Fractured Timeline
A soft wind blew through the deserted plaza at midnight, ruffling tattered banners and stirring the pale glow of lanterns. Lyra stood alone, her breath catching at the echo of footsteps she could almost, but never quite, hear. This place—once vibrant and bustling—now existed in a fractured timeline, its reality cracked by the Coalition’s manipulations.
Across parallel futures, Aidan anxiously tapped the face of his single $TIME watch. He and Lyra shared it out of desperation, a timepiece somehow existing in two timelines simultaneously. Each night, it opened a tiny window when their mismatched timelines overlapped, pulling them into the same moonlit city for mere minutes. They’d once been inseparable lovers, forging each other’s hopes through war and strife, until the Coalition wrenched time apart to cement its hold on history. Their meeting point was this plaza—silent, half-ruined, yet still infused with faint memories of life.
The watch’s dial flickered in Lyra’s hand, signaling that the window had begun. She pressed it close to her heart, half-fearing nothing would happen this time. But a warm glow drew her gaze toward the far corner of the plaza. There stood Aidan, bathed in moonlight, his face a mixture of relief and heartbreak.
They rushed together, colliding in an embrace that barely felt real. Half the city still flickered with the uncertain lines of parallel realities. Each swirl of night air suggested time itself might lurch them away at any second. But for now, they stood heart-to-heart, ignoring the tears welling in their eyes.
“I had to recalibrate the watch for an hour,” Aidan whispered, his voice quivering. “I wasn’t sure it would align… or if you’d be here.”
Lyra held him tighter, inhaling the subtle warmth of his presence. “I’d wait every night just for a minute with you,” she murmured. “Someday, we’ll take back the timeline they stole from us.”
They spoke of fleeting hopes—plans to track the Coalition’s next moves before more disruptions tore their realities further apart. Every vow echoed against centuries of manipulated history, which pressed in like a silent warden. Moonlight traced soft lines along the broken cobblestones, time’s fragile tether shining with possibility.
Then the watch’s dial began its ominous countdown. Their window was closing. A tremor rattled the plaza, and the world around them wavered—from solid walls to flickering ghosts. Aidan’s form glimmered at the edges, slipping back into his fractured era.
Lyra’s breath caught in her throat. “Tomorrow,” she called, voice unsteady. “Same time—same place—”
He nodded, lips forming words of devotion he had no chance to say aloud. Then he vanished, the watch’s light dimming in Lyra’s trembling hands. She sank to her knees in the lonely square. For a handful of heartbeats, they had been together. That was all time had allowed.
Tomorrow night, they would try again. So long as they kept faith in the watch’s narrow intervals, the moonlit city would give them a single breath of love amid the Coalition’s ever-shifting designs. One day, they hoped, they would rewrite history for good—undoing the fractures that tore them apart and finally building a future they could share without fear.
Micro stories are a content feature offered by $TIME's dev Woj. Handwritten and accompanied by art, they serve to deepen the story world we're creating here. Enjoy!
