Tick...

Tock...

Tick...

Tock...

The clock struck seven in the evening when Aris Zimmer woke up with a stiff neck and his cheek pressed against a pile of messy research papers. Ink stains were faintly visible on his skin. The lab lights were still on brightly, reflecting off the large whiteboard covered in random formulas, crossed arrows, and colliding circles, as if written by someone racing against time... or fear.

His phone vibrated wildly beside his hand.

Bzzz... Bzzz... Bzzz...

Without really realizing it, Aris reached out and picked it up.

"Are you crazy, making me wait so long at this restaurant?!"

A woman's voice exploded from the other end of the phone.

She was Anna Heidegger, Aris Zimmer's girlfriend.

Aris smiled weakly as he massaged his temples. His head throbbed as if it had been hit from the inside. His eyes were heavy, his vision still blurry. His black hair stood up in all directions as if it had just been battered by a small storm in a dream.

Aris remembered the promise he had made.

Tonight was supposed to be an important night. The ring in his jacket pocket. Tonight was supposed to be the night he proposed to Anna Heidegger.

"Anna... what time is it?" his voice was hoarse.

"It's eight o'clock!" Anna snapped. The clinking of spoons, people talking, and soft piano music could be heard faintly behind her.

"You promised to be here at seven! I've been sitting here alone for an hour like an idiot!"

Aris sat up too quickly, causing his chair to creak loudly. He was breathing heavily. His eyes stared at the clock on the laboratory wall.

The long hand was on twelve.

The short hand was on seven.

07.00

His blood seemed to drain away.

"It's impossible..." he muttered.

"What's impossible?!" Anna grew even more annoyed. "You're working overtime again, aren't you? Always research! Am I your girlfriend or an unpaid research assistant?!"

Aris didn't answer. His mind began to race. He had fallen asleep... for how long? He remembered seeing the clock at past six. Just for a moment. Just closing his eyes.

An hour gone?

His eyes slowly shifted to the whiteboard.

The quantum time relativity formula. Overlapping circle diagrams. Temporal fluctuation graphs.

And in the middle of the board, written in large letters with a red marker that was almost dry:

DO NOT ACTIVATE AGAIN. NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS.

But... he didn't remember writing that.

"Anna..." his voice softened, tense. "What time did you arrive at the restaurant?"

"Huh? Seven o'clock, as promised!"

"And... didn't you feel anything strange? The lights? The clock on the wall? The people there?"

"Aris, enough! If you don't come in five minutes, I'm going home." 

Suddenly, the voice on the other end turned static. 

Krrrssshhhh... 

"Anna? Anna?!" 

Click. 

The phone went dead.

The laboratory suddenly felt too quiet.

Tick... Tock...

Tick...

...Tock...

The clock slowed down. It was unusual. As if it had run out of breath.

Aris swallowed hard and turned to the large window on the side of the room.

Suddenly, the night sky looked different.

The stars were moving.

Not falling. Not twinkling.

They were SPINNING.

Slowly forming a giant vortex, like water flowing into an invisible hole in the sky. The starlight stretched, curved, drawn towards a single dark point in the center.

And inside that vortex...

a shape appeared.

The silhouette of a giant eye.

Formed from swirling cosmic light. Its eyelids slowly opened. Within its pupil, a glowing clock hand appeared… pointing straight down.

Toward…

This city.

The wall clock stopped ticking.

The glass face was cracked.

CRASH!

Aris jumped back. His chest suddenly felt cold. His breathing was short and shallow. His heart pounded against his ribs as if it wanted to escape his body.

"No... no... no..."

The whisper escaped him unconsciously.

His eyes shifted to the right side of the table.

The machine was still there.

A metal ball the size of a motorcycle helmet floated a few centimeters above its base. Metal rings surrounded it, slowly rotating with symbols of time that had never been seen in any physics book. Its core pulsed dimly... like a heart.

The Quantum Time Machine.

An experiment that was supposed to only open a micro-slit into a few seconds of the future.

No… whatever this is.

The indicator light was blue.

ACTIVE.

Yet he was sure he had turned it off.

Suddenly

His phone rang again.

The screen lit up on its own.

There was no name, Anna.

