Lost to Time

Chapter 18: Lost to Time

Kaelen felt his heart skip a beat as the walls of the station buckled around him. The rift was closing in—shrinking the space they occupied into an endless tunnel of warped energy. His breath came in ragged gasps as the light began to bend and stretch, elongating into streams of distorted time. It felt as if the universe itself was being folded in on itself, its edges unraveling like an old piece of cloth.

The rest of the crew had vanished in the blink of an eye, each one pulled away into the churning depths of the rift. He had tried to grab hold of them, to call out to them, but the words caught in his throat as the space between them expanded, pulling him away from everything he had known.

His fingers brushed against the walls of the station, now slick with some alien energy, as if the very matter around him was alive. The rift's pulse reverberated through his body, like a drumbeat in the hollow of his chest. And then it happened.

With a final, agonizing tremor, the station fractured into pieces, scattering like dust into the void. Kaelen was left alone—adrift in a void where time no longer held its usual shape. It stretched out before him, a vast ocean of endless moments, each one drifting farther and farther from the others.

His feet were no longer on solid ground. His body floated, weightless, suspended in the rift's grip. He could see the flicker of moments—his own memories—passing by him, distorted as if caught in the currents of an ancient, unseen current. He reached out to touch them but could never quite grasp them, always one moment too late.

Suddenly, the air around him rippled. A strange pressure built up at the edges of his vision, distorting the very fabric of the rift itself. The light bent again, and in that instant, Kaelen was no longer floating in the nothingness. He was somewhere else—somewhen else.

The world around him was dark, a grey expanse stretching into infinity. The sky was a swirling mass of clouds, tinged with reds and oranges as though the very air had caught fire. Beneath his feet, the ground was cracked and broken, as though civilization had long since crumbled and left only a shadow of what once was.

But it wasn't the land that held his attention. It was the figure standing before him, a silhouette against the distant, burning horizon.

Kaelen's breath hitched as the figure turned toward him. It was himself—older, wearier, his face lined with scars and weariness. His eyes, once bright and full of hope, were clouded with regret, their gaze haunted.

"Kaelen," the older version of himself spoke, his voice low and strained, echoing with the weight of a thousand unspoken truths. "You've come to see what you've wrought."

Kaelen's pulse quickened. "What... what is this? Where are we?"

"This is the future," the older Kaelen said, his eyes never leaving Kaelen's face. "The future you're too blind to see. The future you've allowed to unfold."

"No," Kaelen whispered, stepping back, shaking his head. "I... I haven't done this. I haven't let it happen."

The older Kaelen smiled faintly, a bitter, hollow gesture. "You will. You will because you think you can control it. You think you can wield the Construct without consequence. But it isn't a tool. It's a weapon. And when it falls into the wrong hands—when it falls, not if—it will rewrite everything. The worlds will burn, the stars will die, and all of it will be because of your choices."

Kaelen's mind reeled, his heart pounding in his chest. "No... I will stop it. I have to stop it."

But the older Kaelen shook his head, his voice hollow and resigned. "You won't. You can't. You think you're the hero, but you're the one who opened the door. You're the one who let it slip through."

Suddenly, the ground beneath Kaelen's feet cracked open, and the sky darkened, swallowing the light. The air was thick with the scent of burning ash, and the wind howled, carrying the wails of dying worlds. The stars above flickered and died one by one, consumed by an unseen force, until all that remained was darkness.

"You can't change it now," the older Kaelen said, his voice drowned out by the growing chaos. "You've already lost."

Kaelen dropped to his knees, his chest tight with the weight of the words, the vision unfolding before him. He reached out for the older version of himself, but as his hand touched the air, the figure began to dissipate into the swirling void. The image of his older self flickered, then shattered, and the world around him began to collapse.

"No! Please!" Kaelen cried, but his voice was swallowed by the darkness. "I can stop it. I can—"

And then the rift closed.

Kaelen was thrown back into the crushing stillness of the rift, his body jolted back into the space he had been ripped from. The echoes of his older self's words lingered in his mind, haunting him, gnawing at his thoughts like a parasite.

He gasped for air, but there was none. The rift had no air, no substance, only the feeling of falling through time itself—through a landscape that stretched out endlessly, an infinite expanse that refused to release him. He had no idea how long he had been drifting, but it felt like eternity, a moment that had no end and no beginning.

And yet, even in the quiet of the void, something tugged at him—something that called to him, whispered in his mind.

The Construct.

He could feel it, its presence growing stronger with every passing moment, like an invisible hand reaching through the folds of time. It was pulling him closer, bending his thoughts, warping his perception. The temptation to surrender to it, to let its power take him, was overwhelming.

But Kaelen resisted. He had to. He couldn't let himself fall victim to it like his older self had. He couldn't—he wouldn't—let the Construct shape his fate.

The echo of his older self's words resurfaced in his mind. You've already lost.

The weight of those words settled in his chest, pressing down on him like a thousand tons of steel. Was it true? Had he already sealed his fate the moment he had touched the Construct? Was there any way to stop the coming catastrophe? Was there even a future where he could win?

"No..." Kaelen whispered, his voice trembling. "I can stop this. I can make it right."

But doubt lingered at the edges of his thoughts. A seed had been planted. It was growing, stretching its roots deep into his psyche. The thought that maybe he was not in control. That maybe, just maybe, he was the one who had set everything in motion.

His fingers tightened around the Construct, and he felt its energy surge in response, pulsing like a heartbeat, syncing with his own. It was tempting, so tempting to let it consume him, to let it pull him deeper into its embrace. But that was the last thing he could afford. Not now. Not when everything was at stake.

As Kaelen floated through the rift, lost in the stretching void of time, the doubts gnawed at him. He had seen the future—hadn't he? Or had it just been a vision, a manifestation of his deepest fears? Either way, the truth remained undeniable: the Construct was a force beyond his understanding, and with it came unimaginable consequences.

The question now wasn't whether he could stop the coming catastrophe. The real question was whether he could live with the consequences of trying.