Back in the Facility, the sharp taps of high heels echoed behind the door.
Selena entered the portal lab, papers in hand, and glanced at her watch to check the hour. Five in the afternoon.
"It's getting late," she murmured to herself.
Two hours left before the lab shuts down for the day. Every second of the long wait for their return seemed to drag on endlessly.
The female scientist sighed impatiently.
None of them should be outside after dark—it was too dangerous. Monsters prowled more frequently at night, and they were already close to that threshold.
Besides, she wanted to get home and cook herself some warm soup from the canned leftovers she had traded her childhood toys for.
So she turned to the scientists hunched over their desks, loud mechanical keyboards clattering beneath their fingers.
"How's the portal?" Her voice carried, clear and confident.
"The cooldown reached zero. It's ready to be activated again," one of them replied, punching keys on his calculator. "We narrowed down the coordinates 02 and 03 were sent to. They're in Australia."
"What era?"
"Early 1800s."
"Not too far, then. I only hope they won't screw up the timeline…" The woman groaned, imagining the travesty and the chaos already unfolding on the other side.
"Should we boot the device back up?" another asked.
"Wait." She wanted to know more before giving the order.
Selena slipped into the archives, looking for any writings from that time. Upon further investigation, a few letters—already marked by someone who read them not too long ago—caught her attention.
She carried them back into the control room where the silent head scientist stood behind the soundproof glass, looking at the time machine while his hands glided across panels and levers.
A blank sheet and pen sat beside him, ready to capture any chain of numbers that came to his mind—his tool of choice when a machine's numbers weren't enough. Useful and handy.
"Great work, sir," Selena took a seat beside him, watching his work with professional curiosity.
He nodded without taking his eyes off the observation window.
Indeed. He, alone, was the man who calculated the coordinates and figured out the time margin to which the time agents were sent. The fragile balance of space and time wasn't a challenge to his excellent mind.
"Your precision is remarkable, Chief Research Officer. The calculations—so exact that they cut the risk of temporal drift to almost nothing. You pinpointed the exact spatial-temporal window with amazing accuracy. Years of work, distilled into one algorithm. That's brilliant."
Another nod. Eyes locked on the controls. His pen scratched quietly.
"I assume you account for both the time and the coordinates?" she asked. "The probability equations you use—have you figured it out yourself?"
A faint hum was his only response. Enough, she knew, to acknowledge the compliment.
"I thought so. You always leave a possible margin of error in your calculations—conservative, meticulous, and careful."
A pause, then the pen scratched on his page again, writing down numbers that he calculated in his head.
"Good. At least one of us appreciates consistency."
Selena leaned back, satisfied.
Crossing her legs, she skimmed through the brittle, eighteenth-century military letters. She tapped her fingertips against the corners of the yellowed edges, putting them back in chronological order.
"Let's see…" She focused on their contents, "Day 2:My troops had been up for three days… et cetera, et cetera… We walked through the forest. Rations are running out… And so on… We encountered a cloud of red fog…"
A suspicious haze in the middle of the forest—this was something to catch her attention.
Sounded like something their time-travelers needed to get rid of… She only hoped these two stooges were able to discover the problem.
"...a fifth soldier had fallen to the poisonous fog. We won't be able to withstand it much longer…"
She finally spotted the most important part,
Day 9: Half my troop lay dead this morning, their bodies arranged in a perfect ring around a giant hole. I could have sworn a tree stood there last night — as if it uprooted itself and walked away."
She paused to take a breath.
"From the urban tales I'd heard before departing, I'm convinced that what we're facing is the Upas Tree. Still, I cannot afford to take rumors at face value — we are the militia."
She skipped to another letter.
"Day 13:They warned us about wild animals in these woods… but there is something far worse hiding in these woods. I thought it was only a legend, but the Upas Tree is real. To whoever reads this: beware the tall trees. Any one of them could be the end of you. And if you, God forbid, ever find one—pray that your misery outweighs its own. Weep. Drown yourself in sorrow. Remember every loss, every wound, every grief. That is the only reason I survived. Tears of the forgotten are the only way to-"
Her eyes narrowed. The contents of the letters had changed right as she was reading the next line.
She scanned the letters again—the anomalies vanished from the pages, leaving only ordinary journals of a sergeant.
It was the cue she was waiting for: the mission was complete.