INCOMING CALL — NO NAME

Aris's hands trembled as he picked it up.

"Hello…?"

There was silence for a few seconds.

Then came the sound of heavy breathing.

And then...

"If you answered this call... it's already too late."

The voice sounded like someone older and more tired.

"What… who is this?!"

"In one hour, something will begin to happen."

The world felt tilted.

"Listen carefully. Don't touch that machine again. And whatever happens...."

BOOM!

A loud explosion from the phone.

"What happened?!"

"The creature has seen you," he whispered.

"Who?!"

The sky outside the window flickered.

Like a broken screen.

In a split second: night turned to day. Day turned to dusk. Dusk turned back to night. Repeating rapidly as if someone were scrolling through time with trembling fingers.

People on the street below the building moved jerkily. Like a buffering video. Cars stopped in the middle of the road. Birds in the air froze... as if frozen.

"That creature is..." the voice on the phone was cut off by static. "And that creature just saw you."

Aris backed up until his back hit the table.

"I only opened the window for a few seconds..."

"You opened the door. And something outside is staring in."

The laboratory lights flickered wildly.

The time machine hummed louder and louder.

Its metal ring now spun on its own. The air around it curved, rippling like hot asphalt.

"Listen to me carefully," the voice coughed loudly. "In five minutes, the timelines will collide."

"What?!"

"And this world will never be the same again."

Aris's heart seemed to stop.

"What do you mean…?"

"You must run from the chase..."

KRRRZZZTT...

The signal broke.

Before it completely cut off, the last sentence was heard:

"The Obscura of Kronos"

The phone died.

The next second...

The sky returned to normal.

The stars were back to their usual selves.

The streets were moving again. Cars were driving. People were walking. Birds were flapping their wings.

As if nothing had happened.

Except for one thing.

The engine indicator light changed color.

From blue…

to red.

And for the first time since the experiment was conducted...

the machine began counting down.

04:59

Tick...

Tock...

04:59

The red light in the engine core pulsed slowly.

In time with Aris's heartbeat.

04:58

The ticking sound no longer came from the wall clock.

It came from everywhere.

From the air.

From the table.

From inside his head.

Tick... Tock... Tick... Tock...

Aris took a step back, then two steps. His throat was dry. His mind tried to grasp logic, but logic was far behind his fear.

"This is just an illusion... just the effect of an electromagnetic field... just...."

04:41

The machine hummed louder. The air around it curved like a giant lens. The light from the laboratory lamps was drawn toward the metal core, stretching like thin threads. A red and blue mist began to appear slowly.

The research papers on the table began to shake.

Then...

FLOAT.

One sheet lifted.

Then ten.

Then all of them.

Aris covered his face as the sheets of formulas flew around the machine like panicked birds.

On the whiteboard, the red writing looked fresher.

DO NOT ACTIVATE AGAIN

As if it had just been written.

04:12

"Anna..."

The name slipped from his lips like a prayer. He remembered Anna was still at the restaurant.

If the timeline was going to collapse... if something was truly about to happen in five minutes... then the first public place filled with people was the most important place.

Aris looked at the machine once more. Its core pulsed like a heart about to explode.

"Don't touch that machine again..."

Aris, still wearing his slightly dirty white lab coat with a black T-shirt and black pants, turned and ran.

04:03

The laboratory door slammed open.

The hallway was dark and quiet. Sensor lights turned on one by one as he ran past them, like a room waking up from a long sleep.

The footsteps from his black shoes echoed too loudly along with his heartbeat.

Tok! Tok! Tok!

At the end of the hallway, the digital clock that usually showed the time and temperature now only displayed one red number:

04:00

Aris stopped suddenly.

"That's... not a clock..."

The number flashed.

03:59

His breath caught in his throat.

It wasn't just in his head.

03:32 - PARKING LOT

The night air was bitterly cold. The park lights flickered erratically, as if the world had lost its power supply.

The cars were parked silently, except for one. Its headlights were on by themselves.

Aris recognized it. It was his car, parked in front of the laboratory building. He clearly remembered turning it off.

The car engine was already running when he opened the door. The radio was on, emitting a faint static noise.

"...no... repeat... timeline... move away..."

