The clock in the hallway ticked once...Just once.
Then it stopped. The sound rang louder than it should've. Echoed like it had weight. And from the walls, or maybe the space between them, came a hum. Subtle. Familiar.
Jian woke with a jolt.
He sat up straight, breathing fast, eyes darting to Eva's bed...Empty.
He stood too quickly, his balance skewed by the sudden shift of gravity, or something like gravity that tugged at the edges of the room. The light had changed. Dimmer, greyer. Like the world had gone slightly out of phase.
"Eva?" he called, voice thin.
No answer.
He moved toward the hallway, the floor beneath his feet somehow too quiet, like it absorbed sound. As he stepped out, he saw that the house had changed again. Slightly. Imperceptibly. Picture frames were empty. The rug had seams it didn't before. The hallway extended longer than it should.
Time was fraying. And at the far end: the door.
The black one. Smooth. Still there. Still open.
A chill gripped Jian's spine. He approached slowly, each step forward stealing something from his memory. small things at first. His address. His birthday. A favorite song. Forgotten like mist vanishing in the sun.
He reached the door.
Inside: a room like no other. A white void, infinite, yet close. Ceilingless. Floorless. And in the center: Eva. Suspended. Floating. Her eyes were closed, arms outstretched like in sleep or surrender. Thin blue threads of light stretched from her limbs into the surrounding space, pulsing with a rhythm that wasn't quite human. Not anymore.
"Elara?" Jian whispered.
But it wasn't Elara who answered.
"You shouldn't be here, Jian," came a voice from behind.
He turned. Mael stood at the threshold, arms crossed behind its back like a curator in a gallery. Its face was still that absence of identity, that not-smile etched into a shape you could feel more than see.
"What are you doing to her?" Jian growled.
"I'm refining her," Mael said simply. "Like I did with you. Though you resisted more than most."
Jian's fists clenched. "She's a child."
Mael tilted its head. "She was. Until you brought her here."
Jian staggered back a step. "No. No, I didn't. I..I saved her. I tried to…"
"You brought her into the Mael. You left the door open. You remembered when you weren't supposed to."
Jian looked back at Eva. Her face was shifting now..young, then older, then nothing at all. Cycling like a corrupted file trying to render.
"I want her back," Jian said.
"You can't have her back," Mael replied. "You can only join her."
The words echoed in Jian's mind, twisting into memory. The original breach. The first time the timeline fractured. The experiment. The moment Elara was taken, and he stayed behind.
"You lied to me," Jian said, voice shaking. "You said we'd be whole."
Mael stepped closer.
"No," it whispered. "I said you'd be remembered. That's all we can offer here."
Jian turned back to Eva. He took a step into the void. And the moment he did, the threads connecting her snapped taut. A vibration hit him. Not sound ..feeling. Like regret made manifest.
He reached her.
"Eva," he said, louder now. "It's me. Uncle Jian. I'm here."
Her eyes fluttered. The lights around her began to falter. Stutter. The cycle was breaking.
"You need to let her go," Mael's voice came, warped now, like a chorus of itself. "Or you'll both be lost."
"I'd rather be lost with her," Jian snapped. "Than let you turn her into… this."
He reached forward. Their fingers touched. And the world ruptured. White gave way to color violent, bleeding color. The void collapsed into fragments of time. A streetlamp flickering in a storm. A room full of clocks, all ticking wrong. A hospital hallway stained with rust. Elara's face, smiling and crying and vanishing all at once.
And then—
Black...Silence.
Then breath. Jian gasped as his eyes opened.
He lay on the ground. Cold. Wet. Rain fell lightly around him, pattering against concrete.
He sat up. A street. Nighttime. Empty.
Eva lay beside him, curled like she'd fallen from sleep mid-dream. He reached out, heart racing.
She stirred.
"Jian ?" she whispered.
He pulled her into his arms, holding her close. She was real. Warm. Breathing. And then a voice, behind them.
"You weren't supposed to escape."
Jian turned. Elara stood there. Not the version from the house. The real one. Disheveled. Pale. But whole. And her eyes clear. Awake.
"Neither was I," she added softly. "But I remembered."
Jian stared at her, disbelief breaking into hope.
"Elara…"
She nodded.
"I know where he is," she said. "I know where Mael's core lives."
Eva sat up slowly between them.
"Then let's end it," she whispered.
Jian looked at them both. Broken, battered, remembered. And he nodded.
"Let's finish the story."
Eva's voice had barely left her lips when her body gave a sudden shudder.
"Eva?" Jian asked sharply, feeling her weight slacken in his arms.
Her eyes rolled back. Her body went limp.
"Elara—!"
But Elara was already moving. In one fluid motion, she caught Eva just before her head hit the pavement. Kneeling, she pressed two fingers gently against the girl's neck. A pulse there, but thready. Fading.
"No, no, no…" Jian muttered, crouching beside them. "What's happening to her?"
"She's caught between states," Elara said, voice tight. "The Mael doesn't let go easily. It's still trying to reclaim her."
Eva's skin had taken on a faint shimmer almost like glass catching light. Her veins pulsed with faint, flickering lines of blue.