The letters crumpled in her fist, the sharp sound making the lead scientist flinch. She rose abruptly and slipped her head through the doorway into the time-machine chamber.
"The threat has been eradicated," she declared to the others, then looked at the Chief Research Officer. "Activate the portal."
The silent man nodded and pulled the lever. Once the gears started turning, he gave her a thumbs-up.
The control room vibrated with a low, electric hum as the machinery roared to life. Arcs raised abruptly, dancing across the copper wires, the odd metal pipes, and the portal's massive iron ring.
Bradley, the rookie, scuttled toward his console.
"Stabilizer coils engaged—I think."
"Think?" Selena's voice cut through the clatter like a razor—still annoyed by the incident that occurred between him and Inase before.
"I—I mean, engaged! Definitely engaged!" He nearly tripped over a cable under her stern glare.
"Hide your snacks, Brad-boy. You don't want them to be stolen again."
His three senior scientists laughed, teasing him about the past, as they snapped back to their duties, performing each with precision:
One checked whether all necessary wires are connected and none malfunctioned. One wrong cable would destroy years of their hard work. A final calibration ensured that voltage flow and synchronization remained within acceptable thresholds.
Another watched the screen display with great caution; none of the measurements should shoot out of scale. Voltage, thermal readouts, and spatial tolerances flew across old screens of 90s computers.
The third tapped at the old keyboard, syncing software to the portal's physical array. A redundant task, but he was good at being meticulous. He checked that all signals aligned correctly, making sure the software and hardware communicated flawlessly.
"All good."
The floor trembled. Metallic rattle echoed as the portal's frame protested. Sparks hissed near Bradley, who ducked behind the console.
"Hazardous miracle," One of the scientists muttered, fingers flying over the keyboard as he typed in complex calculations. "Still can't get used to it, no matter how many times it worked."
There was always a dark thought lurking at the back of their minds that one day, the machine might simply fail without warning.
"Have some faith in our Chief. He was the one to build it from scratch. That man's a genius."
"A silent one, at that."
The other two smiled, eyes following the steady rhythm of the machine's turning gears.
Bradley counted down, "Ready for the boot-up. Three… Two… One…"
The head scientist threw the lever and pushed the sliders. At last, he had the honor of pressing the big red button, connecting their timeline to whatever waited beyond the portal.
The metal frame screamed, and the center of the frame rippled with unstable energy, blossoming into a shimmering vortex.
And when the portal opened, two battered figures stumbled out, dragging themselves back into the familiar walls of the familiar Facility: one blonde, one white-haired. Both alive, but very tired.
"Welcome ba-"
"Here. Souvenir."
Just as the scientists were about to celebrate another successful mission with cheers and applause, Inase threw a grotesque eyeball at them—the Upas Tree's seed, dried and covered in ash. Its uncanny shape made them recoil in disgust.
"Ew—!"
How he could even touch it without gagging was beyond them.
The gift he got them was also proof that they destroyed whatever was terrorizing the land on the other side.
"Do whatever you please with it…"
But before Inase could finish his sentence, both collapsed, limp like rag dolls.
"..." Selena sighed, tired of their antics. The infamous nagging had to wait for another time. "Someone, carry out these corpses."
Her sharp eyes landed on Bradley, pointing at him with a snap of an index finger.
"You. Do it."
"Me?" At first, he blinked, surprised, thinking she was joking.
"No complaints." She wasn't.
He whimpered, not liking it. His strained relationship with Inase only made it worse.
Still, he had no choice. He'd barely survived Selena's tirade last time, and he had no intention of repeating the mistakes… She was terrifying when she was mad.
His wiry arms trembled when he bent over the blonde, struggling to lift the surprisingly heavy frame. He had trouble pulling it, not to mention carrying both of them… He staggered, nearly fell over.
In crucial need of help, he looked at the female scientist pleadingly.
The woman rolled her eyes at the pathetic sight, already thinking of her dinner.
"Help him." She ordered the others, not wanting to get her own hands dirty. "I'm going home. Get it over with quickly and wrap up for the day," her figure quickly disappearing behind the doors without so much of a goodbye.
"Honestly…" One of the men muttered, stepping in to support Inase, with another coworker on the other side. "Selena likes to boss around. Don't mind her too much."