His hands trembled as he turned off the radio.

03:10

The digital speedometer lit up.

It wasn't showing speed, but a countdown.

03:09

"Don't start either..." he muttered, then stepped on the gas.

02:41 - CITY STREETS

The city looked normal. Too normal.

The traffic lights were green.

People were crossing the street leisurely.

A pair of teenagers laugh on the sidewalk.

A pizza delivery guy yawns while waiting for an order.

No one saw the sky earlier.

No one heard the world almost tear apart.

But...

Every digital screen Aris passes—LED billboards, ATMs, bus stop screens—all display a small red number in the bottom corner.

02:30

No one noticed.

Except him.

"That creature has seen you..."

The words echoed.

"Who is He?"

"Who is that creature?"

"Or something closer?"

02:02 - IN FRONT OF THE RESTAURANT

Aris slammed on the brakes when he arrived in front of the restaurant.

The restaurant was bright and warm. Crystal chandeliers reflected golden light onto the sidewalk. Soft piano music drifted out every time a door opened.

It was the perfect place for a proposal. He got out of the car. Through the window, he saw a couple laughing. Waiters were serving wine. Steaming hot dishes. The glass door opened as he entered.

DING!

The doorbell rang.

A waiter turned around and greeted him warmly. 

"Good evening, sir..."

Then he stopped.

"Sir, are you okay? You look very pale."

Aris looked around.

"A woman... sitting alone. Long brown hair. Wearing a white dress. She arrived at seven o'clock."

The waiter frowned. "We don't have a guest like that tonight."

"Impossible. She called me from here!"

Another waiter approached. "Maybe you're at the wrong restaurant?"

Aris shook his head vigorously. "The piano, the marble walls, the painting of an old ship next to the bar."

They looked at each other.

"That... is a description of this restaurant five years ago," said the waiter softly. "Before the renovation."

Aris's blood seemed to stop flowing.

He turned to the wall.

There was no painting of a ship.

Instead, there was a modern abstract painting.

01:31

The restaurant's wall clock ticked normally.

But the shadow of the hands...

was moving backwards.

01:12

"Can I see the reservation list?" Aris pressed.

The waiter showed him the guest list tablet.

But Anna Heidegger's name was not there.

Aris backed away slowly.

"No... she's here. She's angry. She's waiting..."

Suddenly, the piano stopped.

All the sounds in the restaurant stretched out... slowed down... like a broken tape.

Glasses that were about to touch the table were suspended in midair.

Laughter turned into a low echo.

The waiter froze halfway.

Only Aris was still moving.

And from the reflection in the window...

he saw something standing behind him.

A tall figure. Too tall. Its face was blurry like an out-of-focus image.

Where the face should have been...

a clock hand spun rapidly.

Aris turned around.

There was nothing there.

The restaurant returned to normal.

The piano resumed playing. 

"Sir?"

The waiter touched his shoulder.

Aris jumped and backed away.

00:48

He ran outside.

00:39 - INSIDE THE CAR

His hands trembled as he started the engine.

"If not here... then at her house"

Anna's house wasn't far from this restaurant. He then stepped on the gas pedal.

The street lights began to turn off one by one as his car passed by.

They weren't turning off, it was more like... they were turning on late.

The world began to fall behind by a few seconds.

00:21 - IN FRONT OF ANNA'S HOUSE

The two-story house was dark.

Too dark.

Anna was afraid of the dark. She always turned on the porch light.

Aris got out of the car. The night wind stopped.

It stopped completely. The leaves on the trees froze in the air.

00:14

He pressed the doorbell. But there was no sound.

He then knocked on Anna's door.

"Anna! It's me, Aris!"

There was not a sound. It was very quiet.

The door was unlocked. Aris pushed it open slowly.

00:09 - INSIDE THE HOUSE

It smelled like an empty house that had been uninhabited for a long time. It wasn't a house that had been left for a few hours. There was a thin layer of dust on the table. There were no photos on the walls. The bookshelves were empty.

The carpet had a square mark where the sofa used to be.

"No... no... no..."

00:05

There was one object on the living room table.

A small red velvet box.

Aris's hands trembled as he opened it.

His engagement ring was inside.

But the ring had been in his jacket pocket earlier.

