The old archive room fell silent again after the terminal screen went dark.
Only the faint hum of outdated cooling systems echoed behind the walls, blending with the breathing of three people whose minds were equally overcrowded with thoughts. Under the dim white light, thin dust drifted in the air like fragments of time that didn't know whether to fall into the past or the present.
Alven still stood near the catalog table, staring at the black screen that moments ago had displayed his father's name.
Protect Alven. Do not let them make him part of the system.
The sentence kept repeating in his mind like a recording that refused to stop. For years, he had grown up with half-finished stories, with people's expressions shifting every time his father's name was mentioned, with a sense of shame he never truly understood. And now, when the truth finally began to surface, what came was not relief.
But anger.
A delayed anger.
"I need some air," Lica said softly.
Her voice broke the stillness in the room. She stood a few steps from the door, hugging her arms as if her body had suddenly grown too cold. Not just because of the archive's low temperature, but because the entire world she knew was slowly collapsing.
Kael gave a short nod. "Don't go far."
Lica shot him a sharp look. "You're not in a position to give orders."
Still, she opened the manual door and stepped out into the narrow corridor outside.
After the door closed, Kael looked at Alven. "She's becoming aware faster than I expected."
Alven turned immediately. "What do you mean?"
Kael was silent for a moment, then said, "In many cases, people who stay too close to temporal anomalies begin to notice patterns they're not supposed to see. Wrong clocks. Events that feel like they've already happened. A sense of unfamiliarity toward an otherwise ordinary day."
"Don't talk about Lica like she's a side effect."
"I'm talking about risk."
"And I'm talking about her."
Alven's tone made Kael fall silent. Under the cold lighting, the man looked more exhausted than before. The cut along his jaw had dried, but there was a deeper fatigue beneath it—something older than any physical wound.
Alven held his breath for a moment, then spoke more quietly. "You said earlier… in many versions of time, you always arrive too late. What does that mean?"
Kael didn't answer immediately.
He walked toward a nearby shelf, touched its metal edge briefly, then looked down at the floor before finally speaking. "It means what you're experiencing isn't entirely new to me."
Alven's chest tightened.
"You've seen all of this before."
"Yes."
"How many times?"
Kael slowly lifted his head. His expression was calm, but that only made the answer heavier. "Enough that I stopped counting."
The room suddenly felt smaller.
Alven stared at him, searching for any sign of deception—but what he found was worse: a tired honesty.
"You're from the future?" he asked.
Kael didn't deny it. "From one of the futures."
Alven clenched his fists. Too many questions came at once. How was that possible? Why Kael? Why him? Why was Lica always involved?
"If you really know what's going to happen," Alven said, his voice tightening, "why didn't you stop it from the beginning? Why wait until the Chronolocket activated?"
"I tried."
"Clearly failed."
"Yes."
The flatness of that answer only made Alven want to lash out more.
But before he could speak again, the door opened. Lica stepped back inside, her expression different from before—paler, tenser, carrying something close to unnamed fear.
"There are people outside," she said quickly.
Kael immediately went alert. "How many?"
"I couldn't see clearly. Two, maybe three. They didn't come in, just passed through the main corridor, but…" Lica looked at Alven. "One of them looked this way like they knew we were here."
Kael moved silently to the door, cracked it open, and peered through the gap. After a few seconds, he shut it again.
"They're sweeping."
"Syndicate?" Alven asked.
Kael nodded. "Most likely."
Lica rubbed her cold hands together. "We can't keep running without a plan. I don't even know what they really want besides the necklace."
"They want control," Kael said. "The Chronolocket isn't just an artifact. It's a key."
"A key to what?" Lica asked.
Kael looked at her. "To full-scale temporal synchronization."
Lica frowned. "Human language, please."
Alven fixed his gaze on Kael. "Explain."
Kael exhaled shortly, as if part of him disliked giving too many answers. "If the Chronolocket is connected to the right core system, it can be used not just to move a single consciousness—but to influence major decisions, guide chains of events, and select the most advantageous reality path."
"For who?" Lica asked.
"For whoever holds control."
Lica let out a humorless laugh. "So they want to be gods."
"More or less."
Alven looked at his bag containing the Chronolocket. For the first time, it felt heavier than its size. Not just his mother's legacy. Not just a desperate hope to fix a tragedy. But something capable of rewriting the course of the world.
And it was now in his hands.
"I'm still not giving it up," he said finally.
