Elara's POV - 29 Minutes Until Death
I run.
Not toward the exits—they're all locked. Not toward Victor and his hunting party—that's suicide. I run toward the only thing in this nightmare room that I understand.
The Chronos Engine.
My invention. My baby. The machine I built to save lives that Victor turned into a murder weapon.
"Elara, stop!" Marcus shouts behind me. "There's nowhere to go!"
He's right. But I don't need to escape. I need to buy time. Literally.
I reach the Engine and slam my bleeding hand on the control panel. The machine recognizes my touch—my biometrics are still in the system from three years ago. The screen lights up.
WELCOME, DR. ELARA CHEN.
"Get away from that!" Victor's voice echoes from the catwalk. "Security, restrain her!"
Guards pour into the room from hidden doors. Six of them. Armed. Running toward me.
I have maybe ten seconds.
My fingers fly across the controls. I know this machine better than anyone. I designed every circuit, every algorithm, every safety protocol. And I know how to disable those protocols.
"What are you doing?" Sienna screams. She's running too, her face twisted with panic. "Victor, she's accessing the core systems!"
Good. Let them panic.
I pull up the emergency override screen. Every Chronos Engine has a failsafe—a way to reverse temporal transfers in case of accidents. Victor disabled it on this model, but the code is still buried in the system.
I just need to find it.
Five seconds. The guards are twenty feet away.
My vision blurs. The poison is working fast. My heart feels wrong—too slow, too weak.
Three seconds.
There. Hidden in a subsystem labeled "DIAGNOSTIC MODE." The reversal code.
I activate it.
The Chronos Engine screams. Every tank in the room lights up simultaneously. Red alarms flash.
WARNING: TEMPORAL REVERSAL INITIATED. ALL EXTRACTIONS WILL BE RETURNED TO ORIGINAL SOURCES.
"NO!" Victor roars. "Shut it down! SHUT IT DOWN!"
But it's too late. The machine is already working.
All the stolen time—every hour, every day, every year that Victor drained from these people—starts flowing backward. The blue liquid in the tanks glows white-hot. The people inside start moving, twitching, coming back to life.
The first guard reaches me. Grabs my arm.
I elbow him in the throat. He goes down choking.
A second guard tackles me from behind. We hit the floor hard. My vision sparks with pain and poison.
"Hold her!" Marcus yells.
Strong hands pin my arms. I thrash but I'm too weak. The poison has spread through my whole body now. I can barely feel my legs.
Victor appears above me, his face purple with rage. "Do you have any idea what you've done? Those extractions represent billions of dollars! Decades of work!"
"Decades of murder," I gasp. "You're killing people."
"I'm harvesting resources! Those people were worthless! Poor! Sick! They were going to die anyway!"
"They were HUMAN!"
Victor backhands me. My head snaps to the side. Blood fills my mouth.
"Secure her to the primary extraction pod," he orders the guards. "Maximum drain rate. I want every piece of knowledge ripped from her brain before she dies."
They drag me toward an empty tank. I try to fight but my body won't respond. The poison has almost won.
This is it. I'm going to die here. Become one of these floating corpses. Everything I know, everything I am, stolen and sold.
Then I hear it.
A voice. Not through the earpiece—that's dead, crushed under a guard's boot. This voice comes from everywhere and nowhere.
My mother's voice. Real. Close. Furious.
"Let. Her. GO."
The temperature in the room drops twenty degrees in an instant.
Every guard freezes. Even Victor stops, his eyes wide with something I've never seen in him before.
Fear.
"That's impossible," he whispers. "You're contained. The temporal lock should—"
"Should?" The voice laughs, and it sounds like breaking glass. "Oh, Victor. You really thought your little machine could hold me forever?"
One of the tanks explodes.
Not break. Explodes. Glass and blue liquid spray across the room. The person inside—a young woman—drops to the floor, gasping.
Then another tank explodes. And another. And another.
People are freeing themselves. Or something is freeing them.
The lights flicker. The Chronos Engine's hum becomes a shriek.
And from the largest tank at the back of the room—the one I didn't notice before, the one covered in chains and warning signs—something moves.
The liquid inside turns black. The chains glow red-hot and snap.
The glass cracks.
"No," Victor backs away. "No, no, no. The temporal lock is at maximum. You can't—"
The tank shatters.
What comes out isn't human.
Not anymore.
It's shaped like a woman. It has my mother's face. But it's made of something else. Something that looks like static and starlight and darkness all mixed together. Temporal energy in physical form.
"Hello, Victor," my mother—or the thing wearing her shape—says. "Did you miss me?"
Victor runs. Just turns and sprints for the exit like a scared rabbit.
The creature that used to be my mother moves. Not walks. Moves. She's suddenly just there, in front of Victor, blocking his path.