He reached into his pocket, but it was gone.

00:03

Under the ring box was a piece of paper.

Anna's handwriting.

But the ink was faded, like it had been written decades ago.

"I'm sorry for leaving you before you had a chance to come."

00:02

Aris trembled. "Before I... came?"

00:01

Underneath that sentence was a date.

6/2/2021

That was five years ago.

00:00

Time stopped.

Not like before, not slowing down, not going backwards.

It broke.

Aris felt his body being pulled into an invisible point, like a thread being sucked into a needle hole. The world collapsed without a sound. There was no light. Only the sensation of falling without direction, without end.

Then...

THUD.

He slammed into the hard ground.

Air rushed into his lungs with a strange smell: wet earth, wood smoke, and something fishy... blood, perhaps. Aris coughed violently, his palms touching the rough, rocky surface.

He opened his eyes.

The gray sky stretched low. Clouds moved quickly, as if being chased by something. There were no buildings. No street lights. No sound of engines.

There were only screams.

Aris woke with a start.

Surrounding him were wooden houses with thatched roofs. The dirt roads were covered in mud. People dressed in coarse brown and gray cloth ran around shouting in a language that sounded ancient, but he could still understand.

"Take the sick out of the city!"

"Don't touch them!"

"Pray! We need prayers!"

At the end of the road, a bell rang frantically.

TONG...TONG...TONG

It wasn't beating. It was calling.

Aris looked down. His scientist's coat was gone. He was now wearing a worn dark tunic, rough leather shoes, and an old belt. His hands trembled as he touched his own face, which was still the same.

"What year is this...?" he whispered.

A bearded man ran past him carrying a small child who was limp. The child's face was pale blue, his neck swollen with black lumps.

Aris froze.

He recognized it from history books. From pictures. From statistics.

But never from this close.

"Water! Help, water!" shouted a woman.

Aris reflexively moved forward, then stopped.

This is not my time.

This is not my world.

But his feet moved on their own.

He followed the crowd to the village square. There, a wooden pole stood with a pile of firewood beneath it. An old woman was tied up, her head bowed. A priest stood in front, holding a symbol of an eye.

"This disease is a punishment," he cried. "And the cause is those who play with God's time."

Aris' blood froze.

Those words...

He heard a whisper behind him.

"He will come again."

Aris turned around.

A young boy stood alone. He was probably ten years old. His eyes were too calm for a child his age.

"You... can see me, right?" asked the boy.

Aris nodded slowly.

The boy smiled. It was a strange smile. As if he knew too much.

"Good. That means you're not from here."

"Where am I?" asked Aris hoarsely.

"Daconia," replied the boy. "The year of God 0110."

Aris staggered.

"This... is impossible..."

"Time is never straight," said the boy lightly. "Only humans like to pretend it is."

The bell rang again. This time faster.

TONG...TONG...TONG...TONG

Aris felt something pulsing in his chest. Not his heart.

Something else.

He reached into his chest and found a cold object beneath the fabric.

A pocket watch with many symbols he had never seen before.

He opened it with trembling hands. The hands spun wildly, then stopped.

Pointing to a symbol that wasn't a number.

"Everyone who touches the core of your machine," said the boy, "always ends up here. Or in a place like this."

"What do you mean, always?" Aris stared at him sharply. The boy turned toward the wooden pole. The old woman screamed as the fire was lit.

"The origin," the boy replied softly. "The turning point. The year when there were too many deaths, too much fear. Time became... soft."

The fire burned. Aris wanted to scream. He wanted to stop it. But his feet felt rooted to the ground.

"Who are you?" he whispered. The boy stared at him for a long time.

"My name is Savitar," he said. "At least... it used to be."

The air around them trembled.

People froze. The fire stopped moving. Smoke hung like a painting.

From behind the giant bell, something emerged. A tall figure. Too tall.

Its shadow curved unnaturally in the light. Its face was blurred, and above its head was...

the silhouette of a giant clock facing downward

with hands spinning in the opposite direction.

Tick... Tock... Tick... Tock...

Aris trembled.

"What is that creature?" whispered Aris.

Savitar nodded.

"We call it KALA," he said. "It doesn't kill. It just makes sure."