Kael looked at him sharply. "If you don't surrender it, then eventually you'll have to destroy it."
"No."
"You haven't even heard the worst part yet."
"I've heard enough."
"No." Kael's voice lowered. "Not the worst."
Silence fell like cold metal.
Lica looked at Kael suspiciously. "What's the worst part?"
The man stayed quiet for too long.
Alven felt tension crawl up his spine. "Say it."
Kael met his gaze. "The more the Chronolocket is used, the higher the chance the user leaves fragments of their consciousness in the timelines they abandon."
Alven frowned. "What do you mean?"
"I mean parts of you don't always move completely," Kael said carefully. "Memories. Emotions. tendencies. fears—they can be left behind. Or carried over from other paths."
Lica went pale. "That's why you had a nosebleed."
Alven didn't answer, but his expression said enough.
Kael continued, "If pushed further, the user may begin to see other versions of themselves. Hear things that never happened in this timeline. Remember injuries that aren't theirs. At more severe stages, they can lose the boundary between choices they made and choices made by their other selves."
A chill ran down Alven's spine.
He remembered the strange flashes before the explosion. The intense déjà vu. The sensation that time moved slightly too fast—or too slow. And most unsettling of all, when he looked at his reflection earlier, he had felt—for a split second—that his shadow moved a fraction too late.
Lica stepped closer. "Alven… you have to stop using it."
Alven turned to her. The concern in her eyes was so genuine it hurt. Because the very reason he kept holding onto the Chronolocket was her.
"I can't yet," he said softly.
"Why?"
The question was simple. Too simple. And because of that, Alven had nowhere left to hide.
He looked at her for a long moment, then said almost in a whisper, "Because I've already seen what happens if I fail."
Lica's eyes filled with tears. Not entirely from fear—but because she finally understood something Alven had never said out loud: all his panic, his decisions, his half-truths came from one reality—he had already experienced losing her.
Lica lowered her gaze briefly, then asked, "That day… did I say something?"
The question made Alven's breath catch.
He remembered too clearly. The blood at her temple. Her weak voice. The way she said his name like something she was trying to hold onto until the very end.
"You called my name," he answered softly.
Lica closed her eyes for a moment. "And now you're going to carry all of this alone because of that?"
"I just don't want it to happen again."
"By sacrificing yourself?"
Alven didn't answer.
Kael looked away, but Alven caught a fleeting expression—something bitter, something too familiar with this kind of conversation.
Suddenly, the lights in the catalog room dimmed.
Once.
Twice.
Then one of the old terminals in the corner powered on by itself.
None of them touched it.
The screen filled with black-and-white noise for a few seconds, then shifted to a surveillance feed of the room from above. The three of them were visible—Alven near the table, Lica beside him, Kael a few steps behind.
But something was wrong.
On the screen, Alven's reflection moved slightly before his actual body did.
Alven froze.
Lica stared at the screen, pale. "Do you see that?"
Kael had already moved toward the terminal, but before he could shut it down, the image changed again.
Now it showed the corridor outside.
Three figures in dark uniforms walked slowly toward the catalog room.
One of them lifted their head toward the camera. Even with the visor covering half their face, Alven could feel their gaze piercing through the screen.
They knew.
"Move. Now," Kael said.
No one argued this time.
They rushed through the side door into a narrow storage corridor. Footsteps outside grew closer—measured, cold, patient. Kael led, Lica in the middle, Alven behind. Steel shelves towered on both sides like walls of a labyrinth, forming tight pathways barely wide enough for two people.
"Where are we going?" Lica whispered.
"Down," Kael replied. "There's an old service route to the archive sublevel."
They turned sharply into another passage. At the end, a narrow metal staircase led underground. Kael had only stepped down two stairs when the sound of shifting metal came from below.
Someone was already there.
Kael froze instantly, raising a hand to signal them to step back.
Too late.
Two figures in black uniforms emerged from the shadows beneath the stairs.
A trap.
"Good," one of them said in a flat, electronic voice. "Chrono subject contained."
Lica inhaled sharply. Alven instinctively pulled her back. Kael was already in front, his stance lowered like a coiled spring ready to strike.
One path blocked ahead.
Another behind.
In the narrow archive corridor, with enemies closing in from both sides and the Chronolocket ticking louder inside his bag, Alven suddenly realized how thin the line was between survival and losing everything.
If every choice only led them into another corner of danger, how long could he keep convincing himself that keeping Lica close was saving her—and not the very reason he kept dragging her deeper into his destruction?