It didn't matter how many times Salmon stepped foot into a hospital—he never got used to the smell.
Chemicals. Hand sanitizer. That harsh bite of chlorine used to scrub out the metallic sting of blood and the faint, lingering echo of death that always clung to these halls.
He walked through the white corridors, his unnecessarily heavy combat boots thudding against the freshly mopped tiles. As soon as this mission was done, he'd toss them. He always did.
It didn't take long to find the infant ward. He stopped in front of the wide glass panel and peered inside.
Rows of newborns lay bundled in soft blue and pink blankets. To him, they were indistinguishable—tiny, fragile, untouched by time. But even among them, he could feel the pull.
Faint but persistent, it throbbed at the back of his mind like a distant pulse. The heartbeat of the next time traveler. The reason he had crossed three districts just to be here.
"New life is beautiful to watch, isn't it?" a stern, shaky voice murmured beside him.
Salmon turned his head. A short, grey-haired man leaned on a walking stick. His skin was rich dark cocoa, dotted with moles, and his eyes... moon-colored, watery, old in the truest sense.
David Jackson. He would one day die at 101, from a heart attack in his kitchen after seeing a rat the size of a 500ml Coke bottle.
"It is," Salmon answered, smiling like he was greeting an old friend.
"I can't remember what it was like being a baby. Wouldn't it be a wonder to though? To remember what it's like seeing color and hearing sounds for the first time?"
Salmon nodded. Not because he agreed or shared the same sentiment, but because he learned it moves a conversation forward.
Because Salmon didn't have to wonder, he knew what it felt like when he drew his first breath, how the air filled his lungs too fast and too heavy. He knew what colors felt like for the first time, too saturated and too loud. And the voices?
'The voices stayed didn't it?'
He shot You a sharp look.
"Which one's yours?"
"Hmmm?" Salmon blinked, the old man's voice dragging his rampant thoughts back.
"Well I assume one of these babies is yours for you to be standing here good sir." The old man chimed playfully but there was a dry concerned chuckle that followed.
"Oh yes. Right. Mine's the twelfth baby."
"You're a lucky man."
Salmon's polite smile faltered. "I am."
"Well," the old man said as he turned to leave, "I'll leave you—"
He froze when Salmon turned to him.
Salmon was considerably taller, the old man had to crane his neck up to look at him.
His bottom lip trembled, his moonlit eyes widening as he stared up at Salmon's face. "I—I know you," he whispered, breath breaking.
"You do," Salmon replied calmly. "But it's not yet your time."
The old man stumbled back, one hand scraping the wall to steady himself, then hurried away in a shaky, uneven wobble—like a man escaping something he wished he hadn't recognized.
Salmon returned his attention to the infants.
The twelfth baby was a tiny pink human, wrapped in a blush-colored blanket so he knew it was a girl.
Her hair was thin and raven-dark, her eyes the same deep shade when they fluttered open.
Her nameplate read: Ren Koshiro.
She stirred, face scrunching. Then she let out a shrill, piercing wail. Her cry seemed to bounce off the walls.
Salmon winced at the sound.
A nurse hurried past the glass outside, drawn by the sound. She reached the nursery door, hand lifting to open it—then froze. Her fingers hovered above the handle. Something—instinct or fear or fate—held her back. Without a single word, she turned and walked away.
Salmon lifted his palm.
Blue sparks flickered into existence above his skin, twisting into a loose spiral. They started off slow, one then two then 10 altogether whirling around each other like children first meeting and testing each other's boundaries. They played gently with each other, moving then moving out in a slow dance of rhythm and unfamiliarity.
Soon the sparks met in the middle and began circling each other with more fervor as even more blue sparks floated up from his open palm.
They began spinning faster and faster, the blue burning into hot white, numbers and symbols flickering through the glow.
The lights above him flickered and the walls quaked and shook. The entire building began buzzing, dust flickering off the walls and ceiling.
Within seconds, a sphere of swirling blue-white light hovered over his hand.
The Essence of Twelve.
He smiled at it. "Hello old friend."
The orb glowed brighter in response.
He guided the pulsing orb toward the crying infant. One by one, the sparks peeled away from the circle, streaking toward her small body like shooting stars.
The newborn cried loader, as the world around her began to twist into discord.
Doctors and patients and visitors continued walking around, mindless to the flickering lights, or the buzzing walls, or the shaking ceiling above them.
In a single moment, the last of the sparks shot into her tiny chest, settling into her core, melting into her DNA and rewriting her body's genetics.
Doctors and patients and visitors continued walking around, mindless to the flickering lights, or the buzzing walls.
The baby cried, her little legs kicking and her arms scrunching up beside her.
Within seconds she glowed bright blue, her entire form lit from the inside out. Then—silence.
