Timewalkers Odyssey

Chapter 34: Diminishing Light

Status Report

The Temporal Expanse had changed. Where once there were cracks, now there was cohesion. The ground pulsed with energy. The sky above was vast, dark, and alive with the hum of stable memory.

Ryke stood upright for the first time in what felt like eons.

"Well," he muttered, "Guess I’m not dead yet."

A translucent interface appeared before him, a projection of what he’d become. He read it like a bloodstained shopping list written with hubris intent.

Current Rank: Riftborn
"Which I think means I’m not supposed to exist. Cool."

Nexus Shell: ???
"Apparently, I’ve got a body forged outside of time now. Built tougher, heals faster, and still manages to look like I lost a fight with a smelting furnace. But hey, I am a sexy beast, and I bounce better now, so there’s that."

Temporal Core: 73 / 1000
"Seventy-three fragments. That’s more than I thought. I stopped counting Void Hounds around fifteen. Also killed a Void Wraith. Can’t say it was worth it, but I did get a full-body trauma suit out of the deal."

Temporal Essence: 1000 Capacity
"Apparently, I can store more Essence now. Feels the same, just glows louder. Still burns when I overdo it, but now it burns with style."

Temporal Affinity: Singularity
"Immune to time manipulation. Not sure exactly what that means. Looks like I can also freeze little pockets of time. Like pressing pause just long enough to ruin someone's day. Haven’t figured that one out just yet, but I can't wait to try it out.”

Affinity Skill: Eternal Observer
"I can see two to three seconds into the past and future at the same time. Basically, I cheat. Time shows me the punch before it lands. Sometimes I still take it, because I’m an idiot, but it’s a conscious choice now."

Rogue Echo: Survivor’s Blade
"Stolen from a version of me that didn’t survive. Looks like scrap. Cuts like betrayal."

• Dead Man’s Hand: "Doubles damage when I hit from the shadows. That’s handy."

• Last Stand: "Go full beast mode near death, drop something big, then collapse. Worked great, once."

Time Echo: Predator’s Sight
"Void Hound vision. I see where the world’s cracked and where the monsters glow."

• Fractured Sense: "Time is broken. Good thing I brought a crowbar."

• Mawlight: "Someone’s got a case of TUS - Terminal Ugly Syndrome. There is no cure, and the only treatment is death."

Nexus Relic: Second Skin
Remember to always wear protection, especially when time keeps trying to kill you. “What’s with these descriptions? Big ugly dropped this one, cost me my life but hey I look bad ass, right.”

• Premature Evasion: "Pull out before it gets messy. Fires early, dodges hard, and keeps damage from penetrating too deep.

• Recoil Weave: "Turns bone-crackers into bruises. You’d be surprised what you can live through."

"Yeah. I’m definitely not the same guy who crawled out of the Scrapyard." A sarcastic chuckle in the expanse..

"I’m worse. And somehow, better."

He looked deeper. Past the upgrades. Past the interface. Into the rawness that never healed.

Defect: Unhinged

“Once a heartless survivor, he now fights with reckless compassion, no fear, no hate, no restraint. Turns out reckless compassion is not as noble as it sounds.” 

His defect had always been there, gnawing like a bad habit wrapped in good intentions. He was consciously repressing it most of the time, but sometimes, the beast had to eat. He remembered the first three kills, Void Hounds he took down with more hate than plan.

That wasn't a battle, it was feral. And that time, I lost my temper when I got to the beacon and found out there was nothing to find.

“I feel a little bad about that one.” He said, then thought, “But not that bad.”

Then the last one, the one that got me killed. “I kinda went full cra-cra on that one.”

Unhinged had taken the wheel in multiple fights, and he hadn't fully realized it. Not until now. It was power, pure, unrestrained,  glorious power. But also suicide in a box.

He dismissed the interface. It faded, but the truth stayed.

"Next time, if I burn," he muttered, "I better take a fire extinguisher."

No Time to Waste

A full day passed inside the impossible house, but it carried the weight of a lifetime. Outside, the blue haze held the world in frozen suspension. Inside, there was warmth, silence, and waiting.

Juno-7 moved with clinical precision through the zone's entire boundary, exploring further reaches of the blue zone. Her scans probed everything, material, decay pattern, ambient resonance. Any and all records she could find. Still, nothing changed.

Zephora rarely left Ryke’s side. She sat in near silence, watching him breathe, slow, steady, fragile. She memorized the rhythm of his chest rising. She didn’t know why.

Juno returned from another circuit of the city. Her sensors registered no life. No birds. No roots. No insects. Even the dust refused to settle.

