I took a sip of the coffee I'd ordered from a small shop near the center of town. I was seated on a bench by the police station, waiting and watching with a notebook on my lap.
Sitting in the same place for hours might look suspicious while scouting for Ulrich, but I didn't have many choices. It wasn't like I could just send my ravens to follow him. I blinked, rubbing my head in annoyance.
"Where the hell do these thoughts keep coming from?" I muttered. Was I developing schizophrenia, or had I suffered brain damage when I was kidnapped? Even so, my constant complaining was getting extremely annoying.
I had been watching the station since the crack of dawn. I hadn't stayed in this spot the whole time; at first, I'd managed to get onto the roof of a nearby building. From there, I jumped from place to place, ensuring no one at the station had a direct view of me.
After a couple of hours, the officers began arriving for work. Even after the parking lot was nearly full, I still hadn't seen Ulrich. This meant he either wasn't coming in, or he'd been suspended for his actions against me. The latter seemed unlikely; based on the way he acted, his colleagues seemed tolerant of him as long as he didn't physically assault someone. Still, I couldn't be sure.
Eventually, I released a breath I hadn't realized I was holding. I saw him get out of a car parked at the corner of the station and head inside. Seeing this, I decided to move to the second phase of my plan.
I walked toward a coffee shop I'd spotted earlier, which allowed me to pass the parking lot and Ulrich's car. I carefully looked around to ensure no one was watching before taking a quick dip toward the ground. I placed the tracker—the one I'd paid a premium to have delivered in four hours—under the frame. Afterward, I went into the shop and bought a drink.
Which led to my current situation: sipping coffee while I waited. "The hard part is done," I told myself. "Now I just have to follow him."
I pulled out my phone and opened the tracking app for one last check. Then, a thought hit me. "Fuck. How am I going to keep up with a car?" I realized with horror that I'd forgotten the most basic fact of the chase.
I opened a map app to find a rental agency or a bike store. Finding nothing in the way of car rentals, I sighed, stood up, and started walking toward a bicycle shop. "Why am I such a fucking idiot?"
The good news: I got a mountain bike. The bad news: Ulrich had already left the station. I kept an eye on the tracker, which showed he had parked in front of a house and remained there for a couple of hours before finally moving again.
During that time, I stayed at a nearby bus stop. While I would have preferred to keep a direct eye on him, standing still in the middle of a suburb would be suspicious as hell. I was forced to "wait" for a bus, thankfully I knew that none were scheduled to come through for a while. Once the tracker started moving again, I gave him a head start before following.
When I reached the destination, I frowned. "Why a nursing home?" I muttered, watching him enter the building.
Propping my bike against a tree, I slipped inside. The receptionist was distracted, allowing me to sneak past. I wandered through the home, searching for Ulrich or anything out of the ordinary. As I paced the hallways, I passed rooms filled with the elderly—some resting, others watching TV, reading, or crocheting.
"What a pitiful sight," I whispered, shaking my head.
Suddenly, I saw two men running through a hallway intersection. I slowed my pace and peered around the corner to see where they were headed.
"Where's my son?! Where's Mikkel?!"
Two male nurses were dragging Ulrich away while he struggled and screamed. As they passed, I managed to catch the name on the tag outside the door they had just left. I raised my eyebrow. Doppler?
I decided to wait until things calmed down. A nurse eventually exited the room, closing the door behind her and following the direction the others had taken Ulrich. Taking my chance, I hurried toward the room. I confirmed the full name on the tag and slipped inside, immediately noting a glass door on the far side that could serve as a quick exit.
The room itself was unremarkable. It looked like the man inside had been abandoned by his family. It's always sad when children simply deposit their parents in homes; I knew there were circumstances where it was the best option, but it didn't change the tragedy of it.
As I walked slowly toward the bed, the steady beep-beep of a heart monitor filled the air. I heard the man muttering a single phrase over and over: "Tick-tock... tick-tock..."
I approached cautiously so as not to startle him. On the bed lay a defenseless old man. If I didn't suspect him of being involved in the deaths of several children, I wouldn't have given him a second glance.
I stopped at the foot of the bed, raising my hands to show I wasn't a threat. The monitor began to spike as his eyes found mine. "Mr. Doppler, please calm down. I have no intention of hurting you. I just want to ask a few questions," I said softly, hoping to soothe him.
It seemed to work. He settled, a faint light of lucidity appearing in his eyes as he whispered something in shock. I dragged a chair from the corner to the bedside, positioning myself where I wouldn't be seen by anyone glancing in from the hallway.
"Mr. Doppler, I apologize if I frightened you, but I was hoping you could answer some questions regarding the disappearances of the children. Would you be comfortable with that?"
He struggled for a moment before nodding weakly.
"Thank you. To begin, I need to confirm something: you were involved in the disappearances, weren't you?"
The monitor spiked instantly. His face contorted with sorrow. "Yes... I was. He told me their sacrifice would lead us all to paradise," Helge wheezed, his voice thick and difficult to understand. It seemed he was suffering from something—perhaps dementia.
Still, he had confirmed my suspicions. He was involved, and he had a partner. "I see. And this man you mentioned... what is his name? What did he mean by 'paradise'?"
"His name is Noah. He wants to reorder everything... from the beginning to the end. Tick-tock." The light in his eyes began to fade.
