The tunnel breathed.
Not air — time.
The walls shimmered with faint streams of gold, drifting like mist. Every second stretched too long, every heartbeat echoed twice.
Eryndor sat against the stone, gripping his wrist. The symbol still glowed there — a sideways eight, burning faintly beneath his skin.
Kael crouched beside him, staring.
"Eryn… it's not fading."
"It's not supposed to."
"That mark shouldn't even exist." Kael's voice cracked. "You're supposed to be—"
"Timeblind," Eryndor finished quietly. "Yeah. Guess not anymore."
The mark pulsed again — slow, steady, endless.
---
For a while, neither spoke.
The tunnel hummed around them, soft like a heartbeat under stone.
Then Kael checked his wrist.
[00 : 00 : 03 : 10]
He swallowed hard. "It's moving again."
Eryndor looked up. "What?"
"The Flow's back. We're too close to the city grid."
His digits ticked down by one second. Then another.
Eryndor felt a weight drop in his chest. "Kael—"
"Don't." Kael grinned weakly. "Three minutes is three minutes. Always knew I'd run out sooner or later."
"Then why come here?"
Kael smirked. "Because someone had to make sure you didn't do something stupid alone."
---
He stood, brushing dust from his jacket. "Come on. We should move before the trackers find this place."
Eryndor pushed himself up, still dizzy from the pulse in his wrist. "Where?"
"There's an exit shaft near the Flow Ducts. If we—"
He stopped.
A soft chime rang through the air — not a bell, but a pulse.
Eryndor felt it in his ribs before he heard it. A wave rippled through the tunnel, bending the dust midair. For a second, everything froze — even Kael's ticking mark.
Then it reversed.
---
The sound of falling pebbles climbed back upward.
Kael blinked. "What the—"
Eryndor staggered, his vision flashing with golden streaks.
The tunnel flickered — one moment dark, the next bright — then back again.
"I can feel everything," he whispered. "The Flow… it's inside me."
Kael reached for him. "Eryn, stop! You're—"
Too late.
The ∞ mark flared white. The tunnel exploded with light, and for a heartbeat, time shattered.
---
Eryndor's world unfolded in fragments.
He saw Kael frozen mid-step.
He saw himself standing beside Kael — and behind him — and further down the tunnel, like reflections echoing out of sync.
Dozens of him, each a second apart.
"Chrono echo…" he breathed.
Then the light snapped shut. The echoes collapsed back into one body.
Eryndor fell to his knees, gasping. His wrist burned cold now.
Kael stared. "You just froze time."
"I didn't mean to."
Kael's laugh was thin. "You never mean to. But you just broke a law that no one's ever survived breaking."
---
They both heard it then — the distant ringing of Ecliptic Bells.
Not the ordinary kind.
The Order's Trackers.
Kael swore under his breath. "They found us."
From the far end of the tunnel, beams of blue light swept through the fog. Figures in white armor stepped into view — the Ecliptic Sentinels, their faces hidden behind mirrored visors.
"By decree of the Ecliptic Order," a metallic voice echoed, "all unauthorized entities within a Flow breach are to be reclaimed."
Kael's mark ticked down again. [00 : 00 : 02 : 45]
He clenched his fists. "They're after you, not me."
Eryndor shook his head. "We can both—"
Kael grabbed his shoulders, eyes fierce. "No, listen. I'm running out anyway. You… you're something else now. You've got a mark that doesn't end."
He smiled — a sharp, tired smile. "So take it and run."
---
Eryndor's throat tightened. "Kael—"
"Don't waste time arguing. I don't have any left."
He turned, pulling a small device from his belt — a spark bomb, glowing faintly with blue flame. "I'll buy you a few minutes."
Eryndor's voice cracked. "You'll die."
Kael's mark read [00 : 00 : 01 : 03].
He winked. "Wasn't planning on living forever anyway."
Then he ran toward the approaching Sentinels.
---
"Kael!"
Eryndor reached out — but the tunnel warped again, dragging him backward in a swirl of golden light. The air twisted, folding him through space.
The last thing he saw was Kael turning, that crooked grin still on his face, before the spark bomb ignited.
A burst of blue fire swallowed the tunnel.
The sound hit a second later — a deep, ringing boom that rolled like thunder through the earth.
---
When Eryndor opened his eyes, he was lying on the surface again — in the lower slums, near the rusted canals.
The world looked… wrong.
The lights above the city flickered backward, blinking in reverse order. A flock of birds froze midair, then flew backward into the fog.
Eryndor touched his wrist. The ∞ still glowed, calm and steady.
But something new pulsed beneath it — a faint echo of Kael's voice.
"Don't waste time arguing…"
He gasped, clutching his chest. Memories that weren't his flashed through his mind — Kael's laughter, his fear, his last heartbeat before the blast.
He realized what had happened.
When Kael died within his Flow surge, some of that Residual Time had crossed into Eryndor.
A fragment of Kael now lived inside him.
---
The bells of Ecliptica rang again in the distance — closer this time.
He stood slowly, the night wind cold against his face.
The air shimmered faintly with golden dust — not snow, not ash, but Echo Sand from the tunnel's collapse.
Eryndor looked up at the spires of the Core, glinting in the distance.
The people who ruled time itself lived up there — and beneath their shining towers, Kael had burned away his last seconds.
The boy clenched his fist.
"I won't let it end like this."
His mark flared once, as if answering him — a pulse that rippled across the rooftops, shaking every nearby clock.
For one brief second, every timepiece in the slums stopped.
Then they began to run backward.
---
Somewhere, deep within the Ecliptic Order's citadel, an Archon stirred from meditation.
A whisper crossed the network of glowing veins that powered the Core:
> "An infinite signal has awakened.
Find him."
To be continued...