The man who shouldn't exist

Eiser Grains was supposed to be dead.

He remembered it with perfect clarity—the sharp, cold edge of the blade sinking into his ribs, the feeling of life slipping away as his vision blurred. The dark alley, slick with rain, had swallowed him whole. His last breath had been ragged, painful, and then—nothing.

But instead of death, he woke.

His lungs burned with the sharpness of air, fresh and cutting, as though they had never filled before. He blinked against the overwhelming light, but it wasn't the familiar city morning. It was a fractured dawn, an impossible rupture in the sky where moments collided. The air around him vibrated with the crackling of countless timelines folding in on one another.

Vel Esara, his city, his life—gone.

In its place, a city suspended between ages. One street was lined with ancient stone buildings, half-crumbled, windows shattered like forgotten memories. The other was a stretch of sleek, shimmering skyscrapers, alive with neon pulses and the hum of technology far beyond what he had known. And the horizon—the horizon was a bleeding wound, where fragments of worlds shattered like glass, each piece an echo of a reality that had never been, or that had already ceased to exist.

Eiser gritted his teeth, standing on shaky legs. His hand instinctively went to his side, where the wound had been—but it was gone. No blood. No scar. Nothing.

A whisper of air brushed against his skin, cold and sharp as a knife. The air was filled with static, as if time itself had stuttered. He turned.

There, on the broken edge of what had once been a clocktower, a figure stood.

She was silhouetted by the distorted skyline, her features obscured by a blur of shifting shadows. Her coat billowed behind her like a shadow itself, embroidered with symbols that pulsed with an unnatural energy.

A chill ran down Eiser's spine. She wasn't human.

"I see you've woken up," she said, her voice carrying an odd weight—like the echoes of a thousand conversations at once.

Eiser instinctively reached for a weapon that wasn't there, but then he realized: there was no longer a world of guns and knives. Not here. He took a step back, trying to steady himself. "What the hell is happening? Where am I?"

Her eyes—silver, almost metallic—glistened as she stepped forward, the earth shifting beneath her boots as she moved. There was a familiarity to her, but Eiser couldn't place it.

"I am Synn of the Aeon wardens," she said, her voice like the ringing of a bell in a vast, empty room. "And you, Eiser Grains, are the paradox that shattered everything."

Eiser blinked. "The paradox? What are you talking about?"

Synn's lips curled into a smile, but it wasn't comforting. "You should have died, Eiser. That was the plan. You were never meant to survive the knife."

"I don't remember asking for your plan."

Her eyes narrowed. "It's not about asking." She raised her hand.

The air around them shimmered, like the whole world was bending under her power. Suddenly, the sound of clocks—ticking, ticking, ticking—filled the air. Not one, but a thousand. Their rhythm clashing, overlapping, speeding up and slowing down until Eiser could barely hear himself think. His heartbeat accelerated in response, as if the pulse of the universe was tethered to his own.

He looked around, eyes frantic. This wasn't normal. This wasn't even real.

"No," he whispered, his throat dry. "This is... wrong."

Synn's gaze softened, a flicker of something like pity in her silver eyes. "It's not wrong, Eiser. It's you."

She moved toward him, each step deliberate, as the fractured reality around them seemed to ripple in time with her movements. "You didn't just survive death. You broke time itself."

Eiser recoiled, his head spinning. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"The moment you survived death, you caused a rupture in the timeline. You are the tear in the fabric, Eiser. The wound that should never have been. Every moment you continue to live, the world unravels further."

The words hit him like a punch to the gut. It wasn't just his life at stake. It was everything.

Synn raised her hand again, and the air crackled with energy. "You are the reason the Aeon Wardens exist. We maintain the order, the flow of time. And now, you—you are the storm that threatens to devour it all."

"Then fix it," Eiser shot back, his voice rising. "Fix time. Fix this."

Synn's expression hardened. "I can't fix it. Not unless you choose to die. Your death would restore the balance. Time would reset, and the universe could begin again."

"Die?" Eiser laughed bitterly. "Is that really your solution? Sacrifice myself to patch up your mistake?"

Her voice softened, a rare sadness creeping into it. "It's not a mistake, Eiser. It's a consequence. And only you can end it."

The sound of the ticking grew louder, more frantic. The city around them was collapsing now—buildings crumbling into dust, the sky splintering like glass. Each fractured piece was another version of time, lost and broken.

Eiser clenched his fists, his pulse racing. He had always been told there was one constant: time. It was the one thing that could never be changed. The one thing that defined every choice.

But now... it was bending. Twisting. Cracking apart, and he was at its center.

He looked up at Synn. "I don't know what you want from me, but I won't die. Not until I understand why I'm still breathing. Why the hell am I alive when I shouldn't be?"

Synn's eyes gleamed with a mixture of admiration and sorrow. "I hope you find your answer, Eiser. But I'm afraid the clock is ticking. And the longer you exist... the closer we come to the end of all things."

Eiser had no time to respond. A pulse of light shot through the air, and everything collapsed.

Not into darkness—into chaos.