Time screamed before Arin realized he was running.
The alley twisted like a wound in reality. Shadows slithered along the walls, clawing at the air, hissing with voices which weren't his own. Each step the Chrono-Harvester took bent the street around it, rippling the world as though reality itself feared the creature.
"Stay close! It can smell fear, " Silas growled, dragging him forward. Arin's legs were on fire, and his adrenaline yelled in his veins, yet he heard himself answering out of instinct. The alley was narrow, twisted, littered with broken pieces of time: bricks frozen mid-air, rusted metal poles impossibly bent, shards of shattered reality humming softly against his fingertips.
A crack split the street behind them. Arin's stomach plummeted. The Chrono-Harvester wasn't running. It was sliding, its limbs bending at angles which shouldn't exist, moving impossibly fast. The air shimmered around it, warping like water disturbed by a stone.
"Use the alleys!" Silas barked. He tossed into the air a silver symbol, and flames erupted in a cold, frozen glow, snipping time in fragments; hissing, the shadows recoiled. Instinct, and the faintest whispers of his Echo, guided Arin's run. He had never felt his power so raw, so alive.
The alley twisted and narrowed as they ran. Time itself seemed hesitant here—one second, a puddle froze mid-splash; the next, a broken streetlight bent like it was liquid. Arin's Echo whispered possibilities to him, glimpses of seconds yet to come: a brick about to fall, a twisted pipe about to swing. He reacted instinctively, dodging, leaping, barely staying ahead of the fractures in reality.
Then came the ticking. Slow, deliberate, it was the sound of a death clock marking down each heartbeat, a louder reverberation inside Arin's skull, hammering against his nerves. Something older and hungrier than the Chrono-Harvester was waiting at the end of the alley.
Silas's eyes narrowed. "It's waiting. Don't hesitate. Don't falter."
Arin's chest tightened. Every timeline screamed the same truth: they would not survive without a fight. Shadows lunged at them, gnashing, tearing at the fabric of reality itself. Arin flung his hands forward, his Echo flaring uncontrollably. Time fractured in shards, slicing through the writhing darkness. Shadows screamed and scattered, but at the alley's end, a figure remained - patient, unmoving, impossibly dark.
Silas muttered, "This is only the beginning. You can fight, but surviving isn't guaranteed."
Arin's mind was racing. The alley seemed to lengthen and fold, twisting around upon itself, forming a cage of shadows. A shard of darkness, whispering from the end across centuries:
You cannot hide. not from me. not from time itself.
Arin's hands burned with raw power. The Echo surged, bending reality beneath his fingers. He swung instinctively, cutting through the shadows. They shrieked, shredded into fragments—but the figure waited, patient, unmoving, hungrier than he could imagine.
The ticking grew louder, echoing in his chest. His pulse matched it, adrenaline surging, every nerve screaming for control, for survival.
He felt Silas's eyes on him, judging, measuring. "Good," Silas whispered. "But this isn't a victory. It's a warning. The things out there… they don't forgive mistakes."
The alley walls shivered, twisted, and pulsed. Arin felt his Echo respond, stretching reality around him like molten metal. The shadows recoiled once more, but beyond them, something waited-an older-than-time presence, hungrier than the Chrono-Harvester, patient and deliberate.
Every instinct screamed at him to run, but he couldn't. He could feel the Echo thrumming, alive and powerful, guiding him. He raised his hands again, focusing on the fractured moments of time around him, shaping them into blades that slashed at the shadows. They screamed, twisted, and dissolved, but the figure at the alley's end only tilted its head, studying him.
"Do you feel it?" Silas whispered. "It's testing you. Every heartbeat, every step… it's counting you down."
Arin's chest tightened, but excitement sparked inside him. He had never felt this alive, this aware. The Echo pulsed through him, responding to fear, to courage, to willpower. And for the first time, he realized that he could fight. He could survive. The alley was endless, it seemed. Shadows clawed, twisted and hissed. Reality bent and snapped around him. And beyond the chaos, far away, he saw the first indications of the older, hungrier presence—patient, deliberate, waiting. Arin's legs shook, but he squared his shoulders. The Echo flared, cutting through the darkness. The shadows screamed—but beyond them, something far worse was waiting. Arin's Echo surged, cutting through darkness—but beyond the alley, the patient figure waited, hungrier and far more dangerous than anything he had faced.