Anchor 0000.∅ — The Nameless Timeline
There was no welcome this time.
No explosion.
No shadow variant.
No memory echo.
There was just… nothing.
The Rift dropped the team into a world with no gravity, no sound, and — shockingly — no Kael.
Not a Variant. Not a corpse. Not even a record.
This was the only Anchor in existence where Kael Voss never existed at all.
---
Kael floated in the void, heart thudding.
"Where am I?"
Myra scanned the frame with her chrono-lens. "This world… it never formed a 'you.' It's like your spark never ignited. But something else did."
Ghost Ronin knelt beside a pool of liquid sky. Inside it, a single event kept replaying.
A girl.
Falling.
Falling.
Never landing.
> "This world has a center," Myra whispered. "And it's her."
They followed the fall across a landscape that never stayed still — time flowed in loops, but with no logic. Trees grew backward, clouds rained upward, shadows stretched in wrong directions.
Then they found her.
---
At the center of a time-lost clearing stood a girl suspended in air — hair flowing like ribbon through reversed time, age flickering from child to old woman and back again.
She spoke every language at once, but only said:
> "Where is Kael Voss?"
Kael stepped forward. "That's… me. I'm Kael."
She wept.
"No. You're a Kael. Not my Kael."
Suddenly, the ground cracked — and a new figure emerged, stitched together from incomplete timelines. A Wraith-Kael — formed from all the Kaels that never made it.
He was wrong. Broken. Incomplete.
And very, very angry.
---
"Who let her fall?" the Wraith-Kael rasped. "Which of you forgot her?"
Myra's eyes widened. "This Anchor never had a Kael. But it wanted one."
Kael turned to the floating girl.
"You… created me?"
She shook her head slowly.
"I remembered you. I didn't create you. I wished you into existence. Again and again."
The Wraith roared. "And none of you came!"
He attacked.
---
The battle was abstract — like fighting someone inside your own dream.
Ghost Ronin couldn't touch him. Myra's chronomancy failed. Even Kael's future-pulse was unreadable.
But Aren — the ChronoSeed — burned. His body glowed white, pure thread-energy.
He stepped forward, placing a hand on the Wraith-Kael.
"I remember you too."
The wraith calmed. Faded. Then folded into Aren — his first timeline stabilized.
---
The girl, now still, looked at Kael one last time.
"Thank you. For being real. Somewhere."
Kael asked, "What's your name?"
She smiled.
"I don't have one. I was just the Question. You're the Answer."
And she vanished into light.
---
Anchor 0000.∅ – RESOLVED
New Entity Formed: ChronoSeed Version I
Timeline Stabilized Without Origin Kael
---
Back in the Sanctuary…
Kael stared at his own hands. "What does it mean?"
Myra whispered:
> "That some timelines never needed saving…
They needed hope."