Fractures In The Frame
1324 Words
The wind rattled Aria’s bedroom window like a warning.
It was 3:07 a.m., and she hadn’t slept in days—not really. Not since the explosion. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw pieces of things that hadn’t happened yet. They came like static-laced movie reels, scenes bleeding into each other, fragmented voices trapped behind glass. She had stopped calling them dreams.
Now, she called them echoes.
She stood at her desk, fingers stained with graphite and ink. She had begun sketching the flashes she saw—chaotic drawings that made little sense even to her: a clock melting through floorboards, a hand reaching from a fractured mirror, the number 812 circled over and over again.
Aria stared at the most recent drawing. A boy. His face partially shadowed, ash-blond hair messy, his eyes unfamiliar yet unforgettable.
The boy in the woods.
The one who watched her.
A whisper brushed across her spine, cool and electric.
“He knows.”
She spun around. Her room was empty. Of course it was.
But the air still buzzed with something unseen—time unraveling in threads only she could feel.
Later that day, at school, the halls felt like a slow-motion panic attack. Everything was slightly off. A girl dropped her books and Aria heard it again:
“He’s going to ask me out today—what if I say no?”
Aria flinched. Her grip tightened on her backpack strap.
Across the cafeteria, Wendy caught her eye and gave her a subtle nod. It had become their silent code. Wendy could feel when Aria’s echoes became too loud.
They met in the art room during fourth period—Isabel and Harper already there.
“You’re pale as hell,” Harper said. “Again.”
“I didn’t sleep,” Aria muttered, slumping onto a stool.
“Let me guess,” Isabel said. “Another echo?”
“Not just one.” Aria rubbed her temples. “A hundred. Maybe more. They’re not just flashes anymore—they’re trying to speak.”
Wendy leaned forward. “Mine are growing too. When I touch you, the echoes get louder—almost like a signal boost.”
“I tried grounding you again,” Harper said. “But it’s harder each time. It’s like the future keeps trying to grab you.”
“I heard something new last night,” Aria said softly. “Not an echo. A voice. He said… ‘You’re not supposed to hear the echoes. You’re supposed to create them.’”
They all stilled.
Isabel crossed her arms. “Who is he?”
“I don’t know,” Aria whispered. “But I think he’s been watching us. Since the blast.”
Wendy’s voice dropped. “You think he’s the fifth.”
Aria nodded.
For a long time, no one spoke.
That evening, after school, Aria returned to the woods.
The party ruins were still there—burned grass, a blackened tree trunk, bits of shattered glass embedded in the dirt. It had been cleaned up just enough to convince the public nothing strange had happened.
But Aria could feel the lie pulsing through the soil.
She knelt near the center where the blast had originated and closed her eyes.
The whispers returned instantly.
“He’s trapped in between.”
“She’ll remember too much.”
“Don’t trust time. It lies.”
Then—
A new echo.
But it wasn’t like the others.
It wasn’t heard. It was felt.
A presence behind her.
Aria’s breath caught.
She turned slowly.
And there he was.
The boy from the woods.
Close now. Too close.
Ash-blond hair. Pale gray eyes. A calm that unnerved her. He wore a dark hoodie and ripped jeans, but it wasn’t his appearance that froze her.
It was the silence.
The echoes went dead around him. Every sound dimmed. The future fell still.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” he said, voice low, almost reverent.
“Neither are you,” Aria whispered.
“I didn’t come to hurt you,” he said. “But your presence here… it’s dangerous. For everyone.”
“Who are you?”
He hesitated. “My name is Elior.”
She let the name settle. It felt ancient. Like it belonged in a language lost to time.
“You’ve been watching me.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re not just hearing echoes anymore. You’re starting to create them.”
Aria blinked. “What does that even mean?”
He stepped closer. She didn’t move.
“Time doesn’t just unfold,” he said. “It remembers. It adapts. Sometimes, someone comes along who doesn’t just follow it—they rewrite it.”
Her mouth went dry. “Are you saying I’m rewriting the future?”
“Not yet,” he said. “But soon.”
A cold breeze cut between them. Aria shivered.
“I’ve been to timelines where you die,” he said. “Where all of you do.”
Her heart slammed against her ribs.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because in one of those futures… you kill me.”
Aria didn’t sleep again that night.
She told the others about Elior the next day during lunch, her voice tight with disbelief and exhaustion.
“He said I’m going to kill him. In one of the futures.”
“That’s insane,” Wendy said. “You wouldn’t hurt anyone.”
“I don’t know what I’d do if things got bad enough,” Aria whispered. “He says I’m creating the future. I thought I was just hearing it.”
“Maybe he’s manipulating you,” Isabel said. “If he’s from the future, maybe he’s changing things too.”
“Is he even human?” Harper asked.
Aria shrugged. “I don’t know. But when he’s near, the echoes go silent.”
“Then he’s our key,” Wendy said. “We need to find him again. He knows something.”
The next day, Aria found a note in her locker.
It wasn’t signed. No name. No handwriting. Just one sentence:
“Meet me where time broke.”
The letters were burned into the paper, not written.
That night, Aria went back to the woods.
Elior waited near the same tree.
“You came alone,” he said.
“Should I not have?”
He didn’t answer. Just studied her, like he was memorizing her soul.
“You’re different than the others,” he said.
“I’m not.”
“You are. You’re… louder in time. You echo across versions.”
“What are you, Elior?” Aria asked softly.
He looked away. “A traveler. A mistake. A warning.”
She stepped closer. “You said I kill you. How?”
“I can’t say,” he said. “But if I’m here now… then we’ve already passed a point of no return.”
Aria stared at him. “Can you travel to the past? Or just the future?”
“Both. But not freely. Time doesn’t like to be touched.”
“Then why come here?”
He exhaled. “Because you matter. Because something is coming. Something that will tear time open. And you’re at the center of it.”
Aria’s pulse quickened.
“What am I?”
“You’re the Architect,” Elior said. “The one who builds what comes next.”
And then—
He kissed her.
Not rushed. Not hesitant.
But like he had kissed her before in a thousand timelines and couldn’t remember which one this was.
Her body lit with heat and fear and longing all at once. And when his lips broke from hers, the echoes returned like a tidal wave—so loud she staggered.
She saw fire. Screams. The number 812 again. Wendy crying. Isabel bleeding. Harper whispering her name like a farewell.
And Elior—
Falling through a broken sky.
- Writer
