Chapter 9: The Truth Hidden in Ashes
1 week ago · 4 min read
Rasheed barely slept.
The hooded man’s words echoed through his mind over and over.
“Because I was there.”
Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the stranger’s face.
He saw the spiral engraved on the pocket watch.
He saw the impossible world that had appeared for a single heartbeat before vanishing again.
If that man knew his father…
Then someone had lied.
⸻
The next morning, Rasheed skipped breakfast.
His mother noticed immediately.
“You’re leaving already?”
“I have somewhere to be before school.”
She looked concerned.
“You’ve been different lately.”
He forced a smile.
“I’m okay.”
She walked over and adjusted his tie like she always did.
“You know your father used to make that same face.”
Rasheed looked up.
“What face?”
“The one you make when you’re trying to solve something by yourself.”
She smiled sadly.
“He always believed he had to carry every problem alone.”
Her smile faded.
“It almost became true.”
Rasheed hugged her before she could say anything else.
It caught her completely off guard.
“Love you, Mum.”
She smiled warmly.
“I love you too.”
As he walked out the door, he didn’t notice the family photograph on the wall.
For just a second…
His father’s image flickered.
⸻
Instead of going to school, Rasheed returned to the abandoned Chrona Core facility.
Morning sunlight filtered through the broken roof, illuminating dust that drifted through the air like tiny stars.
The laboratory looked exactly as he’d left it.
Except…
Someone had been here.
Fresh footprints crossed the dusty floor.
Large boots.
Not his.
He followed them.
The tracks led deeper underground than he had gone before.
Past collapsed hallways.
Past sealed blast doors.
Until he reached a rusted security gate hanging halfway open.
Someone had forced it.
Beyond the gate was a narrow archive room.
Most of the shelves had burned.
Thousands of documents had been reduced to black ash.
Rasheed searched anyway.
There had to be something.
Anything.
After nearly twenty minutes…
He found a single file trapped beneath a collapsed cabinet.
Its cover was scorched.
The words were barely visible.
PROJECT CHRONA
His pulse quickened.
Inside were dozens of pages.
Most had been destroyed by fire.
The surviving pages listed employee names.
Engineers.
Scientists.
Security personnel.
His father’s name appeared near the top.
Lead Temporal Systems Engineer
Dr. David Adewale
Rasheed swallowed.
Beneath the name…
Someone had written a note by hand.
The ink had faded with age.
“If containment fails, close the gate.”
“Do not let it cross.”
“What gate?”
He turned another page.
A rough sketch covered the paper.
It wasn’t a machine.
It was a doorway.
A circular doorway surrounded by strange symbols.
The same spiral symbol.
The final page had almost completely burned away.
Only one sentence remained readable.
”…the Chronal Zone is alive.”
A chill ran down Rasheed’s spine.
Alive?
How could a place be alive?
A sudden creak echoed through the archive.
He wasn’t alone.
Rasheed quickly slipped the file into his backpack.
Footsteps.
Slow.
Heavy.
Coming from the hallway outside.
He crouched behind a fallen shelf.
The footsteps stopped just outside the room.
Someone entered.
Black boots.
A dark tactical uniform.
An assault rifle.
Then another.
And another.
Four armed men spread through the archive with practiced precision.
“Search everything,” one of them ordered.
“The Director wants every remaining file.”
“What about the kid from yesterday?”
“If he’s here…”
The man pulled back the bolt on his rifle.
“…don’t let him leave.”
Rasheed’s heartbeat thundered in his ears.
He couldn’t fight them.
He couldn’t outrun bullets.
Could he?
One of the soldiers stepped closer.
Only a few metres away now.
Another step…
Closer.
Rasheed held his breath.
The soldier reached for the shelf.
Just before he looked behind it—
The lights flickered.
Once.
Twice.
Then every clock inside the facility stopped.
The soldiers looked around in confusion.
“What the—”
Tick.
A single sound echoed through the hallway.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
The armed men suddenly became perfectly still.
Not frozen.
Paused.
As if time itself had hesitated.
Rasheed stared in disbelief.
“What…”
The strange stillness lasted only a second.
But it was enough.
Instinct took over.
He ran.
A burst of crimson lightning erupted behind him.
By the time the soldiers moved again…
The archive was empty.
Only a trail of scorched footprints remained.
The squad leader knelt beside one of them.
His expression hardened.
“He was here.”
He pressed a finger to the communicator in his ear.
“Target confirmed.”
“We’ve located Subject Pulse.”
Far away, inside a skyscraper overlooking the city, a man sat alone in a dark office.
He watched the security footage in silence.
The red blur replayed again.
And again.
And again.
Finally, he smiled.
“So…”
“The boy has found the archives.”
He pressed a button on his desk.
“Prepare Project Velocyte.”
The screen went black.
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