Then pulsed. Then faded.
"What the hell was that?"
"A buffer," he said. "It won't hide you. Just turns down the volume on your existence."
The station loomed ahead, buried in vines and old stone. The sky above didn't look like night anymore. Just… darkness without stars.
I swallowed. "If they've already taken Ethan?"
Arthur pulled a short silver blade from his boot. "Then we go in after him."
"Now I know why your jacket have so many zips" i whispered fearing anyone could hear me.
To be continued