Draco and I stared at the head on the ground in front of us, soaked in blood.
Draco surveyed the face, capturing every detail:
"It's him, the guy that I shot."
'How the hell did his head even fall from above?! Isn't his body right beside us?!' Draco searched around for his body. Only to realise… It's gone.
Draco's crystal green eyes raised:
"Horacio, keep calm, don't make too much noise, there's an Abberant Error above us. I'll explain to you what all of this is. Of course, if we make it out alive. But right now… Run."
I looked at him as if he were out of his mind, but joined his gaze upwards. And to my utmost regret. I saw the scariest as well as the deadliest spider I've ever seen. Eight giant red eyes, six legs that are as sharp as daggers. And corpses soaked in blood, decapitated heads with bloodshot eyes. All glued to the most humongous web I have ever seen.
Just as I turned. The spider leapt from its web and landed quietly, face-to-face with me and Draco. The speed caused my hair to flow back. 'Oh shit.'
Draco searched his coat, then he took out my time-travelling watch from his coat pocket and handed it over to me:
"I took it out from your drawer, don't ask any questions about what I am going to say. I looked at him dead in the eyes, "Alright, go ahead, be fast with whatever you're gonna say."
"I want you to break the watch and swallow the capsule that is inside it."
At that point, I felt like he was the mentally ill one. But if that was going to make our spider-friend make way for us, then yeah, sure.
Draco unsheathed a pair of daggers and dashed around the spider while he jabbed at light speed. Penetrating the beast's armour as it fought back.
I smashed the watch into the floor, and sure enough, a capsule was really inside the watch. I picked up the capsule. The see-through covering contained golden threads that moved by themselves; it was mesmerising. 'I'm supposed to swallow this? Is this even soluble? Welp, if Draco said I must, then I guess I should?'
I closed my eyes, putting the capsule into my mouth, then I swallowed it. The heat spread through my body as my heart beat faster. I felt like I was going to blow up into a million pieces.
My legs buckled under the weight of the pain. Draco looked back, "You alright, Horacio?! Talk to me! HELLO?!"
My vision went blank. 'Holy shit.' I couldn't even move anymore. 'What the hell just happened?' I slowly opened my eyes, half expecting to be in the afterlife, half not expecting to be in the midst of the galaxy. And sure enough, I'm not in the room anymore. Instead—in space? The celestial view was beyond any description that I knew of.
I saw golden threads swarming towards me. They paused before they could hit me, slowly coiling around my torso. Then I was greeted by a voice:
"Welcome back, child of Time. It has been a few years since we last talked."
I heard faint voices:
"Father!" squealed the voice of a cute girl from one of the threads.
"Let's go out today, brother!" yelled a little boy from another thread.
"Mom, where are you?" asked another boy, as he broke down into tears.
'What. What are all of these voices? And why are these threads all around me? What's happening? Where am I exactly?!'
Then, to answer my questions, the soft and calming voice replied:
"Don't worry, child, you're safe. Those voices are the voices of people from the threads. Those threads are called Timelines.The reason they surround you is because… You are the Child of Time. And for where you are. It's your mind-space; I'm a creation of your imagination. You may call me, Azura."
I open my mouth to speak, but not even a squeak exits my mouth. 'Why can't I speak?! WHO ARE YOU?! I WANT TO GET BACK!'
"Fear not, child, I must just explain to you what powers you have re-acquired."
'So I get kidnapped, then transported into space, and now some voice that I somehow created is going to give me information without letting me get back out?'
Ignoring my remark, the voice began:
"So, this capsule you have swallowed is one of the three time capsules scattered across the timelines. This is the Past capsule. It allows you to time-travel and create. But creating has side effects. The side effects are random, but creating something extremely large. For example, creating a timeline, which you can do after acquiring all three capsules, is fatal, and there's a large chance of your very existence being erased. This is all I'm allowed to tell you, Child of Time, at this time due to the short amount of available time we have here. We shall meet again once you acquire the next time capsule, or if you want me to, I can talk to you telepathically."
Interesting, but I was still confused. 'What do I have to do about all this, and what is Child of Time?'
Before I could even receive my response and accept her proposal, I was back in reality, lying on the floor. My back was sore from lying on the cold metal floor. I got up. Draco stood above me, "Took you long enough, where did you run off to?"
"I'm not sure myself…"
With a sigh of exhaustion, he pulled me up:
"Alright, well, you were out for a solid 10 minutes. Though I'm done dealing with the Error." Draco pointed towards the corpse of the beast. Which lay dead on the floor. "Alright, wait here. I called in Dr. Arlen and his brother to take you to the infirmary. They will be performing some studies on you. I'mma be here and figure out what a Human-Error type is doing here."
I walked towards the beast. My brain kept tugging itself at the monstrosity. Then a swarm of memories hit my head. Memories that I never knew, yet had me in them. Memories of me using spells or whatever.
Then, I screamed out loud: "TIME TECHNIQUE: CREATION." Draco jumped, he swore, "HORACIO, ARE YOU ALRIGHT? YOU GAVE ME A GOD DAMN JUMPSCARE." A sword dropped into my hand, and the blade was sharp. I stared at the blade, analysing it. Without being able to control myself, the words spat out of my mouth: "Ignis, my friend. Welcome back."
Then suddenly, it disappeared. And my head hurt; the pain was worse than any headache I've gone through before. (It was so cringe to be honest.)
The corpse of the beast awoke from its deep slumber.
It stood up, abruptly. Glaring down at me. I swore, 'Oh come on! Can't I just relax a little?!'
Muscle memroy kicked in to save my ass once more, I yelled out the, extremely cringe, line "TIME TECHNIQUE: CREATION" as I held Ignis's handle tightly, turning on the heating function, and the blade immediately radiated shades of orange and red. I sprinted in without hesitation, and Draco joined me in the battle.
Oh shit. Well done, legs. I don't even know how to swing a sword!
I swung the blade left, right, and jabbed into the spider's sides. 'Wait. How am I able to swing the blade so well? I haven't ever learnt to use a sword. It almost feels like I've done this billions of times before.' I would've already died if I hadn't known how to use the blade, which I technically shouldn't have known.
The half-dead abomination of a spider jumped back onto its web and began dropping the corpses onto me and Draco. Draco dodged the raining corpses swiftly.
So, now: Why did the spider go back up to its home? Draco had damaged its legs very badly! Otherwise, it would have fought us here! 'Now we just needed to find a way to end that wretch's life!'
Draco threw a flashbang onto the spider, blinding it. This gave us the perfect opportunity to strike.
Draco leapt into the air as he threw his daggers at the target. It yelled in rage.
"Time technique: Creation!"
A thing which only existed in my imagination. Something deadly enough that any military would want it. A rail gun!
The rail gun whirred as it charged up its beam.
I pressed hard on the trigger as the beam shot right into the head of the spider.
The whole beast just slowly glitched away and disappeared with one last scream.
I sat down, panting, "Thank God, this hellish battle is over. I need a damn break from all this action."