She studied the beacon again. Its structure was similar to known temporal stabilizers, but it radiated something else. A resonance her databanks couldn’t classify. Familiar, yet alien. Known, yet unknowable.

She ran simulation loops. Dozens. Nothing came back usable.

While Juno hunted data, Zephora hunted meaning. She explored the house with slow curiosity. The food was still edible. The logs still burned. The kettle still whistled.

She found sugar tucked behind a ceramic mug. The mug read: "World's Okayest Void Hunter." She almost laughed. She did laugh.

Juno noticed. Mimicked. Tilted her head and repeated, "Okayest Void Hunter," like it was a sacred title. Zephora rolled her eyes and handed her a cup of coffee.

No calculation. No programming. Just a moment.

They sat together at the table, next to Ryke, who remained somewhere between breath and nothing.

"There is no agricultural system here," Juno said. "No livestock. No hydroponics. This food should not exist."

She added sugar to her coffee and took a sip. "Tolerable."

Zephora laughed. Not because it was funny. Because it was impossible. Because for a moment, it didn’t matter; it was just two friends sharing a cup of coffee.

Impossible Theory

The coffee was halfway gone when Juno spoke again.

Ryke had entered a type of stasis, the failing loop had stabilized some but not completely. It was still failing but at a slower rate. It was a double edged sword. It gave Ryke more time to recover but the rate of healing had slowed as well. They were essentially in the same spot they had been in a day ago.

The loop would slowly fade, losing power over time as Ryke slowly healed, but the loop would still collapse before he awoke.

Juno spoke. “The temporal loop continues to lose effectiveness, and there is no source of temporal recharge in the zone.” She said, eyes drifting toward Ryke. “No indicators of an external interface or an auxiliary temporal power source.”

Zephora didn’t respond at first. She swirled the last sip of liquid in her mug, watching the ripple spin, then collapse into stillness.

Zephora raised an eyebrow. “So… you’re saying we need to plug him in?”

Juno paused. “Yes, but wait, no, there is no known interface.”

Zephora smirked. “There’s a known beacon.”

Juno processed the implication. “The beacon’s frequency is compatible with biological systems. The temporal field did react to you and I.” She continued. “But there is no logical way to ‘plug’ Ryke in. He is organic, and the beacon is a machine.”

“But Ryke isn’t just organic, as you put it anymore,” Zephora said. “Is he?”

Juno tilted her head, uncertain whether the question was rhetorical. “He has undergone transformation. His architecture may be partially temporal in nature. I cannot confirm its compatibility with the beacon’s field, though.”

Zephora looked over at Ryke. “He’s not improving, but he’s not fading. It’s like... he’s caught in a breath that won’t finish.”

Juno tilted her head, as she often did when uncertainty eclipsed logic. “There is no such state. Organic survival requires oxygen.”

Zephora just rolled her eyes and continued. “Maybe if he were next to the beacon, he would just absorb a little energy.”

Juno looked up. “That is the safest known structure within the anomaly and the only known source of temporal energy. But moving him may destabilize his condition. I have to run multiple simulations to verify…”

Zephora interrupted, “I’m not asking you for proof. Just a little faith.”

The words silenced the room. Juno-7 processed the response. It was completely illogical that faith held any power. Faith was a word used by organics to explain the unexplainable, but strangely, it made sense.

Zephora turned fully toward Juno now, one hand flat on the table.

“You’ve said yourself—logic doesn’t cover this place. The city shouldn't exist. The food shouldn't exist. Ryke shouldn't even exist, and yet he still breathes.”

Juno processed for 0.7 seconds longer than was polite.

“Agreed. There are anomalies I cannot reconcile.”

Zephora stood, placing a hand on Ryke’s chest.

“The beacon saved us. Maybe it will save Ryke.”

Juno followed the thought, even though it had no foundation.

“All available data predicts the same outcome.”

“Yes,” Zephora agreed. “But there’s no evidence that leaving him here will change anything either.”

Juno stepped forward. Not closer to Ryke, closer to her. Something passed between them. Not a signal. Not calculation.

A Possibility.

Zephora said softly, “What if time remembers him out there?”

Juno blinked. Once. Slowly. Her processors lit.

Emotion Logged: Undefined
Associated markers: heightened interpersonal bond, conceptual intuition, recursive speculation
Pattern Match: 0%

She looked down at Ryke. Then up again.

“I do not believe this will work,” she said.

Zephora met her gaze.

“I know,” she said. “But I think it might.”

Juno hesitated, then nodded.

Action selected: proceed