Rayan Lion sat in his lab, staring into the glowing core of the time engine.
It was strange, looking at the invention that had both saved and destroyed him. The younger version of him had no idea what would one day drive him to finish it. No idea that he would trade decades of life just for a handful of moments with her.
The lab felt too quiet now.
Ever since Amira's confession—that he had appeared to her from the future, that he had saved her, that he had died in her arms—he had not been able to sleep.
She had finally told him.
Ten years had passed since that mysterious cousin died on a hill. But only now had she revealed the truth: that the man buried there was not some traveler. He was Rayan. Older, worn, broken. Him.
His reflection in the lab window no longer looked so different from that man.
He understood now why Amira had always looked at him with a sadness in her eyes, even when smiling. Why she sometimes cried at night without explaining why. Why she always urged him to come home early, to take breaks, to draw boundaries.
She had been living with the ghost of a man who hadn't died yet.
And he… was that ghost in the making.
He walked back home slowly that evening. He didn't drive. Didn't rush.
He let the silence of the city swallow him, its streetlights flickering over puddles and parked cars. The streets reminded him of the old days—of her hospital visits, the missed dinners, the times she sat by the window waiting, sketchbook in hand, slowly losing faith in a tomorrow that kept slipping away.
He opened the door to their apartment. The warmth hit him like a memory.
Amira stood in the kitchen, humming softly. She didn't turn when she heard the door. She just said, "You walked again, didn't you?"
He smiled faintly. "You always know."
She turned then, and the look she gave him was the same one she had once given a dying version of him—love wrapped in fear, in mourning, in gratitude.
He stepped closer. "Why didn't you tell me sooner?"
Amira bit her lip. "Because you weren't ready. And because I was selfish. I wanted to love you without watching you collapse again."
Rayan lowered his gaze. "I think… I understand him now. The future me. I used to think he was a fool for trading his life for a chance to reverse fate."
"And now?"
"Now I envy him. He got to see you one last time. He got to hold you, even if it was just for six months. That's more than most people get."
She walked to him and placed a hand on his chest.
"You're here now. That's all I care about."
Later that night, after dinner and quiet laughter, Rayan stood at the bathroom sink, staring into the mirror.
For a moment, he thought he saw something flicker behind his own eyes—an echo of himself, older, sadder. The same man who had once walked into this timeline and risked everything for love.
It wasn't a hallucination.
It was a memory imprint.
The machine didn't just bend time; it left shadows of decisions on the soul. Some part of him remembered. Some part of him had always remembered—he just hadn't known what the ache was.
Now he did.
He began writing everything down.
He started a journal. Every night after Amira slept, he would sit beside her and record the story. The events that hadn't happened yet. The heartbreak that waited down the road. The discovery. The cure. The side effects. The cost. The sacrifice.
He wrote it all.
Not because he wanted to change the future again—he knew the dangers of that all too well—but because someday, someone else would face the same kind of loss.
And maybe his madness would be their salvation.
He titled the journal simply: Borrowed Time.
The next morning, Amira found him asleep at the desk, the journal open, ink smudged on his hand.
She didn't wake him.
She just smiled sadly, kissed his forehead, and whispered, "You always carry the weight of the world."
In the months that followed, life was quiet but meaningful.
Rayan slowed down. He stopped staying at the lab all night. He started cooking again. They went on long walks in the evening, sometimes in silence, sometimes holding hands like teenagers. Amira painted more now, using the light from their bedroom window as her muse.
She painted him once, sitting in the sunlight, eyes closed, breathing in peace.
That painting would later hang above their mantel for decades.
But even peace can't last forever.
One afternoon, Rayan received a call from the research division. A young assistant had uncovered notes—pages of the original time machine design that had been archived and forgotten.
"What is this?" the assistant asked. "Did you design a secondary prototype?"
Rayan's blood froze.
No one had known there was more than one version.
No one should know.
That design was the one he had built to go back. The one he had sworn to destroy.
He rushed to the facility.
Sure enough, the schematics were intact. Saved under a dummy file name, buried deep in the backup system.
Someone had accessed it.
He called up security logs.
User: T-LionAccessTime Stamp: Two days ago.Location: Substation Terminal Room 7
His jaw clenched. That wasn't his ID. Someone else—someone from the current generation—had found the design.
He thought he'd buried it.
He thought wrong.
That night, he told Amira everything.
She sat still, listening. When he finished, she said one word.
"Destroy it."
"I will," he promised.
"But if someone's already seen it…" she looked down. "They might try to finish what you started."
He nodded grimly.
"There might be others who lost someone. Others who will be willing to gamble with time."
"Then you need to warn them."
He hesitated. "The machine… it cost everything. I don't want others to follow that path."
"Then write the truth," she said softly. "Let them see what it took. What it broke. What it almost couldn't save."
He looked at her, grateful beyond words.
That night, Rayan wrote a letter to the science division, requesting a full lockdown and destruction of the prototype files. But he kept one copy.
Not for replication.
Not for anyone else.
But as a reminder.
Tucked in the pages of Borrowed Time, he wrote a new preface:
"To the one who thinks this is salvation—ask yourself:Is love worth the loss of yourself?Is one moment worth a lifetime?
If the answer is yes…Then may you at least learn from me."
To be continue...