"Leaving so soon? But we have so much to discuss. Like how you murdered me. How you threw me into your experimental reactor and used my death to power your empire." Her hand—if you can call it a hand—reaches for Victor's face. "How you've been draining my temporal essence for ten years to keep yourself young."
"Please," Victor whimpers. "I can explain—"
"Explain to the void."
She touches him.
Victor Kane ages. Fast. His hair goes white, his skin wrinkles, his bones curve. In five seconds, he goes from fifty-something to ancient. Then beyond ancient. His body crumbles to dust that scatters across the floor.
Dead. Victor is dead. Really dead this time.
Marcus and Sienna scream. They run for the other exit.
My mother-creature turns to them. "You helped him. You took my daughter's work and twisted it. You destroyed her life."
"We were just following orders!" Sienna shrieks.
"Bad excuse."
She doesn't kill them. Worse. She ages them backward. They start getting younger. And younger. And younger.
Until they're children. Five years old. Standing in adult clothes that are now way too big, crying and confused.
"You wanted to steal futures?" my mother says. "Now you get to relive your past. Every moment. Every mistake. And you'll remember everything you did as adults. Enjoy your second childhood."
She turns to me.
I'm still pinned by guards, but they're not moving. They're frozen in terror.
My mother floats—because she's definitely floating now—over to me. Her face softens. She looks sad.
"My baby girl," she says. "Look what they did to you."
"Mom?" My voice cracks. "Is it really you?"
"Parts of me. The parts that survived when Victor killed me and fed me to his machines. I've been trapped in that tank for ten years, Elara. Conscious. Aware. Watching him use my stolen time to build his empire. Watching him destroy you."
Tears pour down my face. "You've been alive this whole time?"
"Not alive. Something else. Something that shouldn't exist. Temporal energy isn't meant to have consciousness. But Victor's experiment... changed me. Transformed me into this." She gestures at her impossible body. "I'm not your mother anymore. Not really. I'm what's left when you turn a human being into raw time."
"I don't understand."
"You will." She places a hand on my chest. Where her hand touches, the burning stops. The poison reverses. My heart strengthens. "I'm giving you time, Elara. Time that Victor stole from me. Twenty years. Maybe more. Enough to fix what he broke."
"But Mira—they said they have Mira—"
"They lied. Mira is safe. She's been safe this whole time, hidden where they couldn't find her. Everything they told you was manipulation."
Relief crashes through me so hard I can't breathe.
"Then who was pretending to be her? The shape-shifter?"
My mother's face darkens. "Someone who's been hunting me for ten years. Someone who wants what I've become—temporal consciousness. Power over time itself. They've been using you as bait to draw me out of hiding."
"Who? Who's hunting you?"
Before she can answer, the room shakes. Not an earthquake. Something worse.
The walls start glitching. Like reality is buffering. I see multiple versions of the same moment—the room as it is now, the room five seconds ago, the room five seconds from now, all layered on top of each other.
"They're here," my mother hisses. "They found me."
"Who?"
The main door explodes inward. Not with force. It just... stops existing.
And through the opening walks a man I've never seen before. Tall. Black suit. Face that's too perfect, too symmetrical, like someone designed it rather than born with it.
But his eyes. God, his eyes.
They're empty. Not cruel or cold. Empty. Like looking into nothing.
"Hello, Chen-04," the man says. "You've been very difficult to locate."
Chen-04? What does that mean?
My mother pushes me behind her. "Stay back, Elara."
"Chen-04," the man continues, ignoring me completely. "You are in violation of Timeline Integrity Protocol. You have manifested temporal consciousness without authorization. You must be terminated and your energy redistributed."
"Over my dead body," my mother snarls.
The man tilts his head. "That can be arranged."
He moves. Not fast. Not slow. He just stops being there and starts being here, right in front of my mother.
They collide.
The impact sends a shockwave that throws everyone—guards, freed prisoners, even Marcus and Sienna's child-bodies—across the room.
I slam into a tank and hit the ground hard.
Through blurry vision, I watch my mother fight this thing. It's not a normal fight. They're both made of temporal energy now. They age and de-age each other. They blink in and out of existence. They fight across multiple timelines simultaneously.
The man lands a hit. My mother screams—a sound that tears at reality itself.
She's losing.
"Elara," she gasps. "The Engine. Overload it. Destroy everything."
"But you—"
"I'm already dead! I died ten years ago! This is just borrowed time!" She blocks another attack. "Destroy the Engine. Destroy the facility. Make sure no one can ever do this again!"
"I won't leave you!"
"YOU DON'T HAVE A CHOICE!"
The man's hand goes through my mother's chest. She starts dissolving. Breaking apart into streams of light and shadow.