"Makes sure what?!"

"That no one returns before their time," replied Savitar. "Including Anna."

"Wait, how do you know about Anna?" said Aris.

Savitar was silent... he didn't answer the question.

Savitar stared at the pocket watch in Aris's hand, not his face.

"That watch chose you," he said finally. "Not because you created the machine... but because you lost something."

"You haven't answered my question," Aris pressed. "How do you know about Anna?"

Savitar stepped closer. The ground didn't creak. It was as if the boy wasn't really touching the world. He pointed to the pocket watch.

"Try listening," he said.

Aris lifted the watch to his ear.

There was no ticking.

Instead... there were whispers.

Not one voice, but many, overlapping each other. Cries. Prayers. Broken promises. Names spoken halfway, then fading away.

And among them all, one was clear...

"Aris..."

His breath caught.

"That... that's Anna's voice."

The whisper had not yet finished when the world around Aris began to move again.

The fire licked at the wood once more. Smoke rose. Screams broke out. Bells rang.

TONG... TONG... TONG...

Savitar was no longer beside him.

Aris staggered, gasping for breath, his chest tight with a single name spinning around in his head: Anna.

The pocket watch suddenly grew hot in his palm. The symbol that had been still now spun. The air folded like wet cloth being wrung out.

And before Aris could say anything

THE WORLD FOLDED INTO ITSELF.

Twenty-Nine Years Earlier

Academia Omnis Veritas, Ariston City

The rain fell neatly that afternoon, neither heavy nor light. The kind of rain that made the schoolyard shiny and the smell of earth rise into the air.

Little Aris Zimmer sat alone under a chestnut tree, holding a book that was too big for his body. The cover featured an astronomical clock with branching hands.

"Time never lies," he muttered, repeating a sentence he had just read. "It's humans who often miscalculate."

"What is that?"

The voice startled Aris. A girl stood in front of him, her brown hair in a messy braid, her black shoes wet from the puddles.

"A book," Aris replied automatically.

"I know it's a book," the girl said flatly. "I mean, what kind of book?"

Aris hesitated. Usually, other children laughed at his interests.

"Physics," he said finally. "About... time."

The girl's eyes widened, not in mockery but in curiosity.

"Can time be studied?" she asked.

Aris nodded slightly. "It can... but it's difficult."

He waited for laughter. What came instead was a smile.

"My name is Anna Heidegger," she said, extending her hand. "I hate history lessons. But I like strange stories."

Aris shook her hand. Her palm was warm.

"Aris Zimmer."

And since that day, they almost always sat next to each other.

Anna wasn't afraid of Aris's strangeness. She actually liked it.

When Aris explained how a sundial worked, Anna listened. When Aris said that time might not move in a straight line, Anna asked, "Then where does it turn?"

They grew up together between the pages of books and the school hallways.

Anna was good at drawing. Aris was good at math. They complemented each other without realizing it.

In sixth grade, when the history teacher talked about plagues and wars, Anna asked quietly, "If people die before their time... where do they go?"

Aris didn't know the answer. But he wrote the question down in his notebook.

The Cracked Years

Everything changed when they were seventeen.

It was a bright day. Too bright for bad news.

Aris was in the school lab when his phone vibrated. A message from Anna, just one line.

Aris, can you go to the hospital?

He ran.

The hospital corridor smelled of antiseptic and cold coffee. Anna sat stiffly on a plastic chair, her face blank.

"An accident," she said without looking up. "Their car... fell off a bridge."

"Brake failure?" asked Aris, trying to be rational.

Anna shook her head. "The police said... there were no skid marks."

Anna's parents died on the spot.

The case was closed quickly. Too quickly.

Aris stood at the funeral, the rain falling again... it always rained in their lives. Wet ground, black umbrellas, prayers that sounded like formalities.

Anna didn't cry. She just stood frozen.

When everyone left, Aris stayed by her side.

"If time could be turned back," Anna finally said, her voice breaking, "I would tell them not to go that day."

Aris stared at the gravestone. The date was neatly engraved.

Something pulsed in his head. A crazy idea. Impossible. But the words came out before he could filter them.

"I'll build a time machine," he said.

