The sky cried ash.
Flakes of black dust drifted down like dead snow, covering the silent streets of Present Core City. It didn't fall—it floated, slow and deliberate, like the sky itself was remembering something terrible. The air shimmered with broken time, and the city beneath it flickered like a scratched hologram. Some buildings stood tall, others were frozen mid-collapse, caught between seconds like paused tragedies. Present Core City wasn't supposed to look like this. Not anymore.
It was as if time had opened its mouth—and begun to bleed.
Kael stood alone on the cracked road, boots sinking slightly into a thick carpet of soot. Each step he took sounded louder than it should have, as if the world had forgotten how to echo. The pavement was fractured like glass, with veins of glowing silver running beneath the surface. They pulsed softly, like something alive was trapped below.
His chrono-band — a wrist device linked to the city's temporal network — blinked with a steady blue light. It was tracking something. Not just another temporal glitch, but a spike. A surge. A pulse of the past intruding on the now.
"This is the fifth time this month," Kael muttered, scanning the fragmented skyline. "And this one's... closer."
He tugged the collar of his coat higher, but not for warmth. The wind here wasn't cold — it wasn't anything. It moved like memory, brushing against him in patterns that felt too familiar.
Then something changed.
The street around him rippled.
Kael stopped. Every instinct in his body tensed.
It wasn't wind. It wasn't sound.
It was something older. Deeper.
A memory.
Golden eyes staring.
A voice — low, velvet, dangerous — whispering his name.
A star falling... in reverse.
He spun around, hand twitching toward the chrono-band's defense trigger.
Nothing. Just the soft hiss of ash hitting the ground.
He tapped the side of the band. "Echo, scan. Anything out there?"
The voice that replied was soft, female, and precise. "Unstable chrono-energy detected. Thirty meters northeast. Biological presence confirmed."
Kael's heartbeat quickened. Thirty meters was practically breathing distance.
He started walking.
Each step was like pushing through molasses. The air grew thicker, harder to breathe. The sky above flickered — black for a second, then a starless white, then back again. His surroundings blurred. Something was wrong. The rules of time didn't apply here.
Then he saw her.
She stood in the center of what had once been a grand plaza — now shattered, the marble floor cracked and bleeding glowing lines of forgotten time. Ash danced around her like a storm that didn't dare touch her.
She wore a simple grey cloak that fluttered without wind. Her eyes were closed. Her arms were raised slightly, like she was listening to something far away.
But what struck Kael hardest were the shadows.
Dozens of them. Shapes of people — flickering silhouettes — rising and falling around her. Some smiled. Some wept. Others screamed silently before fading. They weren't real. They couldn't be.
Echoes. Memories that didn't belong to now.
Kael stopped dead in his tracks. "Chrono-echoes," he whispered. "Unstable... dangerous."
He swallowed and raised his arm, preparing to pulse a warning flash from the band. "Hey! Step back! You're in a time rupture zone!"
Her eyes opened.
Gold.
The same gold from his memory.
Kael's breath caught in his throat.
Then she moved.
Not walked. Not ran.
She just... appeared.
One moment she was thirty meters away.
The next — inches from his chest.
Her hand rose and brushed against his coat. Her fingers were cold, yet familiar, like winter wrapped in a memory.
"You don't remember," she whispered. Her voice was gentle but carried something terrible beneath it. "But your heart does."
Kael stumbled backward. The chrono-band screamed in warning.
"Temporal sync error!" it shrieked. "Unstable presence detected! Signature embedded!"
He looked down at the screen.
A single word glowed red:
Dray.
His blood turned to ice.
That name. That cursed name. That name that lived in his dreams like a ghost. He didn't know why, but it filled him with dread and guilt all at once.
He raised his voice, though it trembled. "Who are you?"
She didn't answer at first. She turned her head slowly, as if hearing a song no one else could.
"I'm the one who remembers," she said finally. "Even the lies you buried."
And with that, she vanished.
No flash. No sound. She simply melted into the swirling ash and time.
Kael stood frozen.
Around him, the city whispered.
His pulse echoed in his ears. The name still burned on his chrono-band. Dray. A name from a past he couldn't recall but had always feared.
Something had shifted.
The past wasn't done with him.
And neither was she.