"Go!" she screams. "NOW!"
I run to the Engine. My hands find the controls through tears and panic.
I know exactly what to do. I built this machine. I can unbuild it.
I enter the master override code. The one that shuts down all safety protocols. The one that turns the Chronos Engine into a bomb.
CRITICAL WARNING: TEMPORAL CORE MELTDOWN IN 60 SECONDS.
The Engine starts glowing red. Heating up. Reality around it begins to warp and twist.
Behind me, my mother is almost gone. Just wisps of light fighting a losing battle.
The empty-eyed man looks at me for the first time. "Foolish. You'll kill everyone in this facility."
"Good," I spit back.
50 SECONDS TO MELTDOWN.
The freed prisoners run for the exits. The guards follow. Everyone scrambling to escape.
Everyone except Marcus and Sienna, who are still children, crying in confusion.
Everyone except me.
I stay at the controls. Making sure the meltdown continues. Making sure this nightmare ends.
"Elara, you have to run!" my mother's fading voice pleads.
"Not without you."
30 SECONDS.
The man destroys the last of my mother. She dissolves completely. Gone.
I'm alone with this thing and a melting Engine that's about to take out the entire building.
The man approaches me. "You cannot die here, Chen-04. You are too valuable."
"My name is ELARA."
"Your name is irrelevant. You are the daughter of Chen-04. You carry her temporal sensitivity in your genes. You can be trained. Improved. Made useful."
"I'd rather die."
10 SECONDS.
The man reaches for me.
And then—impossibly—another hand grabs mine.
I look down. My mother. Or what's left of her. Just a glowing outline now, barely visible.
"I can save you," she whispers. "But it will change you. Make you like me. Part temporal energy. Part human. You'll never be normal again."
"I was never normal."
"You'll be hunted. Forever. By things like him. By people who want to control time. You'll never be safe."
5 SECONDS.
The Engine is screaming now. The room is white-hot.
"Do it," I tell her.
My mother smiles. "That's my girl."
She flows into me. Through me. Her temporal energy merges with my cells.
It burns. God, it burns worse than the poison. Like every atom in my body is being rewritten.
The man lunges for me.
The Engine explodes.
Everything goes white.
When I wake up, I'm lying in rubble.
The entire underground facility is gone. Collapsed. Destroyed.
I crawl out of the debris. My body feels wrong. Too light. Too strange.
I look at my hands. They're flickering. Like static. Solid one second, translucent the next.
What did my mother do to me?
I touch my face. It feels real. Mostly real.
Around me, emergency vehicles are arriving. Police. Fire trucks. Ambulances.
A news helicopter circles overhead.
I need to run. But I can't feel my legs properly.
I manage to stand. Take a step.
And accidentally blink forward thirty feet.
Oh. Oh no.
My mother didn't just give me time. She gave me her power.
I'm like her now. Part human. Part temporal energy. Part impossible thing that shouldn't exist.
A voice behind me: "There you are."
I spin. It's the man. The empty-eyed one. He survived the explosion somehow.
"You can run," he says calmly. "But you cannot hide. Not from us. Not from what you've become."
"Who are you?"
"I am Agent-17 of the Temporal Integrity Bureau. We maintain timeline stability across all realities. And you, Elara Chen, are now the most dangerous instability we've ever encountered." He smiles, but it doesn't reach his eyes. "Welcome to your new life. Or what's left of it."
He disappears. Just blinks out of existence.
I'm alone in the ruins of Chronos Corporation with sirens closing in and a body that won't stop glitching between solid and not-solid.
My mother is gone. Victor is dead. Marcus and Sienna are children. The Engine is destroyed.
And I'm something that shouldn't exist.
My phone—somehow still intact—buzzes in my pocket.
A text from an unknown number: Mira is at St. Catherine's Hospital, room 347. She's safe. She's waiting. Run.
I don't question it. I just run.
Or try to. Instead, I think about running—and suddenly I'm a mile away.
I look back at Chronos Corporation. It's collapsing, floors crushing down on themselves.
My entire past. My entire life. Gone.
But Mira is alive. Waiting.
I focus on the hospital. On my sister.
And I blink there.
One moment I'm in the ruins. The next, I'm standing outside St. Catherine's Hospital, staring up at the lit windows.
Room 347.
I walk inside. No one stops me. Maybe they can't see me properly. Maybe I'm flickering too fast.
I take the elevator. Walk down the hall. Find room 347.
The door is open.
And there, sitting up in bed, looking confused but alive and solid and REAL, is Mira.
She sees me. Her eyes go wide.
"Elara? Is that you? You look... weird. Like you're glowing."
I start crying. Laughing. Both.
"Hey, little sister," I manage to say. "Sorry I'm late."
Then I collapse.