Anna turned her head. Her red eyes were empty, then slowly filled with something...dangerous hope.

"Don't joke about this."

"I'm not joking," Aris replied. "Someday. I promise."

The wind blew. Leaves fell.

And behind the pine tree, for a moment, Aris felt like... he was being watched.

The Years That Passed

That promise became his fuel.

Aris studied relentlessly. Physics, mathematics, quantum mechanics. He was accepted into Aeternum Sanctum University. The best university in the city of Ariston, then entered a secret research program.

Anna was always there. Waiting. Supporting. Sometimes questioning.

"Are you sure you're okay? You look pale," Anna asked one night when Aris almost fainted at his desk.

"If I stop," Aris replied, "then they'll really be gone forever."

Anna never asked him to stop. But she began to slowly distance herself, like someone afraid of being dragged too close to the edge.

They remained together. But an invisible distance was built from long working hours and dreams that were too big.

And without Aris realizing it, something began to watch from behind time.

Back to Daconia, Year of God 0110

Aris jolted back to the village square.

The fire had gone out. The old woman was no longer screaming.

Savitar stood beside him again, staring at his pocket watch.

"Promises," the boy said. "Promises are the strongest knot in time."

"You... already knew all this," Aris whispered. "From the beginning."

Savitar shrugged. "I know the versions."

"Anna's parents' accident... it wasn't an accident, right?"

Savitar did not answer immediately.

"In this world," he said softly, "time is fragile because humans fear loss. In your world... time is fragile because humans are always thirsty for knowledge."

"What about KALA?" Aris gritted his teeth. "Is that his doing?"

"KALA is not the reason, Aris," Savitar replied. "He is the consequence."

The ground trembled slightly. The pocket watch in Aris's hand ticked once.

TICK.

Savitar stared at him intently. For the first time, the boy looked... old.

"Anna's parents didn't die by accident," he said. "They were at the wrong junction. At a time when they shouldn't have been."

"Because of me?" Aris's voice was barely audible.

"Not yet," Savitar replied. "But because of what you are going to do."

The sky darkened. The silhouette of KALA appeared in the distance, not approaching, just... watching.

"Your machine," Savitar continued, "is not the first."

Aris turned sharply. "What do you mean?"

Savitar pointed to the pocket watch. Its symbol was now clearly a split circle, with a line returning to the starting point.

"Every age has people like you," he said. "Scientists. Wizards. Priests. They all make their way home."

"And they succeed?" Aris asked.

"No," Savitar smiled faintly. "They fail."

Aris froze. "Fail...? Then where do they go?"

Savitar did not answer immediately.

He closed the pocket watch with two fingers, as if afraid the world would hear his answer first. The village bell had stopped ringing, but the echo of time still vibrated in the thin air, like an over-tightened string.

"They didn't go anywhere," he said finally. "They became the place."

Aris frowned. "That's not an answer."

"It's the only truthful answer."

Savitar stepped into the center of the square. The ground cracked thinly beneath his shoes, forming a circular pattern—not random cracks, but like a diagram. Concentric lines, clock symbols, faintly pulsing foreign letters.

"This is Daconia," he said. "One of the Holding Worlds."

Aris swallowed. "Holding... what?"

"Holding failure."

Savitar crouched down, pressing his palms against the ground. The world responded to his touch.

The air around them swirled again, but this time it did not transport Aris to his personal past. He saw flashes of unfamiliar fragments from another world.

A marble city with a giant clock tower, its hands piercing the clouds.

An old woman with dark brown skin exuded a quiet elegance, surrounded by a circle of salt and candles, screaming at the split sky.

A young priest wrote a formula on parchment, using his own blood as ink.

"They all try the same thing," said Savitar. "To make a way home."

"To the past," muttered Aris.

"To the point before the loss."

The ground shook again. The cracks widened, revealing something beneath, not magma, not rock. But a pulsing void, like a breathing chest.

"Every time someone tries to break through the knot of time," Savitar continued, "and fails to return intact... the remnants of their existence settle."

"Settle where?"

"In a world like this."

Savitar stood up. "Daconia is not a natural world. It was formed from the remnants of failure."

Aris felt nauseous. "You mean... the people who failed became... the foundation of the world?"

