When Time Broke
As the past, present and future collided with each other her eyes fluttered open. She found herself surrounded by tall gravel buildings which once housed humanity & the once beautiful leaves, grass, rivers all petrified to lifeless yet breathtaking statues with intricate details. At that moment, flashes of memories rushed to her like a flowing river.
Images of a lively city, people going about their busy chores, children laughing, her parents, her friends and finally she heard herself say one last sentence, “Cause I am Aethra Vylon, The Silent Paradox?” Suddenly, her head felt heavy and her vision turned blurry, gradually turning pitch black. Soon after her vision focused she was sitting on a bench near a fountain. Aethra slowly stood up, sweeping her eyes around, a single soul not to be seen, she gasped weakly. There in her deep blue eyes, reflected a broken hour glass, the size of a clock tower. The apocalypse had already begun. The time has collided.
She began to investigate the hourglass slowly. The light silver dust, instead of flowing down in the usual way, started to move in a peculiar and deliberate clockwise motion as if it was guided by a mysterious force unseen to human eyes. Aethra's breath hitched for a millisecond. She contemplated, " Since when did an hourglass defy its own purpose? "As she was lost in a train of thoughts, the air around her suddenly started to grow heavier, the winds began to rise, it started to curl around her like a coiling snake hissing her name. The world flickered again, just for a second but this time, it wasn’t the buildings or the sky that shifted.
It was her, in flesh and blood.
Or...someone who looked like her
Blood rushed to her brain as she realized that the one trapped in the hourglass was none other than herself...same eyes…yet deeper, heavier like they carried the weight of everything that had already happened or so she thought....
The winds fell silent. The dust stilled.
And then
without moving its lips it spoke.
“You were never meant to awaken.”
Aethra’s breath caught, her pulse echoing louder than the world around her.
“Not yet.”
The dust began to spiral again.
And this time
it did not feel like time was moving.
It felt like it was watching her.
