Crossing Time
Leaving the Grand Library was not like passing through a gateway — it was more like drowning in a reversed temporal current.
As the last sentence in the book clutched in Rayne's hands was sealed, the air around them fractured, as if a page from the universe's tome was being folded shut. A doorway formed from glowing letters, their faces reflected among interwoven lines of text. Instead of being hurled toward the future, they were pulled backward... as if an unseen hand had gripped time's wheel and spun it the other way.
A cold wind blew, unlike any they had ever known, and the sky above took on a dull, leaden hue. Buildings that had towered yesterday now seemed less modern today. The billboards had changed, and newspapers inside the closed kiosks told stories of days long gone — dates no longer present.
They stood on a narrow curb near the library, which faded behind them like a dream at dawn.
Rayne glanced at his watch — its hands trembled, as if questioning their own existence.
"The date… it's six months before the crime," he said softly but with charged meaning.
Niko's voice cut sharply through the silence:
"What does that mean?"
Rayne's eyes fixed on the unerring timepiece.
"We're in the past. The killer hasn't struck yet."
Leema gasped quietly, sensing the shadow of the crime retreating on the horizon.
"That means we have a chance… a chance to act before it's too late."
Their words remained unfinished. Something in the air stole their breath — an inner pull, a call from somewhere deep within the city.
The Street of Echoes
They followed the feeling, not reason, into a street that wasn't on any map but was etched deep into the city's memory.
A narrow alley cloaked in shadows where the sun seemed ashamed to reflect.
"The Street of Echoes," the legends called it — a place that didn't just reflect sound, but reverberated sins.
The walls were black as coal, cracked yet whole, as if forged from nightmares. Balconies intertwined like forgotten fingers reaching for the sky. The very air was different — unmoving, breathless, yet alive within their chests.
They tread cautiously. Their steps made no sound, but another kind of echo began to seep inside them... from within.
Rayne's Echo
Rayne stopped first. His next step was not forward, but inward.
He heard a voice he hadn't heard in decades — a child's voice that sounded like him.
"Why didn't you run? Why didn't you call for help? You were there… you watched."
He froze.
The street seemed to split open, revealing a long-past scene. Eight-year-old Rayne stood behind a low stone wall in a dark alley. Before him was his older brother — fourteen years old — facing a large man in a gray coat.
The knife was not a surprise, but the end.
Rayne had not screamed. Had not moved. He had only watched.
"He saw you. Until the last moment, his eyes were on you."
Back on the street, he gasped, as if his chest could no longer hold the air. His hand pressed against the wall, feeling the burning weight of an unyielding memory.
"I thought I had forgotten... but guilt never dies, it only sleeps."
Images from that day drifted through his mind like a slow-moving painting: muffled screams, the scent of blood mingling with sudden rain, and his trembling hands that refused to move.
That deadly silence weighed on him like an ancient burden, carried his whole life, never lifted.
Leema's Echo
They moved on, and Leema suddenly bent toward the wall, drawn as if by a silent whisper slicing her heart.
"Where were you?"
She saw herself reflected in the wall's mirror. Her eyes wide with fear. The door she had opened — the one she never closed. The scene was old but still alive.
A small room. Her younger sister — the one she had promised to protect — lying on the floor. A bottle of liquor dangling from their father's hand, asleep or maybe drunk, or perhaps something worse.
"You said you'd come back. Why didn't you?"
The voice was her sister's... but twisted at the end. Echoes of laughter and evil merged.
Leema fell to her knees, clutching her ears.
"You ran away, and I died. Is running really salvation?"
When silence returned, she did not rise as before. She stood like someone who had just left a harsh inner court, judged without defense.
For a long moment, she listened to those words as if they were a courtroom verdict exposing truths she had long fled. The pain was not only in her heart but in every fiber of her being.
The pain of escape, and the crime of leaving her sister alone in a merciless world.
Niko's Echo
Niko knew his turn was coming.
He stood before a cracked window, placed his hand on the glass, and waited… waited.
Then he saw Rayne.
But the voice that emerged was not Rayne's — it was the killer's.
"You knew. You found the name. You saw the file. But you feared losing it, so we lost everything."
A paper appeared, stamped with the police emblem. A pseudonym matching an old description. He was supposed to send it to Rayne.
But he tore it up.
He couldn't face the consequences. Couldn't bear having a hand in the war.
"Silence is a crime, Niko. Don't you know that?"
Niko's voice was hoarse:
"I was afraid… afraid it would end everything."
Despite his honesty, no one answered.
Rayne stepped closer, hearing it all, and said,
"You hid something from me?"
Niko didn't evade.
"I thought I was postponing pain. But I was planting it."
The Witness
At the end of the street, a stone slab nearly merged with the wall.
