Chapter 5 – The Man Without Time
577 Words
Everything froze—not the way the world had frozen on the road, but in a deeper, stranger way. As Lina locked eyes with him, the shadows halted mid-strike, hanging inches from her skin like smoke trapped in a photograph.
Her breath stuttered. “What… what did you just do?”
“I anchored the moment,” he said quietly. “Just for a second.”
A second.
But the forest was frozen in a whole new way—like time bent itself around his voice.
Lina swallowed hard. “Who are you?”
He hesitated. That alone terrified her more than the shadows.
Finally, he said, “Someone who shouldn’t be here.”
His tone wasn’t apologetic. It was… resigned. Heavy with something she couldn’t name.
The shadows twitched, straining against the suspended air. Cracks in the seam widened, leaking silver light across the ground like spilled mercury. The moment he’d frozen was beginning to break.
He offered her his hand again. “Lina, stand.”
She didn’t move. “Tell me what you are.”
A muscle in his jaw ticked. “Later.”
“No,” she snapped, the terror sharpening her voice. “Tell me now.”
He looked at her—really looked—and something like conflict flickered in his eyes. Not weakness. Not fear. Just a truth he didn’t want to give away.
“I’m not bound to your timeline,” he said at last. “Or anyone’s.”
The air flexed around them, trembling.
She frowned. “What does that mean?”
“It means,” he said, “that I’ve spent longer than your world has existed trying not to interfere with it.”
Her stomach dropped. “That’s impossible.”
“Most things are,” he said. “Until they’re not.”
The shadows shrieked silently as the anchored moment shattered. Time snapped back into motion with a violent jolt, the seam convulsing like a wounded animal.
He grabbed her arm and pulled her close just as the tendril that had nearly struck her whipped past, slicing through the air where her face had been.
“Stay with me,” he said.
“Maybe try explaining things so I can actually do that!”
He almost smiled—almost—but the expression vanished as the ground shook again.
The seam walls folded inward like a mouth preparing to close.
“We have to go,” he said.
“Go where?” she demanded, stumbling to keep up as he guided her through churning mist. “You keep dragging me through things without telling me anything!”
His grip tightened. “If I answer you now, you’ll break.”
“What does that even—”
A massive crack split the sky above them, silver lightning arcing through black clouds. The forest bent toward the fracture as if gravity had shifted sideways.
The shadows lunged all at once.
He stepped in front of her, raising his free hand. Something invisible rippled outward—a force that tore through the shadows, scattering them like ash in a storm.
Lina stared, breathless.
“What are you?”
This time, he didn’t flinch.
He didn’t look away.
He leaned in, silver eyes burning like a collapsing star.
“Someone who should never have found you,” he said. “And someone who won’t let them take you.”
The seam roared.
Reality split open.
And the world swallowed them again.
- Writer
