Mirefall was the type of town that looked tired even when the sun was up. At night, it felt worse—like something was holding its breath, waiting for a sound that never came. Arin Vale walked through the empty square, his hood low, his thoughts louder than the rain tapping against the stone. Each step echoed like it belonged to someone else, as if the streets themselves remembered a history he hadn't yet lived.
He hated the rain. Not because it was cold or heavy, but because it made the sounds clearer. Louder. Every drip, every splatter, every distant creak reached him in perfect clarity. Sometimes, he could hear a sound before it actually happened. A door creak before someone touched it. A whisper before a mouth opened. Little cracks in time slipping into his ears like threads pulling at the fabric of reality.
Tonight, the cracks were screaming.
Arin stopped. His heartbeat stumbled. A voice—faint, but sharp—echoed inside his skull.
"No… someone help… he's coming—"
The voice shredded the space between thought and sound. Arin grabbed the wall as the voice grew clearer, like the person was standing right next to him, but it wasn't a voice from now; it was a voice from the future. He felt it instantly, the stretching, the unnatural pull in his mind.
"Run… the Chrono-Harvester… it wants the Echo-bearer…"
Then one final scream ripped through him, and all was silent once more.
Arin breathed hard. Echo-bearer. The word felt heavy, like it was meant for him. He didn't know what a Chrono-Harvester was, but the fear in that voice made his stomach twist, curling into itself. His own heartbeat sounded alien in his ears. He wanted to move, to run, but his legs felt like stone.
"You heard it, didn't you?"
Arin spun around.
A man stood in pouring rain, tall and thin, a long dark coat clinging to him. His silver hair fell over one glowing blue eye. The very rain seemed uncertain about touching him, curling away like it feared to stain his clothes. He looked almost unreal, like he had been carved from shadow and moonlight.
"Arin Vale," the man replied calmly, his voice low and controlled. "I have been looking for you."
Arin stepped back, tripping slightly over a puddle. "Who are you?"
"Just a traveler," the man said, with a faint smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Call me Silas. And before you ask—yes, I know what you are."
Arin swallowed, his throat dry. "What… what am I?"
"An Echo-bearer," Silas said. "One who hears tomorrow before tomorrow arrives. And someone a certain monster would very much like to find."
Arin didn't want to believe him, but the thunder in the sky began to twist unnaturally. The clouds didn't flash—they cracked, like jagged fractures in glass. Something pressed against the edge of reality itself.
Silas cursed under his breath. "It's early. Much earlier than it should be."
A long metallic limb ripped out of the sky like a blade, scraping against the air and producing a grinding scream that wasn't a sound at all—Arin felt it inside his bones, vibrating along his spine. The creature followed, emerging through a tear in reality itself. Its skull-like head rotated, empty sockets glowing with swirling fragments of time, scanning the street as if it could read every possible future.
And then it looked directly at Arin.
Found… Echo-bearer…
The words did not come from its mouth. They came from his future.
Silas grasped Arin's arm. "Listen closely. Do you hear anything? Any sound of what's to come?"
Arin tried. The creature's warped shriek drowned everything, but beneath it—faintly—he heard a whisper from a moment ahead.
Jump.
Instincts screamed. Adrenaline flooded his veins. Arin yanked Silas sideways, and a razor-thin cable sliced the air where they had been standing. The ground split open like paper, revealing jagged cracks glowing faintly with temporal energy.
Silas stared at him. "Good. You can control it."
"I can't," Arin snapped. "I don't even know what it is!"
"No time to explain," Silas said, his eyes scanning the shadowed sky. "Just escape."
He pulled out a small metallic cube from his coat; the runes on it shifted like clock hands. When he pressed the center, it spun open, forming a glowing ring of light and shadows—a portal.
"Go!" Silas pushed him forward.
Arin hesitated only for a breath—then another echo hit him.
Don't go alone.
He grasped Silas's sleeve and pulled him through. The world twisted into streaks of color and sound as they fell into a swirling corridor of light. The portal snapped shut behind them; the scream of the Chrono-Harvester cut off instantly, leaving a silence that pressed against his ears.
Arin lay on the unfamiliar floor, chest rising and falling rapidly. Silas landed beside him, breathing hard but smiling faintly, as if the danger had only been a lesson.
"You did well," Silas said. "Better than I expected."
Arin stared at him, voice trembling. "Where… where are you taking me?"
Silas met his eyes, serious now. "To the last place in the timelines where Echo-bearers can still survive."
Arin swallowed, fear and confusion knotting in his stomach. "And once we reach it?"
Silas's gaze softened just a little, though the storm outside still rumbled in the distance. "You'll learn why you're not the only one who can hear tomorrow."