The Night It Began
The world snapped into focus around Aria, but it wasn't her present anymore. Rain pelted the cobblestones in sheets, dark and relentless. The streets of Novus were slick, reflecting the flickering neon signs that hummed in distorted patterns. She was back at the lab—the night everything had started.
Her chest tightened. Every step she took echoed in the stormy silence. She could see the devices, the consoles, the alarms she had triggered in the past. The air smelled of ozone and wet concrete, familiar yet taunting.
Kieran was beside her, his eyes scanning the lab with precision. "Stay close. Watch everything, but don't interact yet. We're observing first."
Aria nodded, gripping the device. Each pulse felt like a heartbeat in her chest, syncing with the rhythm of the storm outside.
She saw herself—the past version—hunched over the console, hands shaking. Fear radiated from her younger self, desperate to control what she didn't fully understand.
Selene's voice echoed softly in her mind, guiding her. Anchor the device. You control the future, but the past must see no interference… yet.
Aria swallowed. "I can do this," she whispered, though her voice trembled.
The younger Aria lifted her head, unaware of the eyes watching her. Every movement, every choice her past self made, rippled through time, creating echoes that had chased her for days.
Kieran pointed toward a panel. "The first mistake—there. That's where the sequence began."
Aria's pulse spiked. The device in her chest pulsed in response, warm and insistent. She focused, feeling the energy flowing through the lab, connecting her to the younger self.
Slowly, deliberately, she reached toward the controls—not to touch them, but to guide the flow of the timeline. Her hands hovered over the panels as if she could whisper the corrections through the air.
The younger Aria's fingers trembled over the activation sequence. Time shivered around them, faint cracks appearing in the reality of the lab.
"Now," Selene whispered. "Anchor it. Let her see what she needs to see without knowing it's coming."
Aria exhaled, steadying herself. She projected subtle ripples of temporal energy, nudging the younger self away from fatal errors. Every adjustment was delicate—a single wrong move could erase her entire timeline.
A flash of lightning lit the lab. In that brief moment, the younger Aria looked up, eyes wide. Aria felt the echoes pulse violently through her chest—the connection between past and present thrumming like a living thing.
"You can do this," Kieran said softly. "Guide her. Protect her. And survive."
The rain hammered harder against the windows, and the alarms in the distance began to wail faintly, as if the city itself knew time was bending.
Aria clenched her teeth. This was the moment she had feared, the night that had marked everything.
And she was going to face it—head-on.
No more running. No more fear.
The night it began was also the night it could be rewritten.