I always thought time was a straight line.
You move through it one second at a time. One breath. One blink. And then another. Until it stops.But when I opened my eyes, I knew something was wrong. The air felt... too light. Too clean. It didn't smell like my world. It didn't feel like my room. Everything was still, but not in a peaceful way—in a silent way. Like the world was holding its breath.
I sat up slowly. My bed was the only thing that seemed familiar, but even that had changed. It floated slightly above the ground, humming faintly. I touched the edge. Cold. Smooth. No buttons. No sheets. Just a single layer of glowing fabric.
I looked around.
The walls were dark and curved, glowing with soft lines of blue light that pulsed slowly like veins. There were no fans, no plugs, no windows. Everything was sleek, seamless, and alien.
I whispered to myself, "Where am I?"
Then I heard it—footsteps. Soft, calculated, not human-like.
I jumped up and ran to the door. It slid open automatically, revealing a tall figure standing in the hall, dressed in dark, skin-tight clothing, his face calm but unreadable.
"Who are you?" I asked, backing away. "Where am I?"
He tilted his head slightly, then answered, "You're in 10045."
"10045?" I blinked. "What… What does that mean?"
He stared at me for a moment, then said calmly, "It's the street code."
I stepped closer, my voice shaky. "What year is this?"
He reached into his jacket and pulled out a flat, transparent object. He tapped it once. A screen projected above it, glowing in the dark hallway.
It read:
YEAR: 2126
I froze. My mouth opened, but no words came out. "That… That can't be right. I was just in 2025…"
"You don't remember?" he asked.
I shook my head. "No! Nothing! Just headaches, dizziness… like something pressed against my brain."
He nodded. "Then it's true. You've time-traveled."
My legs nearly gave out. I leaned against the wall.
"Wait… how is that possible? I didn't do anything. I didn't step into a machine or… or a portal…"
"It doesn't work like that anymore," he said. "Time travel is normal now. You're not the first."
I looked at him, trying to make sense of his emotionless face. "But why aren't you surprised? I literally jumped a hundred years."
He almost smiled. "People do it now. For 1 Bitcoin."
I stared at him. "What?! That's… That's a lot of money!"
"Not here," he replied. "The average monthly wage is over 1000 Bitcoins. The economy has changed. Everything has."
I couldn't speak.
"Jobs now are mostly about maintaining AI units," he continued. "Changing robot batteries. Updating code. Calming glitching machines."
I looked around the corridor, finally realizing there were no humans anywhere else. Only flickers of light, whispering machines, and… silence.
"What's your name?" I asked.
He hesitated. "A024."
"Are you… human?"
He didn't answer.
Instead, he reached into his pocket again and pulled out a glowing rod, which transformed into a strange, floating bike-like machine. "We should go outside," he said. "But don't forget your ID."
"ID?"
He pointed to the bedside.
There, lying like a piece of crystal, was a small white glass shard. It glowed faintly with my name—Amal KT.
"What is this?"
"It's your identity," A024 said. "It tells the system everything—height, weight, human or robot, emotions, permissions. Without it, you're invisible. And illegal."
I picked it up. It was warm.
"We don't have much time," he said. "This world... it's not made for people like you anymore."
I followed him.
As the door slid open, the city revealed itself—and it was like nothing I had ever seen. Glowing towers stretched into the clouds, pulsing with digital veins. Roads hovered in the air, constantly rearranging. Cars flew without drivers. Robots walked like people. There were no trees—only plastic replicas, programmed to wave in artificial wind.
Everything looked beautiful.
And terrifying.
A024 looked at me.
"You're not supposed to be here. But now that you are… you have a choice."
[End of Chapter 1]