Time itself seemed to thud against Arin's ears, the distortion vibrating through his bones. The Chrono-Harvester moved closer, each step unraveling the street beneath them; the air around it shimmered with broken seconds, frozen moments screaming in silence.
Arin's legs trembled, but Silas's grip on his wrist was iron-strong. "Run," Silas hissed. "Don't think. Just run."
They sprinted down the street, the world bending and twisting around them. A lamppost snapped in half without a sound, as if the rules of reality themselves acknowledged the predator's presence. Shadows at their heels clawed across walls and doors, grasping for anything alive.
Arin stumbled, nearly fell. Silas didn't slow, hauling him forward with unnatural strength. "Use your Echo!" Silas urged. "Now!"
"What…how?" Arin gasped, fear choking his words. He'd felt the echoes before—tiny flickers of moments ahead—but this was different. The voices in his head screamed at him to move, to react, to survive. Instinct surged.
He focused. The world blurred. Sounds split and multiplied. He felt himself stretch into a dozen microseconds, each limb and step slightly ahead of the present. He landed perfectly, not where he was but where he needed to be. Silas's eyes flicked briefly toward him, approving.
But it wasn't enough.
A shadow stretched impossibly long across the street, coiling like a black serpent. The Chrono-Harvester raised its skeletal limbs, jointed at impossible angles, and let out a sound that split Arin's mind-a deep resonance that shook not just the street but the air around him. Each note of its voice was a different scream, pulled from countless timelines. The echoes of those screams burrowed into his chest, making him stagger.
"Focus on the now!" Silas barked. His coat flared as he pivoted, throwing symbols into the air. Lines of silver fire etched themselves into the ground, freezing fragments of time like shattered glass. The shadows recoiled, but only for a moment.
Arin blinked. The echoes in his head resolved, slicing through the chaos. He could see fractions of a second into the future—just enough to dodge, just enough to survive. His heart was pounding, but not with fear; his heart was pounding with the thrill of awareness. He could feel the pull of his own power, raw and dangerous.
The Chrono-Harvester shifted, and the street tore itself apart again. Pavement cracked, twisting up into jagged edges. Shadows sprouted teeth and claws, slithering toward him. Time rippled, slowing his movements and speeding the creature's all at once. Each step forward was a negotiation with reality itself.
Silas stopped suddenly in a narrow alley. He shoved Arin behind him. "You can't just run!" he shouted. "You need to fight it, even if only to survive long enough to escape!"
Arin's fingers shook. He'd never touched anything like this before. The air around him was alive, humming with fragmented seconds and ghostly impressions of things that hadn't happened yet. He reached out instinctively, trying to anchor himself. The world bent in response, a ripple in time warping around his hand.
The head of the Chrono-Harvester tipped, its empty sockets ablaze with whirling temporal distortions. For a moment, it hesitated, sensitive to the stirrings of something profoundly uncommon. Arin's heartbeat quickened, and like a flood came the realization: he was not merely fleeing it. He could reach it. He could struggle against it. If only he could master the echo within him.
A flash of silver fire from Silas drew the creature's attention. In that instant, Arin lunged, using the echoes to extend a split-second into the future. His hand hit…something. Cold. Hard. Real. The creature recoiled, a hiss of fractured voices escaping its maw.
He'd done it. But barely. His body trembled violently, his chest heaving. Silas's eyes were sharp, piercing through the haze. "Good," he said, voice low and dangerous. "You felt it. That's the start."
Before Arin was able to take a breath, the world shifted once more. Shadows twisted into new shapes, more grotesque than before. The ground beneath them groaned. The air smelled of ozone and metal. And then, from above, a new sound—a clocklike ticking, slow and deliberate—echoed down the alley.
The two of them froze.
Time itself seemed to hold its breath.
From the shadow of a collapsing building, a second figure emerged. Its form was impossible to comprehend. Not human, not fully creature-an amalgamation of fractured realities. And it wasn't the Chrono-Harvester. It was something else. Older. Angrier. Waiting.
Its voice, layered with decades of echoing screams, whispered through Arin's mind:
"You cannot run… not from me… not from time itself."
Arin swallowed as a chill sank into his bones. Silas tightened his grip on his shoulder. "We're not ready for this one," he muttered under his breath. "Not yet."
The alley narrowed. Shadows writhed, reaching for every opening. The ticking grew louder. The air vibrated with the promise of a world unmade. Arin's hands shook, but inside, something clicked. His echoes hummed. He could see possibilities branching like shattered mirrors. One wrong move, and they'd both be gone. One right move… and maybe, just maybe, they could escape. But time was running out. Whatever that second figure was, it didn't care about survival. It wanted everything.