The walls of the university lab felt like they were closing in around me as I rushed through the dimly lit halls. Elias kept pace, his footsteps echoing in the hollow corridors, but the weight of the creature's words still hung in the air. “You will be the one to bring it.”
My mind raced, and I tried to block out the lingering fear, focusing instead on the now-familiar, bitter taste of desperation. I couldn’t let this go. I couldn’t just leave the truth buried. There had to be something here. Something that could explain everything.
“We’re getting closer,” Elias said, his voice low and steady as he glanced over his shoulder, still cautious. “I can feel it.”
I didn’t know if I could trust him completely, but there was something in the way he spoke, something certain about his words. He wasn’t just trying to survive. He was after answers—just like me.
I stopped abruptly in front of a door at the end of the hallway, its edges chipped and faded with time. A faded sign next to it read "Restricted Access."
“This is it,” I whispered. My heart picked up pace as I stepped forward. “The place where everything started.”
Elias glanced at me, brow furrowed, but he said nothing. His gaze flicked to the door and back to me. He must’ve known that if we didn’t find answers here, we might never find them at all.
The door was locked, of course. Of course it was. Everything here seemed designed to keep people out. But I had learned to get around obstacles. I reached into my bag, pulled out a small, rusted tool I had found a few months ago, and worked the lock with practiced hands.
The sound of the lock snapping open was like a small victory, but I couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling creeping up my spine. What were we about to uncover?
The door creaked open, and we stepped inside.
The room was cold and sterile, the air thick with dust. It looked like it hadn’t been disturbed in years. Shelves lined the walls, filled with faded books and metal boxes, their contents unknown. At the far end of the room was a large metal filing cabinet, its drawers slightly ajar, revealing stacks of documents spilling out like some forgotten archive. The smell of old paper mixed with something more sinister—chemicals, decay—hung heavy in the air.
“This looks like it’s been abandoned for a long time,” Elias murmured, stepping forward cautiously. He reached for the nearest file and skimmed through it, his brow furrowing. "Nothing makes sense. This whole place is connected to the Faded... to the experiment.”
I didn’t need to ask him what he meant. I could feel it too. The connection, the weight of history in the air. This wasn’t just some ruined building. This place had been ground zero for something much worse.
I stepped forward, looking over the documents Elias had picked up. There were names, dates, locations... and then, I saw it.
Chronos.
The word was scrawled across the top of a thick stack of papers. I pulled it out, my fingers trembling as I flipped through the pages. The further I read, the clearer it became: this was about time. Or, more specifically, how to manipulate it. I scanned the text for any mention of me, half-expecting to find nothing. But then my eyes froze on a phrase that made my heart skip a beat.
Liora—Temporal Anchor.
“Liora?” Elias asked, his voice sharp as he looked at me. He had noticed the same thing. The mention of my name felt like an anchor, dragging me deeper into something I hadn’t wanted to confront.
I felt a cold shiver run down my spine, but I forced myself to keep reading.
The subject’s connection to the Chronos project is crucial. Temporal anchors are necessary for the stabilization of the time loops. Without Liora, the project cannot continue. Further experiments will be conducted to explore her potential as the core figure in reversing temporal anomalies.
“What does this mean?” I whispered, my voice hoarse, as I traced my fingers over the words.
Elias stepped closer, his eyes scanning the paper with intensity. “It means you’re more than just a survivor of the apocalypse. You’re tied to it. You’re the key.”
A chill settled deep in my chest. The more I read, the more I understood—this wasn’t just about survival anymore. The Faded, the experiment, the world ending... it was all connected to me. Somehow, I had been a part of it, and that meant I was also a part of the solution—or maybe the cause.
I flipped through more pages, heart pounding. There were more references to “temporal anomalies” and “time loops,” but it was all technical jargon that made no sense to me. The further I went, the more I became convinced that whoever had been in charge of this project had done something irreversible. Something that had fractured time itself.
But the most chilling part of all was the final sentence at the bottom of the page.
Termination of Liora will result in the destabilization of the Chronos project and the irreversible collapse of the timeline.
I slammed the papers down, feeling a wave of nausea wash over me. This was it. This was the truth. And I had no idea what to do with it.
I looked at Elias, who was now staring at the documents with a mixture of disbelief and something else—fear, maybe? His face was pale, his eyes wide as he processed what we’d just uncovered.
“This can’t be real,” I muttered, shaking my head. “I’m not... I’m not the cause of all this. I can’t be.”
Elias stepped back, running a hand through his hair. “But you are connected to it, Liora. You have to understand. If we don’t find a way to fix this, then the world is beyond saving.”
I turned back to the papers, my mind swirling with a thousand thoughts. How could I be the key to fixing something I barely understood? I wasn’t a scientist, not a time traveler. I was just... me.
A loud crash echoed from the hallway, cutting through my thoughts. My head snapped up, and my heart skipped a beat.
“What the hell was that?” Elias whispered, his hand instinctively going for his crowbar.
I didn’t answer him. My mind was too far gone, focused on the implications of the words on the page. The door to the room shook as something pounded against it. Then came a voice—a voice that I recognized, but couldn’t place.
“You can’t hide forever, Liora.”
I felt my blood run cold. The voice was familiar—too familiar.
“Not again,” I breathed, as I turned to face the door.
And then, it opened.
The door creaked as it slowly swung open, its hinges protesting the motion. I stood frozen, my heart hammering in my chest. For a moment, all I could hear was the blood rushing in my ears, a deafening roar drowning out everything else. I wasn’t sure if it was the fear, the confusion, or the sheer weight of the moment, but the air in the room had shifted. It felt like something dangerous was on the other side of that door, waiting. Watching.