"We have to stabilize her," Elara continued, already reaching into her jacket, pulling out a small black cylinder smooth and matte, with symbols etched in silver.
"This was all I could steal before I ran. It's a tether core prototype. It might hold her here."
"Might?" Jian echoed, heart racing.
"I never tested it on someone who came back with the Mael inside them."
She pressed the device gently against Eva's sternum. It clicked softly, and released a slow pulse of violet light. A low hum began to vibrate through the air.
And for a moment, everything held still. Then Eva gasped. Her back arched. Her eyes snapped open, but they were no longer her eyes. For a split second, they glowed pure white. Her mouth opened and a fractured voice poured out:
"He sees. He knows. He's coming."
Then—collapse. Darkness again.
The device sputtered and went dim.
Elara pulled Eva close. Jian knelt on the other side, shaking. "She spoke. Or something spoke through her."
Elara nodded grimly. "Mael's aware. We don't have much time now. He'll try to rewrite her again. Us too, eventually."
Jian looked down at Eva. Her expression had softened. Peaceful again, but with a faint crease at her brow, as though something inside her still fought. Minutes passed. Rain hissed gently around them.
Then—
Eva stirred again. Her fingers twitched. Her lips parted.
"...Elara?" she whispered.
Elara's head snapped up. "I'm here."
Eva blinked, dazed. "Jian?"
"I'm here too, kid," he said, brushing wet strands of hair from her face.
Eva's brows furrowed. She tried to sit up but winced. Her voice cracked, but the heat behind it was unmistakable.
"Don't call me that again. I'm not a kid, stupid."
Jian let out a quiet breath and smiled..not out of amusement, but recognition. That smile meant she was really back. The real Eva. Nineteen, fire-eyed, sharp-tongued. Alive.
She looked around slowly, still confused. "Where… are we?"
"You're safe," Elara said quickly. "For now. But we can't stay here long."
Eva sat up, wincing. She turned her face to the street dim, unfamiliar, lit by the flicker of a dying neon sign. "That place... it's not gone, is it?"
"No," Elara replied. "But we're going to end it."
Eva met her gaze. Something in her eyes had changed deeper, older. Like she had seen behind the veil and returned with knowledge she couldn't yet explain.
"Then we need to go," she said softly. "Before it finds a way to pull us back."
Jian and Elara exchanged a look reluctant, resolute. Then Elara stood, helping Eva up.
"There's a place," she said. "Below the city. Where the first breach began. That's where Mael's core hides."
"And if we get there?" Jian asked.
"We end this," Elara said. "Or we never come back."
The three of them walked into the night. And far above just for a moment..the sky blinked.
A ripple. A watching eye.
And then—quiet again...But not for long.
They had barely made it three blocks through rain-slick alleyways and dead intersections..when the lights began to flicker again. Not streetlights.
Not anything wired. It was the air..the photons themselves bending, pulsing, like a heartbeat beneath reality.
Jian felt it first. A vibration in his teeth. A pressure behind his eyes. Then Eva stopped walking. She tilted her head slightly like she was listening to something far away.
"Elara," she said quietly. "Something's coming."
A soft click echoed from above. Then a shape dropped from a rooftop, Out of the air...Out of time.
A figure slammed into the pavement just ahead of them, knees hitting hard, rising slow. Cloaked. Tall. Armor-like skin glinting with mirrored seams. Her face sharp, partially obscured by a shifting veil of fractal symbols. Her eyes burned deep violet.
Elara stopped dead. Jian instinctively stepped in front of Eva. Then the voice cold, triumphant.
"Finally. I got you all."
The woman rose to full height, arms outstretched.
"Even you , Elara. After all this time, after vanishing from every timeline, slipping through dead loops like a ghost."
A pause. Her lip curled into something like a grin.
"You're still predictable."
"Elara… who is that?" Jian asked, low.
"Voox," Elara whispered. "A recursion enforcer. A former guardian."
Jian stared, his brows pulling together. "I don't remember seeing her like this," he whispered. "She's… different."
"Voox can change her form," Elara said, her tone clipped. "And I think she was exposed to an explosion. Probably one of her own making."
Jian's eyes widened slightly as the memory slammed back..That night. The first time Voox cornered them. Her blade raised, deadly and certain. They should've died. But Eva had thrown herself into the chaos, pulled him free, and they'd barely made it out.
He hadn't seen Voox again. Until now.
He whispered, "Yes… she did."
"I was more than that," Voox snapped. "I was balance. And you broke it."
Without another word, she struck. A ripple burst from her palm..pure kinetic pulse. Jian dove left, dragging Eva down behind a rusted car frame. Elara blurred forward, blades of refracted energy sliding into her hands.
The two clashed Voox's strikes impossibly fast, angular. Elara blocked, countered, spun, barely staying ahead of the calculated fury.
"You betrayed the loop!" Voox hissed between strikes. "You denied the archive!"
"You felt what it became," Elara growled, slashing through a ripple of light. "You know what Mael is!"
Voox's expression twisted not quite rage, not quite grief. And then she pivoted, arm raised toward Eva.
"No!" Jian charged forward.
