Chapter 4: The Choice That Shattered Time
1240 Words
The weight of realization crashed over Elin like a tidal wave.
This was it. The moment.
She had lived through this before—perhaps countless times—only to fail. To be reset. To start again.
But not this time.
She squared her shoulders, forcing herself to breathe through the storm of fractured memories in her mind.
Cairon’s sharp blue eyes studied her, suspicion creeping into his expression.
“Elin,” he said slowly. “You’re acting strange.”
She swallowed hard. She had to be careful. One wrong word, one misstep, and she’d be caught in the same web she had spun for herself in every loop before this.
“You trust me, don’t you?” she asked.
Cairon’s brow furrowed. “Of course. You’re the one who came to me with this plan.”
Elin’s fingers curled into fists.
That was right. She had started this.
The plan to rewrite history, to alter the fate of Arcadia before the catastrophe could strike.
Only something had gone terribly wrong.
She closed her eyes briefly, letting the memories surface.
A late-night meeting in the archives.
A stolen artifact—the Temporal Keystone—said to have the power to stabilize or disrupt time itself.
A deal struck in secret.
A betrayal.
And then—
The first fracture.
The moment time had split, trapping her in this endless recursion.
Her stomach twisted. She had thought she was fixing history—but she had broken it.
And now, she had to make it right.
She met Cairon’s gaze, her decision solidifying. “We have to change the plan.”
His expression darkened. “What?”
“I was wrong before,” she said firmly. “This isn’t the way to save Arcadia.”
Cairon’s jaw tightened. “No, you came to me and said this was the only way.”
Elin exhaled sharply. Of course he wouldn’t believe her. In his mind, she had been unwavering in her resolve.
But she wasn’t the same Elin who had stood in this moment before.
This time, she knew where this path led.
“Cairon, listen to me,” she said urgently. “If we go through with this, we won’t save Arcadia. We’ll destroy it.”
His eyes flickered with uncertainty. “How can you know that?”
She hesitated. If she told him the truth—that she had seen this future play out, had failed more times than she could count—he would think she had gone mad.
And maybe, in some ways, she had.
She chose her words carefully.
“Because history has a way of warning us,” she said. “And I’ve seen the warnings. The Order of the Rift, the Echoes—there are forces at play here that we didn’t understand before. We were arrogant to think we could control time itself.”
Cairon crossed his arms. “So what do you propose? We do nothing?”
“No,” Elin said, shaking her head. “We stop the catastrophe—but we do it the right way.”
He gave her a long, searching look. “And what exactly is the ‘right way’?”
Elin hesitated.
That was the question, wasn’t it?
She had spent so long running in circles, trapped in the same choices, the same mistakes. But now, she had a chance to do something different.
And she knew where to start.
“The Temporal Keystone,” she said. “We don’t use it. We destroy it.”
Cairon’s eyes widened. “Destroy it?” He took a step closer. “Elin, do you hear yourself? That’s the only thing powerful enough to rewrite the timeline!”
She lifted her chin. “And that’s exactly why it’s dangerous. It was never meant to be tampered with. If we keep using it, the fractures in time will only spread.”
Cairon exhaled sharply, rubbing a hand over his face. “You’re asking me to put my faith in nothing but your gut feeling.”
“No,” Elin said quietly. “I’m asking you to trust me.”
His gaze locked onto hers, searching.
The silence stretched between them.
And then—
The doors to the council chamber burst open.
The Unraveling Begins
Guards stormed in, their weapons raised. Behind them, a robed figure stepped forward—a member of the Arcadian High Council. His sharp, calculating eyes landed on Elin first.
“There you are,” he said smoothly. “We were beginning to think you’d run.”
Elin’s pulse spiked.
She knew this man.
Councilor Varros.
He had been the one who had discovered their plan before. He had been the one who had taken the Temporal Keystone.
And he had been the one who had triggered the catastrophe.
Everything clicked into place.
In past loops, she had tried to escape. She had tried to stop Varros too late, after he had already taken the Keystone.
This time—
She would not be too late.
Elin acted on instinct.
She lunged for Cairon, grabbing the dagger strapped to his belt before he could react. In one swift motion, she turned—
And drove the blade into the clasp of the small satchel hanging from Varros’s belt.
The leather tore.
A glowing shard of crystal tumbled free.
The Temporal Keystone.
Elin dove forward, snatching it up before Varros could react.
“STOP HER!” he roared.
But it was already too late.
She felt the Keystone’s power surging through her palm—a pulsing heat that sent shivers up her arm.
She knew what she had to do.
With all her strength, she hurled the Keystone against the marble floor.
For a split second, the world seemed to pause.
Then—
A deafening crack.
A shockwave of golden energy exploded outward, rippling through the air like a sonic boom. The ground trembled. The chandeliers above shattered. The very fabric of time seemed to distort, bending and warping around her.
And then, just as suddenly—
Everything collapsed.
The End of the Loop
Elin felt herself falling.
Darkness enveloped her.
For a terrifying moment, she thought she had failed again—that she had reset the loop, that she would wake up in the same moment, in the same nightmare.
But then—
She heard something.
A whisper.
Soft. Familiar.
“You did it.”
The world around her shifted.
Light. Warmth. The sensation of solid ground beneath her feet.
She gasped, opening her eyes.
She was standing in the middle of the Arcadian ruins—but they weren’t ruins anymore.
The city was intact. The streets were bustling with life. The sky was clear, unmarred by the storm of temporal fractures she had seen before.
Time had been restored.
Her hands trembled as she touched her own arms, her chest, confirming that she was real. That she was here.
A voice called her name.
She turned—
And saw Cairon.
Alive.
No longer trapped in the doomed cycle that had repeated over and over.
He frowned slightly. “Elin? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
She let out a choked laugh. “You have no idea.”
Something inside her—something that had been weighed down for what felt like an eternity—finally, finally lifted.
The loop was broken.
She was free.
And for the first time in what felt like lifetimes, the future was hers to write.
- Writer
