~PROLOGUE~
The red recording light blinks into life, and the camera's lens scratches the edge of focus before settling on a narrow slice of a room. Dust motes drift like lazy ghosts in the weak afternoon sun filtering through a grimy window. The walls, once pale, have yellowed under years of cigarette smoke; faded floral wallpaper peels at the corners. A battered rotary phone sits atop a wobbly end table, its cord tangled around a stack of handwritten notebooks. Below it, a dingy transistor radio emits static hummed into silence long ago.
Professor Nicholas Damon emerges into frame, stepping over a scattering of steel tools and loose film reels that litter the threadbare carpet. His hair—once neatly parted—is now matted, as though he's let weeks of sleep slip past without care. A thin veneer of grime coats his forehead and cheeks; his eyes burn with an unsteadiness sharper than the dull redness of the light. He wears a rumpled shirt with oil stains, sleeves rolled halfway to elbows that bear faint bruises and odd, purplish seams of scar tissue. Each movement makes him wince, as though some internal mechanism is grating against its bearings.
He clears his throat, voice brittle as cracked glass, and leans forward until his face fills the viewfinder.
"Day… one hundred and ninety-seven," he murmurs.
His tone catches, as though he's both proud and desperate to mark the passage of time.
"The flux capacitor alignment remains unstable—but I'm closing in. Every temporal offset brings me closer to…" He pauses, lips twisting as though he's tasted something bitter. "Closer to certainty."
He straightens, retreating from the lens to reveal more of the clutter: a half-empty bottle of whiskey on the windowsill, stained coffee mugs crusted with refuse, and a low-slung metal workbench cluttered with circuit boards and tangle-wired coils. An old black-and-white television, its screen crackling, sits atop a pile of yellowing newspapers. The only clock is a battered alarm clock whose hands have frozen at 3:17.
"The side effects," he continues, voice roughening. His hand trembles as he reaches under his shirt—revealing a faint ridge of swollen ribs. "My bones… they shift of their own accord. Last night, my left arm dislocated at the shoulder. It felt like someone tearing a branch from a tree." His jaw clenches. "I had to push it back in place, joint by joint. Like resetting a broken mechanism."
A sharp intake of breath, and his shoulders slump. For a moment, the camera catches something unfiltered—an almost pleading edge in his eyes.
"I don't know how much longer I can fight this. I can't tell dream from memory anymore. Every mirror is an echo chamber, every shadow a false promise."
He stands abruptly, knocking a stack of notebooks to the floor. Pages scatter—equations, temporal coordinates, hastily sketched diagrams—yet he ignores them. He paces in front of the camera, pacing growing erratic, boots scuffing the threadbare rug.
"This place… it's tearing me apart the way it tore them." His voice drops to a hushed, urgent whisper, as though confessing to an unseen witness.
"Everything I've sacrificed—every life lost—will mean something. They will not remain as lifeless corpses forgotten in the dark."
He stops, tilting his head so only half his face is visible. The single bulb overhead flickers. A bead of sweat—or maybe a tear—traces a path down his dusty cheek.
"Their purpose… our purpose… will not be in vain."
His lips tighten. He reaches out, fingers brushing the camera's lens. The image ripples, then cuts to darkness. One solitary thump echoes as the camera falls silent.
—end recording—