The world was ending, and Astra Vale could feel it in her bones.
Not the poetic kind of ending people romanticized in old novels, but the real kind — the kind that hummed beneath her skin like electricity, the kind that made the air taste metallic, the kind that warned her that every breath she took might be her last.
The ChronoGate tower loomed above her, a spiraling column of silver and light, pulsing like a heartbeat. It was supposed to be humanity's greatest achievement — a stabilizer of time, a bridge between eras, a promise that the future would never collapse under the weight of its own mistakes.
But tonight, it trembled.
Astra stood at the base of the tower, her palms sweating despite the cold. The sky above the city was a swirl of neon clouds and fractured stars, as if the universe itself was glitching. People ran past her, shouting, crying, clutching their loved ones. Sirens wailed in the distance. The ground vibrated beneath her boots.
She should have run too.
But she couldn't.
Not when she knew this was her fault.
Not when she knew she had to try to fix it.
A voice crackled through her earpiece. "Astra, get out of there! The ChronoGate is destabilizing faster than predicted!"
She recognized the voice instantly — warm, frantic, familiar. Eli. Her partner. Her best friend. The boy who always stood beside her in every experiment, every failure, every triumph.
The boy she might have loved, if she had ever allowed herself the luxury.
"I can't," she whispered, her voice trembling. "If I don't recalibrate the core, the entire timeline collapses."
"You'll die if you go in there!"
Astra swallowed hard. "Someone has to try."
A beat of silence. Then, softer, breaking, "Astra… please."
Her chest tightened. She wanted to say something — something comforting, something brave, something that would make this easier for him. But the words wouldn't come.
Instead, she stepped forward.
The ChronoGate's entrance hissed open, releasing a burst of cold air that smelled like ozone and burning metal. Blue light flickered inside, dancing like flames. The hum grew louder, vibrating through her bones.
Astra took a deep breath and entered.
The interior of the tower was a cathedral of machinery — towering pillars of light, floating panels of data, cables that pulsed like veins. The core chamber lay ahead, its energy swirling violently, like a storm trapped in a glass sphere.
She approached the control console, her fingers shaking as she typed commands. Error messages flashed red across the screen.
TEMPORAL CORE UNSTABLE.
CRITICAL FAILURE IMMINENT.
EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY.
She ignored them.
Her heartbeat thundered in her ears. Sweat dripped down her spine. The air grew hotter, the light brighter, the hum louder.
"Astra!" Eli's voice cracked through the earpiece again. "Talk to me. What's happening?"
She exhaled shakily. "The core is collapsing. I'm trying to reroute the energy flow."
"You're going to overload it!"
"I know."
Another pause. Then, barely audible, "I can't lose you."
Her hands froze.
For a moment — a single, fragile moment — she let herself imagine a different life. A life where she wasn't a scientist carrying the weight of the future. A life where she could have looked at Eli and said the words she had always swallowed.
But that life didn't exist.
Not for her.
She forced her hands to move again.
The ChronoGate roared, the light intensifying until it was almost blinding. The floor shook violently. Sparks rained from the ceiling. The air crackled with raw energy.
Astra's vision blurred.
Her body felt weightless.
The console exploded in front of her, sending shards of metal flying. She stumbled backward, hitting the ground hard. Pain shot through her body. Her ears rang.
Through the chaos, she heard Eli screaming her name.
"Astra! Astra, answer me!"
She tried. Her lips moved, but no sound came out.
The core cracked.
A blinding blue light burst outward, swallowing everything — the tower, the city, the sky. Astra felt herself being pulled, stretched, unraveled. Her consciousness flickered like a dying flame.
She wasn't dying.
She was falling.
Falling through time.
Falling through memories.
Falling through herself.
She saw flashes — her childhood, her mother's smile, Eli's laugh, the ChronoGate's first activation, the moment she realized something was wrong with the timeline.
Then she saw something else.
A forest.
A river.
A sky filled with unfamiliar stars.
A woman's voice whispering, "Come back to us, child."
Astra reached out, desperate, terrified.
The light shattered.
And everything went dark.
When she opened her eyes again, she wasn't in the ChronoGate.
She wasn't in the future.
She wasn't even Astra Vale anymore.
She was lying on a bed of woven reeds, wrapped in a blanket that smelled of herbs and smoke. The air was warm, thick with the scent of earth and fire. Shadows danced across the walls, cast by a flickering oil lamp.
A woman leaned over her — dark hair braided, eyes soft and worried.
"My child," the woman whispered. "Lira… you're safe."
Lira.
The name echoed in Astra's mind like a foreign melody.
She tried to speak, but her throat burned. Her body felt small, fragile, unfamiliar. Panic surged through her.
The woman gently pressed a hand to her forehead. "Rest. You've been fevered for days."
Astra — Lira — stared at her, heart pounding.
She remembered dying.
She remembered the ChronoGate collapsing.
She remembered Eli's voice breaking.
But none of that belonged to this world.
Her hands trembled as she lifted them. They were small. Too small. The hands of a child.
Her breath hitched.
"What… happened to me?" she whispered, her voice barely audible.
The woman smiled sadly. "You were reborn under a strange star. The spirits must have sent you back to us."
Reborn.
The word struck her like lightning.
Astra Vale was gone.
Lira had taken her place.
And this world — this ancient, unfamiliar world — was now her home.
But as she closed her eyes, a final image flashed in her mind:
Eli, reaching for her through the collapsing light.
Calling her name.
Begging her to stay alive.
A single tear slipped down her cheek.
She didn't know where she was.
She didn't know why she was here.
But she knew one thing with absolute certainty:
Time wasn't done with her yet.