Long before Arin stepped outside, the morning felt wrong. He couldn't explain why. Perhaps it was because the air seemed to hold its breath, or the way the clouds hung low, heavy and waiting, as though the world itself anticipated something terrible. Mirefall was always gloomy, always a bit lifeless, but today, the silence pressed against the town with an almost tangible weight, like a hand on his chest.
Arin tightened the strap of his backpack and began walking toward school. Normally, the distant hum of life—dogs barking, doors shutting, footsteps from blocks away—would reach him before they happened. Tiny echoes slipped from tomorrow, teasing him with the inevitability of events. But now… nothing.
It was unnatural. As though the whole world had gone mute, stripped of sound, stripped of the normal rhythms that made it safe.
Arin paused near the old fountain. Closing his eyes, he strained to hear even one heartbeat ahead, a footstep, a whisper—anything. Instead, a cold emptiness settled into his chest, heavy and hollow. He tried to shake it off, tried to tell himself that the absence of sound was nothing, but the tension in his shoulders betrayed him.
Then it hit.
A scream, sharp, metallic, and wrong, tore through his skull.
Arin stumbled forward, grasping the edge of the fountain for support. The sound didn't come from the present. It vibrated with that distorted layering that only echoes carried—multiple versions of the same cry colliding, crashing together from different points in time.
"Run," the voice snarled. "It sees you."
Arin's breath caught. The world around him flickered, as if the very air hesitated. The street warped: cracked asphalt, lamp posts bent like melted bone, shadows stretching and crawling across the ground as if alive. In the center stood a tall, twisted silhouette, unmoving but radiating awareness. Its gaze carved into him with invisible claws.
He blinked, and everything snapped back. Normal street, quiet morning, nothing there.
But the chill in his spine refused to leave.
He forced himself to move again. Slow steps. Deep breaths. Don't show fear. Don't run. Predators hunted anything that fled.
He had just one street to cross before reaching school when he turned a corner and slammed into someone. Hard.
Hands caught him before he fell.
"Easy," a soft voice said.
Arin looked up—heart dropping into his stomach.
The silver-haired man from last night.
Silas.
He was dressed differently now, but the same unnerving aura surrounded him—like someone who existed in every point in time except this one. His coat was dark, travel-worn, lined with faint shifting symbols, like clock hands frozen in motion yet moving at once.
Silas studied him closely. "You heard it again." A statement, not a question.
Arin stepped back, shaking. "What do you want from me?"
Silas didn't respond immediately. His eyes scanned past Arin to the quiet street, tense, alert, as if expecting something to tear through at any moment. Then he said quietly, "You're in danger."
"I already know that," Arin snapped, his hands trembling slightly. "Tell me why."
Silas met his gaze. "Because you're the last Echo-Bearer born in this timeline."
Arin froze. The words slithered into him like ice down his spine, unwelcome and heavy.
"I don't even know what that means."
"You will," Silas said. "But you won't survive long enough to understand if you stay here." He stepped closer, his voice lowering to a whisper. "Something ancient hunts you. Something that feeds on people like you. Echo-Bearers are rare, Arin. And extinction… makes you valuable."
Arin swallowed hard. His pulse thundered in his ears. "What is it?"
Silas's jaw tightened. "The Chrono-Harvester."
A gust of wind swept down the street. The air grew cold enough to sting, and for a heartbeat the clouds seemed to twist into jagged shards of shadow.
Arin's legs quivered. "Is it here?"
Silas didn't reply. He didn't need to.
A sound cracked through the air behind them—a deep, slow, distorted thud. Not footsteps on pavement. Footsteps on time itself.
Arin froze.
Silas grasped his wrist. "Don't look back."
Arin's instincts screamed at him to listen. To know. But fear turned his neck anyway.
The world peeled open like fabric tearing. Shadows spilled out, twisting and writhing, forming the outline of something tall and skeletal. Its limbs were jointed at impossible angles, each movement bending reality slightly around it. The air seemed to ripple with every step, as if the very moment itself recoiled from its presence.
Time warped. Streetlights bent. The sky dimmed. The ground shivered beneath their feet.
The creature cocked its head.
A dozen broken voices whispered from its hollow form:
Found you. Echo-Bearer.
Arin couldn't breathe.
Silas cursed under his breath. "Move."
The creature took another step forward. The world screamed, bending around its every motion, and Arin realized with sudden clarity that running wasn't enough. He would need to learn to fight the echoes themselves.