I realized I was running out of time; this lucid interval was closing. "How does he want to achieve that? And how did the bodies appear in 1953?"
The man seemed barely to hear me now. "He built an ark... the kids were the first passengers. He tried to copy what exists in the caves... I can change the past... and the future. Tick-tock."
"Mr. Doppler, can you hear me?" I shook his arm gently, but I only got the same rhythmic chanting in return. "Thank you for your help, Mr. Doppler."
I started to pull my arm away, but suddenly Helge's hand shot out, gripping me with surprising strength. His eyes burned into mine.
"Baleygr... save us from the devil," he rasped, his voice laced with desperation. Then, his grip loosened and he passed out.
Blinking in confusion, I set his arm back down and slipped out through the glass door. I headed for my bike, carrying the answers I wanted—and a dozen new questions.
It was almost night, and I was standing in front of the cave, throwing a flashlight I had acquired into the air and catching it again and again.
After sneaking out, I had managed to see a police car parked in front of the nursing home. Ulrich was being placed in the back seat by an officer. While I won't lie and say that didn't bring a sense of pleasure due to his attitude toward me at the hospital, the feeling didn't last long.
I had confirmed what I suspected. From what Helge managed to tell me during his lucid interval, he had helped build a time machine alongside his partner, a man called Noah. Beyond that, I also discovered that the Winden caves appear to be the point of origin for the time travel phenomena, as the pair had attempted to copy what exists inside into a prototype machine.
While I still didn't know exactly what the man called Noah wanted to achieve—besides something involving "paradise"—I was more preoccupied with confirming if the caves truly allowed one to time travel. While I felt Helge hadn't lied to me, I wasn't too sure if I should take the words of a dementia patient at face value.
But what was bothering me most was what he said at the end. I had heard the word Baleygr before. To be more accurate, I had read it; it appeared in several poems involving the god Odin from Norse mythology. Thinking about it now, Grimsen sounded much like Grímnir and Grímr, two other names by which Odin was called. Beyond that, the fact that I was forced to get a pair of ravens tattooed felt suspicious as hell now. I might be pulling at straws, but I couldn't shake the feeling that something was going on in my original world that I didn't know about. The strange thing was that I only started to question it when I arrived in this place.
And he asked me to save them from the Devil. What the hell does he think I can do? While it was probably the ravings of an old man who regretted his actions, I felt an urge to agree… Something is happening to me. I don't know what, but something is happening.
Catching the flashlight one final time, I walked into the cave.
Darkness surrounded me. Thanks to the flashlight, I could at least see, but it didn't help the fact that I had no idea where to go. I decided to try and retrace my steps from my first unwilling cave exploration.
I had found the thread and was using it as a guide. When I reached the end, I saw the door handle clearly for the first time.
"Ouroboros," I said, noticing the design of the snake biting its own tail.
Passing through the door, I continued walking until I felt I had reached the spot where I first woke up. I looked around and saw a small passage in the corner of the cave. Climbing through, I was forced to crouch as I headed deeper into the abyss. Eventually, I started to feel a small current of wind—or perhaps it was my imagination.
I noticed a wall at the end of the tunnel, and when I reached it, I was shocked to find a metal door. Touching the door, I muttered, "Sic Mundus Creatus Est," before blinking and seeing a completely different phrase: "Erit Lux."
I blinked in confusion, and it returned to the original.
"So, 'Thus the world was created,' and 'Let there be light.'" It seemed I was on the right path, or at least I wasn't heading into a dead end. Turning the knob, I felt the wind hit me in the face before I passed through and the door closed itself.
I continued following the tunnel and noticed it was handmade. Eventually, I reached a crossroads where the tunnel diverged to the left and right. "Fuck, which way is the right one? Couldn't whoever made this place at least put up a map?" I cursed at my current problem.
"Fool, fool."
I wasn't alone. I immediately turned my head to the right and froze when I saw a raven just standing there, looking at me with what I was sure was annoyance, while it continued calling me a fool. I should have asked how the hell a raven had entered this place, but for some reason, I got extremely pissed off.
"The fuck did you call me, you little shit?" I yelled, unintentionally feeling like I had lost control of my body for a moment. All the while, it continued calling me a fool. "You know what I feel like having, you little shit?" I asked sadistically.
The bird stopped talking and tilted its head, expecting me to continue.
"Raven stew."
The raven looked at me with what I somehow knew was an insulted, angry look. It turned around and started heading deeper into the tunnel after saying, "FAT FUCK!!"
I don't know how to describe what I felt in that moment. No, actually, that's not true. I knew exactly what I was feeling, and it was called rage—but a level of rage no human had ever reached before. I screamed at the raven while entering hot pursuit.
"GET BACK HERE, HUGINN, YOU SORRY EXCUSE FOR A RAVEN! I'LL CLIP YOUR WINGS AND FEED YOU TO THE HOUNDS!!!"
I kept going after the raven, but it somehow managed to take flight in the narrow space. It had gained a lead on me, and after a while, I reached another door. I didn't see the bird, but ignoring the fact that a raven can't open doors, I quickly opened it and continued down a tunnel that looked remarkably similar to the one I'd just left.
As I was about to reach the end of the tunnel, I heard someone scream. By the sound of it, it was a young male. When I reached the exit, I pointed my light toward the voice and saw a teenager wearing a yellow raincoat, being pecked in the face by the raven.