"Their consciousness," Savitar corrected. "Memories, regrets, hopes that were never used. All of that was too heavy to simply disappear."

Aris looked at the wooden houses around the square. The narrow streets. The faces of the residents he had seen earlier were so real, so alive.

"They are human," Aris said softly. "They breathe. They fear. They pray."

"Because they are formed from humans," Savitar replied. "From fragments of hope and desire."

The pocket watch in Aris's hand vibrated violently, as if in disagreement.

"Then KALA?" Aris asked. "If these worlds are formed from failure... what is its role?"

Savitar turned toward the giant silhouette on the horizon. KALA's form was never clear, sometimes like a living hourglass, sometimes like the skeleton of a collapsed city, sometimes like the shadow of a human being too large to be called human.

"KALA is the guardian of balance," he said. "Or the executioner, depending on which side you stand on."

"What balance?"

"The number of nodes."

Savitar drew a circle in the air. Inside it, points of light appeared.

"Every time someone creates a path home," he explained, "they create a new node. Too many nodes cause time to become tangled. The worlds begin to collide."

"But that's just a theory..."

"A theory in your world," Savitar interrupted. "Here, it is history."

He pointed into the distance. Aris saw the shadow of another city, half-sunken into the ground of Daconia, its clock tower broken, its hands spinning aimlessly.

"That's what's left of the Kalpa Ada World," said Savitar. "It was destroyed when a queen tried to save her child who had died of the plague. She managed to turn back time... five times. On the sixth attempt, the knot collapsed."

Aris imagined Anna standing among the machines he would one day build. Her face was pale. Her eyes were full of hope.

"Anna's parents," he said softly. "They're at the wrong junction..."

"Because of waves from the future," Savitar nodded. "Your machines haven't been built yet, but your intentions already exist. And time... hears those intentions."

Aris clenched his fists. "So I'm cursed even before I've done anything?"

"You're special," Savitar said. "And that makes you more dangerous."

"Why me?" Aris stared at him sharply. "Why not another scientist? Another wizard?"

Savitar smiled crookedly. "Because you don't want to change history."

Aris fell silent.

"You only want to fix one day," Savitar continued. "One conversation. One decision. Small ambitions are often the most destructive."

The ground shook harder. KALA moved slightly... not closer, but changing position, like a chess piece preparing to make a move.

"If everyone who tried failed," said Aris, his voice hoarse, "then why am I still alive? Why haven't I... become the world?"

Savitar stared at him for a long time. A light rain began to fall again, just like in the courtyard of Academia Omnis Veritas back then.

"Because you're different," he said.

Aris frowned.

"You don't see time as an enemy," Savitar continued.

"Nor as something you must defeat."

Aris shook his head. "That's the same thing."

"No," Savitar closed his pocket watch. "The people before you wanted to defeat time. To conquer it. Force it under their control."

"And me?"

"You see it as something that listens," Savitar said softly. "And time is very sensitive to consciousness."

Aris felt something pressing on his chest, a mixture of fear, hope, and guilt.

"Time depends on who observes it and from where it is observed," Savitar stared at Aris, this time without a smile. "If time ever breaks, it's not because the clock stops ticking, but because no one truly notices it anymore. And that's where the greatest danger begins."

"If I continue," said Aris, "what will happen to Anna?"

Savitar did not answer immediately. He just stared at the dark sky.

"Every knot demands a price," he said finally. "And time always collects on the things you protect most."

The pocket watch ticked again.

TICK.

On its surface, the split circle symbol changed. Now there was a small gap between the lines, and it was not completely closed.

"There is still one path," Savitar said. "But it is not the path home you imagine."

"What is it?"

Savitar stepped back, his body beginning to fade, like a shadow being dragged by dusk.

"Seek the First World," he said. "The place where failure has no name."

"How do I know it's the First World?"

Savitar smiled, this time without warmth.

"That's where time first learned to lie."

And before Aris could ask another question, Savitar vanished.

Leaving behind only a silent square, a warm pocket watch in Aris's hand, and the silhouette of KALA, now completely still.

On the surface of the watch, a new engraving appeared. It was not a symbol, but a short sentence, engraved like a question waiting for an answer.