Threads of Time

The platform thrummed beneath Emilia’s feet, a low vibration that pulsed in her bones. Blue light swirled around her in delicate streams—like fireflies suspended in air. Adrian stood at the console nearby, fingers dancing over transparent keys.

“This won’t send you back yet,” he said, glancing up at her. “This is the mapping phase. We’re looking for your temporal thread—your personal path through time.”

Emilia swallowed hard. “And Luca’s?”

“If he’s alive in your original timeline, his thread will still be tethered to yours. If not…”

He didn’t finish the sentence.

She closed her eyes as the light intensified. Memories surfaced, not in order, not gently—flashes of laughter under the olive trees, Luca’s lips brushing hers in the chapel ruins, her father’s booming voice, the explosion, the blood.

Then something happened.

The air shifted. A spark leapt from her pocket watch, and a new color entered the stream of light: deep crimson.

Adrian stepped back. “That’s not supposed to happen.”

“What is it?” she asked, eyes wide.

He stared at the data streaming across the screen. “The watch is creating a secondary anchor. It’s not just tethered to Luca… it’s responding to another presence.”

“Another person?”

“No,” he said slowly. “A moment. Something traumatic. Something unresolved.”

The light turned violent for a moment—storming, pulsing, then fading into stillness.

And then…

A flash.

She wasn’t on the platform anymore.

She stood in the ruins of the De Luca garden—roses burning, the stone fountain cracked, the sky above heavy with smoke. She saw herself kneeling beside Luca, his hand gripping hers, blood soaking the soil.

But something was wrong.

There was another Emilia. Standing far off in the shadows. Watching.

Emilia gasped.

Then—snap—she was back in the EPOCH chamber, breath ragged, knees trembling.

“What did you see?” Adrian asked, already scanning her vitals.

“I saw myself… with Luca. But there was another me. Watching. Hidden.”

Adrian frowned. “That shouldn’t be possible. Unless…”

“Unless what?”

“You’ve already gone back—sometime in your future. That version of you… may have already interfered.”

Emilia’s mind reeled. “So there could be two of me in the past? Right now?”

“It’s a paradox. One we can’t afford to destabilize.” He paced, thinking aloud. “If your future self is already active in that timeline, you’ll need to find her. Intersect your purpose. If not—time could collapse around both of you.”

Her head spun. “But I don’t even know why she’s there. Or how she got there.”

“You will,” he said calmly. “Because she is you.”

Adrian handed her a device—a small ring embedded with a glowing shard of crystal.

“This will allow you to see the tethers around you. Find the other you. Find Luca. Find the moment that matters.”

“And then?”

“Then we make the jump.”

Emilia took the ring, her fingers shaking. “I’m not afraid.”

“You should be,” Adrian said quietly. “Time doesn’t forgive mistakes. And love—love makes people reckless.”

She looked him in the eyes. “Then I’ll be reckless.”

She turned back to the platform, clutching the pocket watch, the ring, and her hope.

Because somewhere in the ashes of her past, her heart still waited.

And she was going to find it.