The air hung heavy, vibrating with a hum that seemed to seep into Rafael's bones. He could feel it before he saw it — the subtle quiver of reality, a pulse that didn't belong. He moved through the streets of the parallel city, each step heavier, as if the cobblestones themselves had begun to resist.
The device waited at the center, cradled in a glass case, but it was no ordinary artifact. Its surface shimmered with alloys Rafael did not recognize, etched with symbols that glowed faintly in impossible colors — Mateo's handwriting folded into something unrecognizable, something alien. A sense of inevitability pressed on him, and he knew: time itself was folding in on this place, and he could not stop it.
Seven minutes: the hum grew into a low, resonant chord. Shadows stretched unnaturally, bending against the sun. Rafael saw the child by the fountain hesitate mid-step, her paper boat trembling in a wind that didn't exist. He reached for her hand, but she recoiled instinctively, eyes wide with unspoken understanding.
Imelda appeared, her skirts brushing the broken stones. Her hands hovered over the device, fingers brushing the cold glass. "It's from Mateo," she whispered, voice trembling. "His timeline… it's coming. He sent it."
The city began to shimmer, the familiar streets flickering with ghostly glimpses of Mateo's world — towers falling, fires burning, rivers swollen with debris. Faces she did not know looked at her with despair, their mouths forming words she could not hear. Rafael glimpsed a marketplace from Mateo's timeline, merchants frozen mid-gesture, a mother clutching her child as the sky tore open in flashes of red and gold.
Five minutes: each character moved with distorted grace, slowed by the pressure of temporal waves. Apologies tumbled from lips in fractured syllables. Imelda's eyes met Rafael's, and in that frozen moment they shared everything they had left unsaid — confessions, regrets, love, and fear. The dog barked once, a brittle, metallic sound, then was silent. A bird flapped midair, wings suspended as though caught between realities.
Three minutes: water in fountains swirled upward before hanging in frozen droplets. Streets cracked, their veins like jagged lightning across the cityscape. Walls wavered, colors draining to shades of gray that were not quite gray, interspersed with flashes of Mateo's timeline — a man running, reaching for something, then vanishing; a clock melting into its own hands.
Two minutes: Rafael ran to a window and saw a family sitting at a table, frozen mid-meal, their eyes wide as the timeline overlaid theirs with Mateo's own city in ruin. Smoke from distant fires coiled into the air like serpents, trailing behind invisible winds that carried the scent of ash and iron. He felt the taste of blood in his mouth, though no one had been hurt yet.
One minute: the device pulsed violently, light stabbing through the glass. Imelda pressed both hands to it, whispering a prayer, a plea, a surrender. Time quivered around them; the streets seemed to ripple like water. Rafael tucked the stopped watch into the priest's palm. "Remember me," he said, voice trembling. The priest's eyes reflected the fracturing reality, and he nodded with serene understanding.
Thirty seconds: walls softened, marble bending like wax. Glass puddled on the floor, metal groaning as if alive. Shadows flickered across the streets like liquid ink. The wind screamed without direction, tossing debris in slow arcs that ignored gravity. The echoes of Mateo's timeline pressed in, overlapping with their own: flames consuming his city mirrored cracks opening in theirs; cries from his people interlaced with their own.
Ten seconds: a final glance between Rafael and Imelda. A shared breath. A small hand gripping a toy, the child's wide eyes reflecting both worlds. The dog whimpered, then vanished mid-step, swallowed by the collapse. Water in fountains shattered into airborne prisms, catching light that no longer belonged to their dimension.
Zero: the detonation. A shockwave of pure perception tore through the city. Sound shattered into jagged pieces; light unraveled into threads that tangled in the air. Rafael felt every second he had lived press into him at once, every lost choice, every whispered word, every echo of Mateo's heartbeat threading through his chest. He tasted iron, ozone, burnt paper, and ash, all simultaneously. The streets, the fountains, the people, the echoes of Mateo's timeline — all folded into a single point of absence.
In that final, intimate clarity, a single image remained: the paper boat, floating briefly in a frozen droplet of air, reflecting the overlapping timelines — then it, too, disappeared into nothing.
And with its disappearance, the parallel dimension ceased, folded closed by the inevitable hand of time. Silence reigned, heavy and complete, and the myths lay dormant once more, waiting beyond the unreachable ripple of what had been.