Timefall: A Thousand Years to Find You

House Rules

Nobody came.

That was the strange part. After the lights went out, after that voice, low, close, calling him Prince like it had every right to, Jinyan had stood in front of Chenxi with his sword raised for what felt like an hour, waiting for a door to break or a wall to fall in.

Nothing did. The lights came back on a minute later, flickering, ordinary, like nothing had happened at all. Chenxi checked the fuse box twice, muttering about the old wiring in the building, clearly trying to talk himself into believing it. Jinyan didnt argue with him. He understood, now, that fear made people reach for the easiest explanation, even the wrong one. He had done it himself, once, a long time ago.

They didnt sleep much. Jinyan sat by the window until the sky turned gray, sword across his knees, and Chenxi drifted in and out on the couch, jerking awake every time a car passed outside.

By morning, exhaustion had worn the fear down into something more manageable, not gone, just smaller, pushed into a corner where it could wait.

Okay, Chenxi said, dragging himself upright, rubbing his eyes. I have to go to work. And then class. I cant just not show up, I already used my sick days this semester. He looked at Jinyan like he was doing math again, the kind that never quite balanced. Which means youre staying here. All day. Alone.

I understand.

Do you, though? Chenxi crossed his arms. Because I need you to actually understand, not just say the words. Dont go outside. You dont know this city, you dont know these people, and if someone sees you wandering around in, he gestured vaguely at Jinyans robes, that, theyre going to call the police, or worse, someones going to put you on the internet, and then everyone will be looking for you. Not just whatever was banging on my door last night.

I will stay indoors.

Dont open the door for anyone. Not the landlord, not a delivery guy, nobody. If someone knocks, you sit still and you wait for them to leave.

I understand.

And dont touch anything you dont recognize. I mean it. Dont touch the stove, dont touch the outlets, dont, Chenxi stopped himself, exhaled. Look. Just dont do anything youd call stupid where youre from. Same rule applies here.

Jinyan almost smiled at that. In my time, stupid got men killed quickly. I imagine your time is not so different.

Youd be surprised, Chenxi muttered, already pulling on his shoes.

He left a bowl of food on the table, pointed at it twice like Jinyan might forget where food went, and then he was gone, the door locking behind him with a small, final click that made the apartment feel very quiet and very small.

Jinyan stood in the middle of the main room for a long time after that, just looking.

It was a strange room. Small, plain, nothing like the halls he had grown up in, and yet it held more strange objects than he could count. A box on the wall with a dark, glassy face, cold and blank, like a mirror that had forgotten how to reflect anything.

He didnt know it was called a television. He only knew it was watching him, or felt like it was, in that unblinking way mirrors sometimes did in old stories where a spirit lived behind the glass.

Curious despite himself, he reached out and pressed the small button beneath it, the one Chenxi had touched that morning without thinking, and the box came alive with light and sound so suddenly that Jinyan staggered back into the wall, heart slamming, hand already reaching for a sword that wasnt at his hip anymore because Chenxi had made him leave it in the bedroom.

Faces. Dozens of them, moving, talking too fast, colors shifting behind them like a battlefield seen through fever. A womans voice, too loud, too close, talking about something called weather like it was the most urgent news in the world.

Jinyans first instinct was to attack it.

His second, slower thought stopped his hand halfway to the box. He made himself watch instead, really watch, the way the tiny people inside moved and spoke and never once seemed to notice him standing there. Not real, then. Or real in some way he didnt understand yet. A window, maybe. A very strange window.

He sat down in front of it, knees drawn up like a child, and watched the small moving world inside the glass box until the sun crossed the whole sky outside and Chenxis key finally turned in the lock again.

Youre still here, Chenxi said, sounding relieved and exhausted in equal measure. Good. Nothing weird happened?

Jinyan considered the box, still glowing softly behind him, now showing a different set of faces entirely.

Nothing I could not manage, he said, which was, strictly speaking, true.

Chenxi narrowed his eyes at him, clearly not convinced, and opened his mouth to ask more, but his phone buzzed first, loud in the quiet room, and whatever question he had been about to ask died on his lips as he read the screen.

Oh no, he said quietly. Oh, no, no, no.