The baby stopped crying as if a switch had been flipped.
The glow faded.
The lights flickered back on and the quaking walls stilled.
Ren opened her dark eyes. She looked straight at Salmon, too focused, too aware. A newborn shouldn't look like that—like she saw him, like she understood something far beyond her days-old existence.
Salmon bowed. "Welcome to The Order, Twelve."
She cooed, lifting a tiny hand toward him, fingers opening and closing as if reaching for something familiar.
He didn't take her hand.
A part of him wanted to but he kept his own at his side. When the time came for him to reclaim the very Essence he had given her, even the smallest spark of affection would make it harder.
He stepped back instead, watching her hand fall slowly to her blanket.
"The Forgotten will find you when you are ready," he said.
As Salmon turned to leave the nursery, he cast one last glance at Ren.
The baby's dark eyes were locked on him.
Her gaze followed the silvery sheen of his hair, the faint glow clinging to it from the Essence he'd summoned. She watched the reflection shimmer in her own irises, then shifted to his back as he stepped away... and finally to the fading outline of him walking down the corridor.
The moment he disappeared from view, she broke.
A piercing wail erupted from her tiny lungs—not the hungry, rhythmic cry of an infant, but something sharper. Desperate. Abandoned.
His steps faltered. Jaws flexed.
Seconds later the same nurse who'd hesitated before came rushing down the hall, brushing past him without a glance. She shoved the door open and hurried inside.
"Oh, sweetheart—it's okay, I'm here," she cooed, lifting the baby gently. "Shhh, shhh... did you get hungry all of a sudden?"
He heard the rustle of blankets, the familiar rattle of a bottle being grabbed from the warmer. The soft, cooing voice of a woman trying her best.
But Salmon knew better.
Ren wasn't crying from hunger.
The smell of the hospital burned his nose. The sound of the crying infant filled his head like a festering wound he knew would take a while to fix. He needed to leave.
In an instant he was standing out the entrance of the hospital.
He shoved his hand in his pocket and inched his head back, staring up into the darkening sky as the cold wind whipped strands of his silver hair across his blue eyes.
Ren would go on to be a Time Traveler, just as Callum before her and Jaden before Callum and Lancaster before Jaden and Birtha before Lancaster.
The next time he'd see her would be the last time, and he hoped the last would be a very long time.
He was about to walk when he felt the weight of the boots.
'Fucking boots.'
In a swift moment he pulled it off and tossed it in the nearest trash can.
He soon started walking barefoot. He needed the walk—the air, the distance, the rhythm of his feet hitting the cold damp pavement. Anything to quiet the echo of the infant's glow still lingering behind his eyes.
By the time he reached the bridge a few miles from the hospital, the wind had picked up, carrying the smell of rain and river water. That was when he saw her.
A girl stood on the ledge.
One leg dangled casually over the edge as if she sat on a park bench. Her head was tipped back, short dark hair whipping in the wind, strands brushing her pale cheeks.
The second odd thing—she was wearing a hospital gown.
The third—she was barefoot.
For a moment, he assumed she was someone in crisis, trapped in a moment of grief or madness. But when he got close enough to see her face clearly, that assumption vanished.
People on the brink trembled. They cried. They clung to life even as they claimed they didn't want it.
But she... didn't.
She stared down at the rushing water below with an empty, hollow expression. Not fear. Not hope. Not excitement. Not desperation.
Just blankness.
The kind of blankness someone wore when they'd already stepped off the edge in every way that mattered—long before their body ever would.
Salmon slowed his steps, eyes narrowing as he watched the girl. Would she jump?
Instinct told him to check—so he did.
He reached out with that quiet sense he'd honed over lifetimes, searching for the thread of her fate. The imprint of her final breath. The timestamp every soul carried like a watermark.
But there was nothing.
'Nothing?'
No death.
No timeline.
No echo of an ending waiting for her.
Just silence.
A hollow gap where her future should've been.
His brows drew together. That... wasn't possible.
As he stood there trying to make sense of it, movement caught his eye.
A black cat lounged on the ledge beside her, tail curled neatly around its paws. Its fur was sleek and dark as ink, and its eyes—burning blue, sharp—were fixed straight on him.
He walked forward, not toward the girl but toward the cat, stopping just shy of the ledge. He bowed his head respectfully.
"Haven't seen you in a while."
'100 years actually.'
The cat blinked slowly, acknowledging him.
A sharp breath escaped the girl.
She turned, eyes widening, hair whipping across her face. "You... you can see it?"
Her voice wasn't fearful. It was stunned.
The cat flicked its tail once, almost amused.
Salmon lifted his gaze to meet hers.
"Yes," he said. "I can."
"Holyshit."