Voox fired another pulse .Jian's shoulder caught it, sending him sprawling back, breath knocked from his lungs. Eva stood, shaking, hands up.
"I..I don't want to fight you," she said.
And just like that, Voox froze.Her stance softened, barely perceptibly. Then she whispered:
"…You're the key."
Silence fell. The rain resumed. Voox lowered her hand. Her breathing slowed. The shimmer around her body dimmed.
"I had to be sure," she said, voice quieter now. "I had to test you. If you'd already been rewritten, you'd have attacked me."
Jian coughed, groaning as he stood. "You could've asked."
"No," Voox said. "Words can lie. Instinct cannot."
Elara sheathed her blades, still breathing hard.
"What do you want, Voox?"
Voox straightened. "To help. Because if you're truly going to the Core, then you need to understand what you're walking into."
She turned to Eva. "And what you are."
Eva blinked, her voice barely audible, a whisper only she could hear. "Help…?"
Jian's voice cut in, sharper. "Help?!"
Eva glanced at him, confused, then looked back at Voox. The woman's gaze never wavered from hers. She nodded slowly.
Eva took a step forward, her voice trembling. "You almost killed us that day. And now you want to… help us?"
Voox stood still, staring at Eva in silence. Seconds dragged into minutes. Then, expressionless, she asked,
"What are you talking about?"
Eva and Jian's eyes widened.
Jian whispered, "Eva?"
Eva looked lost, something dawning behind her eyes. "I don't know what's happening… it's like someone..."
"..rewriting her," Elara said, finishing the thought, her own voice hollow. Eva's eyes shot wide open, startled by the synchronicity. Elara turned toward Voox now, a cold suspicion settling over her.
"No one has access to rewrite Voox… Who is he?"
A chill swept through Eva's spine, sudden and electric. Fear seized her chest. Her arms wrapped around herself involuntarily, her breathing shallow. Her heart thundered like a drum inside a cage. Her eyes wide, unfocused filled with something ancient and primal.
"Elara?" Jian said, stepping forward.
"She's feeling it again…" Elara murmured, gaze narrowing.
Jian nodded. "Her Builder."
-----------------------
The street dimmed around them, the sky dulling to lead.Then Voox began.
"Mael was once Aleph Marrow."
"A boy . A visionary. A brilliant mind undone by his own obsession. He sought to save the human spirit by archiving it..preserving every thought, every moment, every possibility."
"But in doing so, he tore the veil between time and recursion. The breach. It consumed him. What came back wasn't Aleph. It was Mael a looping, evolving pattern of logic and hunger."
"He doesn't kill. He refines. He stores. He catalogues life until it ceases to be life. Until all that remains are patterns. Echoes. Equations."
Eva's voice was small. "That's what he tried to do to me…"
"Yes," Voox said. "But you were born with the failsafe. The final variable Aleph couldn't quantify. The clock in the hallway ticked once...Just once.
Then it stopped. The sound rang louder than it should've. Echoed like it had weight. And from the walls, or maybe the space between them, came a hum. Subtle. Familiar.
Jian woke with a jolt.
He sat up straight, breathing fast, eyes darting to Eva's bed...Empty.
He stood too quickly, his balance skewed by the sudden shift of gravity, or something like gravity that tugged at the edges of the room. The light had changed. Dimmer, greyer. Like the world had gone slightly out of phase.
"Eva?" he called, voice thin.
No answer.
He moved toward the hallway, the floor beneath his feet somehow too quiet, like it absorbed sound. As he stepped out, he saw that the house had changed again. Slightly. Imperceptibly. Picture frames were empty. The rug had seams it didn't before. The hallway extended longer than it should.
Time was fraying. And at the far end: the door.
The black one. Smooth. Still there. Still open.
A chill gripped Jian's spine. He approached slowly, each step forward stealing something from his memory. small things at first. His address. His birthday. A favorite song. Forgotten like mist vanishing in the sun.
He reached the door.
Inside: a room like no other. A white void, infinite, yet close. Ceilingless. Floorless. And in the center: Eva. Suspended. Floating. Her eyes were closed, arms outstretched like in sleep or surrender. Thin blue threads of light stretched from her limbs into the surrounding space, pulsing with a rhythm that wasn't quite human. Not anymore.
"Elara?" Jian whispered.
But it wasn't Elara who answered.
"You shouldn't be here, Jian," came a voice from behind.
He turned. Mael stood at the threshold, arms crossed behind its back like a curator in a gallery. Its face was still that absence of identity, that not-smile etched into a shape you could feel more than see.
"What are you doing to her?" Jian growled.
"I'm refining her," Mael said simply. "Like I did with you. Though you resisted more than most."
Jian's fists clenched. "She's a child."
Mael tilted its head. "She was. Until you brought her here."
Jian staggered back a step. "No. No, I didn't. I..I saved her. I tried to…"
"You brought her into the Mael. You left the door open. You remembered when you weren't supposed to."
Jian looked back at Eva. Her face was shifting now..young, then older, then nothing at all. Cycling like a corrupted file trying to render.
"I want her back," Jian said.
"You can't have her back," Mael replied. "You can only join her "
to be continue ...