The Place Between Moments
890 Words
The house didn’t feel safe anymore.
Not after the creature.
Not after what Lidia had done.
Not after what she had become.
No one spoke at first.
The broken windows let the night air drift in, cold and unnatural.
Ethan stood near the wall, arms crossed, his expression tight with thought. Kael remained close to Lidia, not touching her now—but near enough that she could feel him. A constant presence.
A pull.
A reminder.
“You felt it, didn’t you?” Ethan finally said.
Lidia nodded slowly. “When I touched it… it wasn’t just a creature.”
She swallowed.
“It was like touching… pieces of different realities. Like it didn’t know where it belonged.”
Kael’s voice was quieter than usual.
“That’s because it doesn’t belong anywhere,” he said. “It’s what happens when time tears.”
“Big enough that if we don’t fix it…” he said, “…your world and this one won’t just collide.”
“They’ll collapse.”
Kael stepped forward then, his attention fully on Lidia.
“You are the center of it,” he said.
“…The bond is part of it,” she finished quietly.
Kael didn’t deny it
Ethan ran a hand through his hair. “Okay. Then we stop guessing and start proving.”
He pushed off the wall and moved toward the center of the room.
“I can track fractures,” he said. “Small ones. Residual ones.”
Lidia blinked. “Like… traces?”
“Exactly.”
“We step through.”
Lidia’s heart pounded.
“You mean… travel between timelines?” she asked.
Ethan gave a tight nod. “Briefly. Carefully. If we’re lucky.”
“And if we’re not?” she pressed.
Ethan didn’t answer.
Kael did.
“We don’t come back.”
Lidia looked down at her hands.
They were still trembling slightly.
Not from fear.
From something else.
Power.
“I caused this,” she said quietly.
Kael’s voice softened—not gentle, but certain.
“No,” he said. “You were used.”
That made her look up.
“What?”
Kael’s eyes darkened.
“Someone didn’t just open a path,” he said. “They pulled you through it.”
Ethan moved toward the broken doorway, crouching slightly as he studied the ground.
“Stand back,” he said.
Lidia and Kael exchanged a brief glance before stepping aside.
Ethan lifted his hand again—
The space in front of him rippled, like heat over glass—but colder, sharper.
“There,” he said. “Residual tear.”
Lidia stepped closer despite herself.
A thin, glowing line in the air—like a crack in something invisible.
Her wolf stirred.
“It feels… familiar,” she whispered.
Kael moved beside her.
“It should,” he said. “It carries your scent.”
Ethan stood, his expression serious now.
“If we do this,” he said, “we stay together. No wandering. No touching anything we don’t understand.”
Lidia gave a small, tense smile. “That’s reassuring.”
“I’m serious.”
“I know.”
Kael stepped closer.
“You don’t go in without me,” he said to Lidia.
Her heart skipped.
“I wasn’t planning to.”
Ethan looked between them.
“Alright,” he said. “On three.”
The air crackled.
The fracture widened slightly.
Lidia’s pulse roared in her ears.
Ethan’s power surged, holding the tear open.
The world around them dimmed.
“Three.”
They stepped through.
And everything disappeared.
There was no ground.
No sky.
No sound.
Only fragments.
Shattered pieces of moments floating in darkness—like broken glass suspended in time.
Lidia gasped softly.
“What is this place?”
Ethan’s voice was quieter now.
“The space between timelines,” he said. “Where everything that doesn’t belong… ends up.”
Kael’s gaze moved sharply across the fragments.
“Memories,” he said.
Lidia stepped closer to one.
Inside it—
She saw a version of herself.
Standing beside Kael.
Crowned.
Powerful.
Queen.
Her breath caught.
“That’s… me.”
Kael’s expression hardened.
“A future that hasn’t happened,” he said.
“Or one that was taken,” Ethan added.
More fragments flickered around them.
Different versions.
Different outcomes.
Lidia dead.
Lidia ruling.
Lidia alone.
Each one pulling at her, whispering possibilities.
“This is wrong,” she said, shaking her head. “All of it—this shouldn’t exist.”
“No,” Ethan said. “It shouldn’t.”
Kael turned suddenly.
His body tensed.
“We’re not alone.”
From the darkness—
Something moved.
Not like the creature before.
This was… controlled.
Intentional.
A figure stepped forward from the shadows between fragments.
Tall.
Cloaked.
Watching.
Lidia’s breath caught.
“Who are you?” she demanded.
The figure tilted its head slightly.
Then—
Smiled.
Kael stepped in front of Lidia instinctively.
“Speak,” he commanded.
The figure’s gaze settled on Lidia.
Cold.
Knowing.
“You were never meant to run,” it said.
“You were meant to break.”
The surrounding space began to tremble.
Fragments shattered.
The tear was closing.
“Time’s up!” Ethan shouted. “We have to go—now!”
She was the center of it all.
- Writer