I reached for my knife, my fingers trembling as I gripped the handle. I had no idea what or who was on the other side, but I wasn’t taking any chances.
Elias, still beside me, seemed equally tense. His eyes flicked to the door, his body coiled like a spring ready to snap. “Who’s there?” he called, his voice low but sharp, laced with the kind of tension that only years of survival could instill.
For a moment, there was silence. Then, a figure stepped into the doorway, and my breath caught in my throat.
It wasn’t a Faded. No, it was someone else. Someone who shouldn’t have been here.
The figure was tall, dressed in a worn black jacket that clung to their frame. The face was partially obscured by a hood, but there was something about the stance, the way they moved, that felt so eerily familiar.
“Liora,” the voice rasped, the tone heavy with both recognition and warning.
I didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. I couldn’t.
The voice had haunted my dreams for years. A whisper from the past. A name I thought I had forgotten. A mistake I could never undo.
“Liora…” the figure repeated, stepping forward into the room. The light from the dying overhead bulbs illuminated their features, revealing sharp, angular features framed by dark, unkempt hair. It wasn’t until they took another step into the room that I could see their eyes—cold, calculating, and filled with a terrifying recognition.
"Zane?" I breathed, my voice a mix of disbelief and horror.
Elias shot me a look, his eyes flicking between me and the newcomer. "You know him?"
My knees nearly buckled as memories—fragments, shards—rushed back. Zane. He had been part of the project. Part of everything I had tried to bury. The man who had been there when it all went wrong. He was... no, it couldn’t be. It had been years. Years since he disappeared. And yet, here he was, standing in front of me as if no time had passed at all.
But something was off. Zane’s eyes, once filled with warmth and humor, were now vacant. Hollow. Like the others. The Faded.
“Zane,” I whispered again, my voice barely a breath. I wanted to move, to run, but my body betrayed me. The memories were too strong, too painful.
“I never wanted it to come to this,” he said slowly, as though struggling to remember his own words. His voice had a mechanical quality, as though it were being forced out of him. There was something wrong with him, something deep beneath the surface. His eyes flicked to Elias, then back to me, as if searching for something, some kind of recognition. But all I could see in his eyes was the same emptiness that I had seen in the Faded.
I stepped back, my mind spinning. “What happened to you?” I asked, my voice trembling. “Why are you... why are you like them?”
Zane didn’t answer right away. Instead, he seemed to be focusing on something—some memory that had slipped through his grasp. He blinked rapidly, his jaw tightening, as though fighting an internal battle.
"Chronos..." he finally whispered, his voice a raw rasp. "It’s not just time. It’s... it’s everything."
I frowned, my pulse racing as my mind tried to piece together the fragments. Chronos. The project. The experiment. It all led back to this. To him. To me.
“You’re... part of the experiment?” I asked, though the question sounded foolish even to me. The answer was right in front of me, buried in the wreckage of my memories.
He nodded, the motion jerky, almost mechanical. “I was. But I wasn’t supposed to survive. None of us were. But somehow... it didn’t go as planned.”
My mind reeled. He wasn’t a Faded, not exactly, but whatever he was now was worse. And that thing that had torn the world apart—the Chronos project, the experiment—was at the center of it all. It was all connected to the scars I had. The scars that linked me to this nightmare.
“You don’t have much time, Liora,” Zane said, his voice low, urgent. “The project—it’s still happening. You need to stop it. You need to stop them from finishing what they started.”
I shook my head, my thoughts racing. “I don’t even know what you're talking about. What are you talking about? How am I supposed to stop it?”
Zane’s eyes hardened, and for the first time, a trace of something resembling emotion flickered in them. “You don’t remember, do you? What you did. What we did together. You—you were the one who set it in motion.”
The words hit me like a physical blow, and I staggered back, my mind flashing with disjointed images. A lab. An explosion. A flickering light. A scream. And then darkness.
No. It couldn’t be.
But the more I thought about it, the more I remembered. The more it made sense. I was the cause. The key to it all.
“The Chronos project—it didn’t just break time. It broke everything. It made you... me... all of us—trapped,” he said, his voice tinged with bitter regret. “I tried to stop it, but it was too late. And now, you’re the only one who can undo it.”
I looked at Zane—no, at what he had become—and I felt a wave of nausea wash over me. He wasn’t human anymore. Not completely. He was like the Faded, yet different. His soul, his very essence, had been twisted by the same project that I had once helped build.
But there was something in his eyes—something still clinging to the man I once knew. And that scared me more than anything. Because if he could become like this, then what did that mean for me?
Elias stepped forward, his crowbar now in hand, his expression unreadable. “What’s going to happen now?” he asked, his voice low but firm. “What’s your plan, Zane?”
Zane’s eyes flicked to him for a moment before settling back on me. "You have to go to the core of it all," he said, almost pleading now. "The Chronos facility. It’s where it began, where everything is linked. You have to stop the anchors from resetting."
"Stop the anchors?" I repeated, confused.
But before Zane could answer, the sound of shuffling feet echoed from down the hall. And then another voice—familiar, but foreign—spoke from the shadows.
“You’re too late.”
A figure stepped into the doorway, silhouetted against the dim light. Their features were hidden, but I could feel the danger in the air. It was like a predator closing in on its prey.
Zane’s face contorted with something that looked like fear.
“Run,” he rasped, his voice breaking. "You have to run now.”
I didn't hesitate. I turned and bolted for the exit, my heart pounding as the sound of footsteps echoed behind us. Elias followed close behind me, but the weight of Zane’s words, and the chilling presence of the new figure, lingered in my mind.
I had no choice but to run.
We had no choice but to survive.
But as the door slammed shut behind us, I knew one thing for sure:
Time was running out.
And whatever was coming next—whatever I was about to face—it was going to change everything.