Leema wiped it clean, revealing words:
"He passed here. His eyes were not human."Date: Six months before the crime.Signed: "The Shadowless Witness"
The words fell on them like burning coals.
Rayne whispered,
"So... he was here before us. Before the crime."
Niko added,
"As if he marked the path… to force us back."
Leema said,
"Or maybe he was waiting for us. As if we were the ones who were late."
The Street Cracks
Slowly, the walls darkened further, as if swallowing light rather than reflecting it.
Then… a third echo.
A mysterious voice, from nowhere and everywhere:
"Who denies the echo… brings it back."
The three exchanged looks, as if they had just heard the universe's command.
Unatoned sins don't vanish — they return.
The Exit
When they left the Street of Echoes, they were not the same.
Their eyes were deeper. Their thoughts heavier. Their steps hesitant.
But it wasn't fear.
It was awareness.
They had entered the past not to reclaim it… but to fix it, or drown in it.
And each one carried an echo — a silent sound — deeper than any call.
Shadows of the Past Unfold
They paused just beyond the dark street. Heavy silence filled the air. Leema brushed dust from her coat and gazed toward the city's cloudy horizon.
Rayne, still catching his breath, said slowly,
"Do you realize every step there was a confrontation — with ourselves? With the weaknesses and secrets we tried to bury?"
Niko smiled bitterly,
"These aren't just memories, but warnings… messages from the past."
Leema, fighting tears, said,
"But what if there are other voices?... people whose echoes have yet to be heard?"
Before anyone could answer, a faint flutter stirred behind them. They turned quickly, but found only shadows dancing with the now-near wind.
"Time is not a straight line," Rayne said, looking at their faces, "but a whirlpool, and sometimes we spin in the past more than we realize."
Niko added,
"But this whirlpool might be our only chance for salvation."
Leema lifted her head, her eyes blazing with renewed resolve.
"If we're going to rewrite the past… we have to start now, before the door closes again."
They moved toward the city's heart, where they believed the killer's secret — and his link to them — would be revealed at time's crossroads.
Renewed Mystery
While standing on the Street of Echoes, heavy with their inner echoes, Niko noticed a subtle movement in a dark corner.
"Did you see that?" he whispered, his voice choked by shadows.
Rayne stepped forward, took out his phone — but the battery was dead. The power outage here was no accident.
At that moment, the street walls whispered more clearly — not in words, but in feelings.
A Message from Nowhere
Rayne raised his hand to the black wall, feeling cold lines carving tunnels into his memory.
Suddenly, a vision opened before his eyes — a window to the recent past:
A mysterious man in a long black coat appeared in a dark alley, carrying something wrapped in cloth. His footsteps were light but careful, avoiding surveillance cameras with precision.
The scene shifted rapidly to the man's face, obscured by shadows, but for a moment, he raised his eyes, looking toward a specific place.
The place where the crime happened.
Unveiling the Puzzle
In the street, Leema caught fragments of whispered words:
"Don't look for the killer in faces, but in the shadows he leaves behind."
Rayne suddenly understood — the man was no ordinary murderer, but part of a larger network, someone using counter-time and deception to vanish among the city's eras.
"This man… is not alone. There are others. All connected to a network controlling time, trying to manipulate events to their favor."
Niko shuddered and said,
"If that's true, the killer isn't just a criminal… but a political assassin, a spy, or even a leader of a temporal syndicate."
"Shadow Network," Rayne said calmly, "is what brought us here."
The Decision
They had no choice but to continue searching — but time was running out.
Leema raised her head, looking at her friends.
"We must move on. There is another place… where the real answers lie."
Their steps grew steadier, yet heavy with responsibility.
Journey into the Unknown
Rayne opened the book again and read the sentence that would take them to the next stage:
"Whoever wants to see the truth must follow the light at the end of darkness."
As he spoke the words, the walls of the street slowly dissolved, and the temporal current swept them away.
The city faded around them, replaced by a dense fog.
Their hearts raced, accompanied by a faint voice from afar, calling them to "a place untouched by shadows… but its price is high."
The scene opened upon a massive stone gate, etched with mysterious symbols unlike anything they had ever seen before.
Lima whispered:
"This is where a new chapter begins. Here, truth meets fate."
Raien placed his hand on the door, swallowing hard.
"We won't return as we were. This journey will change us."
As he pressed against the door, it suddenly opened, flooding them with a blinding white light, and the journey took them to a place unknown.
"What is the mysterious realm that awaits them? Will they finally uncover the long-sought answers, or will their path begin anew in an endless spiral?"
A question to the reader:
"Are we the ones who choose our fate, or does time choose its path for us...? And can an echo reveal the truth—or only lead us further astray?"
End of Chapter Sixteen
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