Jean sat on the cold floor, his back against the wall, his uncle beside him. The weight of the revelation pressed down on his chest like a physical thing.
'Twenty-five years!'
A quarter of a century.
Gone.
He stared at his hands—the hands of a sixteen-year-old boy—and tried to comprehend it. His brother was dead. His parents and sister slept in pods behind him. The world outside had moved on without him.
And yet, he hadn't aged a day.
'How?' The thought echoed endlessly. 'How is any of this possible? How can I be the same age while the world has lived twenty-five years without me? How can Ben be—' He couldn't even finish the thought. His brother's name brought fresh tears, even when he thought he had none left.
Eugene sat beside him, silent for a long moment. The hum of the pods filled the space between them. Then he spoke.
"This... we called it The Great Tempus." His voice was heavy, weighed down by years of living through something impossible. "You might think we didn't age because time stopped for us. That's partly true. We did stop aging. But that's not the whole reason."
Jean looked at him, waiting. His hands were trembling, and he pressed them against the floor to make them stop.
"The main reason," Eugene continued, "is that when the apocalypse started, it was 2017. And this year..." He paused, letting the words sink in. "It is still 2017."
Jean's eyes widened. His mouth opened, but no sound came out. 'Still 2017? How is that possible? That doesn't make any sense. Years should pass. Time should move forward. That's how it works. That's how it's always worked. My birthday should have come and gone twenty-five times. I should be—' He couldn't calculate it. The numbers slipped away from him.
Eugene must have seen the confusion on his face, because he pressed on.
"The year still went as a normal day goes. The sun set and rose from wherever it always sets and rises from. Days passed. Weeks passed. Months passed. But at the end of every year—the very last day—the sun would rise from the west and set in the east." He shook his head slowly, as if even now, after all this time, he couldn't quite believe it. "And in a quick snap—faster than blinking—three hundred and sixty-five days would reverse. We'd be back at the beginning of the year again. Same year. Same date. Same everything."
Jean stared at him, uncomprehending. 'The sun rising from the west? Time reversing? That's—that's not possible. Physics doesn't work that way. Reality doesn't work that way.' He wanted to argue, to point out the impossibility, but the words died in his throat. What was impossible anymore? After everything he had seen?
"It repeated for twenty-five years," Eugene said quietly. "The same year, over and over. We lived it twenty-five times. Every day, every month, every moment—repeating. But we remembered. That was the strangest part. We lived through each loop with full memory of the ones before."
Jean tried to process it. Twenty-five years of the same year. Twenty-five cycles of time looping back on itself. 'They remembered everything. Every loop. Every repeat. Twenty-five times watching the same sun rise and set. Twenty-five times living the same days. Twenty-five times waiting for—'
"It repeated for twenty-five years?" he asked slowly, his voice barely above a whisper. "Then what about now? Are we still looping?"
Eugene shook his head. "No. The loops stopped."
He paused, gathering his thoughts. His hands moved restlessly, clasping and unclasping.
"Yes, it repeated for twenty-five years. We didn't age, but small changes appeared in us over time. I grew this beard over many loops. You—" He gestured at Jean. "You slimmed down. Lost the chubby face. Not because you aged, but because something in you changed during the Somnum. Many people experienced little shifts like that. Mysterious things happened throughout the Tempus. But eventually..." He took a breath that shuddered on the way in. "The 'Heroes' solved it. They took down the one responsible for the Great Tempus."
Jean blinked. 'Heroes? Saved? Just what in the world is happening in this era?' The words felt foreign, like they belonged in a story, not in his life.
"Heroes," Eugene repeated, as if reading his confusion. "Or you can call them Sages. They're the highest rank of Pathwalker. The strongest among us." He paused, then added: "There are eight ranks for humans. From lowest to highest: Pathwalker, Pathfounder, Ascended, Transcendent, Absolute, Spirited, Seraphim, and Celestial Walker. The ones who killed the Witch of Tempus—they were Absolutes. Sages."
Jean tried to memorize the names. 'Eight ranks. Pathwalker is both the name for people with powers and the lowest rank. That's confusing. But I'll figure it out.'
"Monsters have their own ranks too," Eugene continued. "Eight of them. Monster, Awakened, Fiend, Demon, Devil, Jinn, Daimon, and Profane Malum. The Witch of Tempus was a Daimon—one step below the highest. It took eight Absolutes working together to bring her down."
Jean's head spun. 'Daimon. Profane Malum. These names sound terrifying.'
"And monsters have classes," Eugene added. "From Grade 8 to Grade 1. The higher the grade, the stronger they are. Unlike us—our class never changes. We are what we are. But monsters can grow, evolve, become more dangerous."
Jean nodded slowly, trying to absorb it all. 'Eight ranks. Eight monster tiers. Eight class grades for them. Everything in eights. Like the eight figures of The Voice.'
Eugene let out a heavy sigh that seemed to carry the weight of all those years.
"What I'm about to say may sound unreal… during those twenty-five years... we lost sixty percent of humanity."
The number hit Jean like a physical blow. He felt it in his chest, in his stomach, in the sudden weakness of his limbs. 'Sixty percent? That much? That's—that's more than half. That's billions of people.'
"Sixty percent," Eugene confirmed grimly. "Between the rifts, the monsters, the chaos of the loops... so many died. Friends. Neighbors. Entire cities." His voice cracked. "I watched people vanish, Jean. I held them and they disappeared. I buried empty graves because there was nothing left to bury. And that's just counting the ones who were awake. The ones in Somnum—like your family—they were vulnerable too. Some never woke up."
