Chapter 5: Timelines Collide
My mind felt like it was slipping through my fingers, ungraspable, like trying to hold water in my palms. The darkness that surrounded me was thick, endless, but it wasn’t cold. It was… nothing. I floated in the void, the last remnants of Sorin’s hand slipping away from mine, leaving me adrift in the vast emptiness of space—or time itself. It was hard to tell which anymore.
I gasped, trying to catch my breath, but there was no air here, no light, no sound. Just the weightless drift of forgotten moments. I tried to call out for Sorin, but my voice was swallowed whole. My memories, fragile as they were, seemed to scatter further with every heartbeat, dissolving into the dark.
Was this the end? Was this where I would remain—lost in a forgotten corner of the past?
Then, faintly, I felt a warmth. A spark.
It was barely there, just the faintest pulse of heat, but it was enough. I latched onto it, reaching out blindly in the darkness, hoping, praying that it was real.
And then, just like that, the void split open, the dark cracking with the force of an explosion.
I gasped as light poured back into the world, and with it, air and gravity. I was falling, fast, tumbling through time, my arms flailing, my breath stolen from my lungs. The sky above me was not the black void I had been trapped in moments before, but a swirl of brilliant colors—vibrant reds, golds, purples, and blues, like the aurora borealis stretched across the cosmos.
Suddenly, I crashed into something solid, a grunt of pain escaping my lips as I hit the ground hard. I groaned, feeling the sharp sting of impact in my bones as I tried to lift myself up.
“Elara!” a voice shouted, muffled but familiar.
I blinked, my vision still swimming as a hand grasped my arm, pulling me upright. The world was still spinning around me, but I clung to the warmth of the hand, to the solidity of the voice. I knew that voice.
“Sorin?” I breathed, the words barely audible as I tried to focus.
“Are you alright?” His face came into view, his features hazy at first, then sharpening as he pulled me closer. His eyes were filled with concern, his grip tight on my arm as if he was afraid I might slip away again.
“I… I think so,” I managed, though my head still swirled. “What happened? Where are we?”
Sorin glanced around, his brow furrowing. “I’m not sure,” he admitted. “But it seems… different. This isn’t the place we were before.”
I followed his gaze, my eyes widening as I took in our surroundings. We were standing on what appeared to be a cliff, high above a vast, otherworldly landscape. The sky above us was a riot of color, swirling and shifting in ways that made no sense. Below us stretched a sprawling city—its buildings a mix of sleek, futuristic towers and crumbling ruins. It was as if time itself had fractured, and pieces of different eras had collided into one place.
“This… this can’t be real,” I whispered, taking a step closer to the edge of the cliff, trying to make sense of the chaos below. “What is this place?”
Sorin’s hand remained on my arm, his touch grounding me as I stared in awe at the broken city beneath us. “I think this is what happens when timelines collide,” he said softly. “Past, present, and future… all mixed together. This place—it’s a fracture in time.”
I shook my head, struggling to comprehend the enormity of what he was saying. “But how? How did we end up here?”
Before Sorin could answer, a sudden flash of light caught my attention. I turned sharply, my heart racing as a figure emerged from the shadows behind us. My breath caught in my throat as I recognized her.
Kaira.
Her eyes gleamed with something close to triumph as she stepped forward, her expression as cold and unyielding as ever. “You can’t outrun me, Elara,” she said, her voice calm and measured. “No matter how far you try to escape, time will always bring us back together.”
Sorin’s grip on my arm tightened, his body tensing beside me. “What do you want, Kaira?” he demanded, his voice low and dangerous.
Kaira tilted her head slightly, her eyes flicking between us with unsettling ease. “What I’ve always wanted,” she replied smoothly. “The truth.”
The truth. The word sent a chill through me, and I glanced up at Sorin, uncertainty flickering in my chest. What truth was she talking about? And why did it feel as though everything I had known until this point was crumbling beneath me?
But before I could ask, Kaira’s gaze turned toward me, and her lips curled into a faint smile. “He hasn’t told you yet, has he?” she asked, her tone almost pitying. “The real reason you left him. The real reason you chose to forget.”
I froze, my blood running cold. “What are you talking about?” I asked, my voice trembling.
Sorin stiffened beside me, his jaw clenched tightly. “Don’t listen to her, Elara,” he said, his voice strained. “She’s trying to manipulate you.”
But Kaira’s eyes remained locked on mine, her smile widening as she took another step forward. “You can feel it, can’t you?” she whispered, her voice like silk. “The missing pieces of your past. The things he’s been keeping from you.”
I looked up at Sorin, my heart pounding in my chest. “Sorin?” I whispered, my voice barely audible. “What is she talking about?”
Sorin’s face was a mask of tension, his eyes hard as he stared at Kaira. But he didn’t answer me. He didn’t deny it.
My breath caught in my throat. Could it be true? Had Sorin been keeping something from me all this time? Had he known more about my past—about our past—than he had let on?
“Elara, please,” Sorin said softly, his voice full of desperation as he turned to face me. “I did what I had to. I was trying to protect you. To protect us.”
His words hit me like a punch to the gut. I took a step back, my mind racing. “Protect me? From what?” I demanded. “From the truth?”
Sorin reached for me, but I pulled away, the hurt and confusion boiling over inside me. “You should have told me,” I whispered, my voice breaking. “You should have let me decide for myself.”
Sorin’s face twisted with pain, but before he could respond, Kaira spoke again, her voice like ice. “You see, Elara, the problem with love is that it’s never as simple as you think. There are always complications. And Sorin… well, let’s just say his past is more complicated than most.”
Her words sent a shiver down my spine. “What do you mean?” I asked, my voice shaking.
Kaira’s smile widened. “He didn’t just lose you, Elara. He lost… everything.”
My heart pounded in my chest as I turned to Sorin, searching his face for answers. But all I saw was guilt. Pain.
“I’m sorry,” Sorin whispered, his voice barely audible. “I never meant to hurt you. But there are things about my past… things I couldn’t tell you.”
A tear slipped down my cheek, and I swallowed hard, trying to keep my emotions in check. “I trusted you,” I said softly. “I loved you.”
Sorin’s face crumpled, and for a moment, I saw the boy I had once known—the boy who had loved me, who had promised me forever. But that boy was gone now, replaced by a man burdened by secrets and regret.
“I still love you,” he whispered, his voice raw with emotion. “That’s why I did everything I could to keep you safe.”
But before I could respond, the air around us rippled, and the ground beneath us began to tremble. The sky above us darkened, the swirling colors turning to black as the fabric of time itself seemed to unravel.
“We have to go,” Sorin said urgently, grabbing my hand.
But it was too late. The fracture in time was tearing open, and as the world collapsed around us, I felt myself being pulled away—torn from Sorin’s grasp, hurtling through the void once more.
***
The last thing I saw before everything went dark was Sorin’s face, twisted in anguish, as the timeline fractured around us.