Jean's heart clenched. 'Ben.' The name was a wound inside him.
"Sixty percent is just the number we can confirm," Eugene continued. "There are still people in Somnum. You woke up months after the Witch died."
Jean looked at him sharply. 'Months?'
"Some people woke during the Tempus. The loops affected the Somnum too—some sleepers stirred, opened their eyes, rejoined the living. But most didn't. Most slept through all twenty-five years." Eugene's voice cracked again, and this time he didn't try to hide it. "I watched over you all. Every loop. Every year. Hoping. Your parents, Julie, you—none of you woke. I lost hope so many times I can't count."
Tears streamed down his face, carving paths through the grime and exhaustion.
"Every morning of every loop, I came here. I checked your pulses. I made sure the pods were working. I talked to you—all of you—even though you couldn't hear me. I told you about the world outside. I told you about the monsters. I told you about the Pathwalkers. I told you about Ben." He choked on the name. "I told Ben about you, too, when he was still—" He couldn't finish.
Jean felt tears prick at his own eyes. His uncle had waited. For twenty-five years of looping time, he had waited. Had come here day after day, year after year, talking to sleeping bodies, hoping against hope that someone would wake up.
"Months after the Tempus ended," Eugene whispered, "I came here like always. And you—your eyes were open. Just for a second. Then closed again. I thought I imagined it. I thought another loop had broken my mind. But the next day, you opened them again. And the next. And then today..." He reached out and gripped Jean's shoulder, squeezing hard. "Today you sat up."
Jean couldn't hold back anymore. He threw his arms around his uncle and wept.
They stayed like that for a long time—two survivors holding onto each other in a room full of sleepers.
Eventually, Eugene pulled back. He wiped his face with his sleeve and let out a shaky breath.
"The world you knew before all this," he said quietly, "is gone, Jean. Everything changed. We developed new technologies—things you can't imagine. We found a way to travel to other planets, ones that could sustain life. We found two that were already inhabited. The others? No information. We lost countries. We lost people. But there was nothing we could do. This is who we are now."
He paused, then added: "We didn't lose our country. But Ammitt... Ammitt is surrounded now. Monsters of higher ranks have claimed it. No one can get in or out."
Jean's head spun with information. 'Ranks. Classes. Planets. Other inhabited worlds. This sounds like science fiction. This sounds like—'
He looked at his uncle's face—the lines, the exhaustion, the beard that hadn't been there before. This was real. All of it was real.
Eugene must have seen the confusion on his face. He let out a small, tired laugh.
"You're confused. Ranks, classes, this, that—it's a lot, isn't it?"
Jean nodded mutely. He felt like a child again, lost and overwhelmed.
"I'm a Pathwalker now," Eugene said. "Pathfounder, actually. I ranked up during the Tempus." There was no pride in his voice—just fact. "So the best way I can help you is this: close your eyes. Relax. And think of the words 'The Voice.'"
Jean looked at him uncertainly. 'The Voice? Those beings? Why would I—'
"Trust me," Eugene said gently. "Do it."
Jean closed his eyes.
He thought of The Voice. Those eight figures of light, their books, their pupil-less eyes. He thought of their words, their promises, their warnings. He remembered the terror of their arrival, the confusion, the hope and dread mingled together.
And something clicked.
Deep in his mind, a door opened.
Knowledge flooded into his consciousness—not new knowledge, but old. Buried. It rose from the depths of his memory like bubbles from deep water, each one bringing clarity. He remembered now. The second time The Voice had opened and closed their books. The thunderclap sound that had made everyone clench their ears. The pain that had shot through his skull. The overwhelming rush of information pouring into every human on Earth.
He had been given this knowledge before. It had always been there, waiting for him to access it.
The eight human ranks materialized in his mind: Pathwalker, Pathfounder, Ascended, Transcendent, Absolute, Spirited, Seraphim, Celestial Walker. Each one clearly defined, with requirements for advancement, with powers that grew at every step.
The eight monster ranks followed: Monster, Awakened, Fiend, Demon, Devil, Jinn, Daimon, Profane Malum. Their names, their place in the hierarchy.
The monster classes: Grade 8 through Grade 1. A system of strength that only applied to them.
The Path—the trials each Pathwalker must complete to grow stronger. None of them were simple. Each trial was a crucible, a life-or-death challenge. And if a Pathwalker failed to complete their trial... they died. No second chances. No mercy.
The flaws—the weaknesses that came with every power. Nothing gained without something lost. Every strength had its price, its vulnerability, its crack.
He saw it all.
And when he opened his eyes, tears were streaming down his face.
"I remember," he whispered. "I remember everything."
Eugene nodded, his own eyes wet. "Welcome to the new world, Jean."
Jean sat there for a long moment, letting the knowledge settle into him. The ranks. The monsters. The Path. The flaws. All of it.
He looked at his hands again. Same hands. Same boy. But inside, everything had changed.
'Ben is gone. Mom and Dad and Julie are asleep. Twenty-five years passed in the blink of an eye. And I'm supposed to just... live with that?'
He didn't know if he could.
But as he sat there, on the cold floor beside his uncle, surrounded by sleeping pods and the weight of years he hadn't lived, one thought rose above the others:
'I'm still here. I woke up. That has to mean something.'
He didn't know what. Not yet.
But he intended to find out.