"It's the usual routine. You've been here… What? Maybe a month? You're still a chick in comparison to us, veterans."
The third scientist grabbed Hosen's free arm, silently judging Bradley's flailing behind foggy glasses.
"She only gets the bitchy pass 'cause she's pretty, isn't she?" Bradley grumbled weakly, his wrists strained. "I'll remember it for the future."
Together, the four shuffled down the hall, dragging the two time divers like they were sandbags. The buzzing lights stretched long shadows over their weary figures in the hallway.
"Why did they have to collapse in the portal room?" Muttered the one with a judgmental stare.
"To make us carry them to somewhere more comfortable now," The more friendly one replied with a dry chuckle. "Their mission must've been just that exhausting."
To his comment, Bradley said nothing.
"..."
At last, they reached the changing room beside the half-packed infirmary. The faint antiseptic smell lingered.
The four men decided to lay them onto the benches, one per each. Sleeping on those should be much more comfortable than on the dirty floor. As they were letting go, the rookie nearly dropped the blonde (not out of spite, he swore), panting from exhaustion.
"Next time," he wheezed, "someone else gets to volunteer for this, okay?"
The friendly scientist clapped him on the back, "Strength training, buddy."
"You'll just have to get used to this," another added.
Bradley groaned, rubbing aching arms, slumping against the wall for a quick break before he had to go back to pack his things and tidy up the place.
It was yet another long day in the Facility.
***
Hosen groggily opened his eye. The light in the room made him squint, his gaze settling on the familiar ceiling.
The changing room—that's where he rested.
It was silent. No one else seemed to be inside.
He shifted to face the clock on the wall. Half past six—clearly, he must've slept for quite a while to be left here alone.
Exhaustion still weighed on his body, and the hard wooden bench had left his back sore. He'd had enough of wood for a while; give him metal, dust, anything, just not another tree.
"I am done with camping for the next two years…" a voice echoed from the opposite bench, words straight from his own mouth.
Inase.
Hosen's head turned to where the blonde was already idly playing with his knife.
"You finally woke up," he chimed in, the sound bouncing chaotically in the other's ears.
"...just how much energy can one guy have…?" He mumbled under his nose before he, too, sat up. "In the end, we have to call off our bet. None of our predictions hit."
"Well, none of us won this time, but…" Inase's pupils shimmered as a sudden idea struck him. "Instead, let's say that the first time dive in the future closest to our bet will decide the real winner."
"Mm. Reasonable enough," Hosen agreed. "Stakes stay the same."
"You bet. I will make you clean my entire house, just you wait." Inase exhaled in content. "Ahh~ I miss the feeling of freshly cleaned furniture… Can't wait to crash on my comfy couch all day."
"You don't have a bed?"
"Nah, easier to stay alert on a bean bag or a couch." The blonde shrugged. "Been protecting this city since I was a kid, ya know."
"Must've been a lot of work."
"It was," he admitted with a relaxed chuckle. "But I always came out of it in one piece."
Hearing his story, Hosen's mind drifted back to the forest—the illusions, the memories, the… odd blood… The guy should have noticed it by now, right…?
"..."
He stared at Inase, searching for answers.
"What?" The other stretched whimsically, pretending not to notice. "You have a crush on me, or something?"
His crude comments only sharpened the scientist's threatening glare. He could tell the blonde already knew why.
And he really did. He just decided to push that topic aside.
"I won't ask," simple as that. Inase replied to the invisible question hanging in the air. "I know you're not ready, so I'll wait until one day you tell me yourself."
"Huh…"
Hosen had a dubious look painted all over his face, drilling deep into the man's very soul, but Inase was serious.
"Who do you take me for?" His face twisted in playful confusion.
"A guy who would use his knife as a toothpick," the white-hair deadpanned.
"Hey!" That was—
Oddly accurate. But he wouldn't do that! He was more civilized than that. A sharpened bone would do a better job!
"You take me for an insensitive barbarian," Inase crossed his arms, comically offended. It forced an entertained scoff out of his buddy.
"Uh… you know…" Remembering all the instances the blonde saved him during this dive, there was still something he needed to address. "I didn't say it earlier, but…"
Inase looked puzzled. Hosen forced the words out, but his face twisted in protest—so obviously that it looked funny to anyone watching.
"Veyruk'tah." For saving his life—he finally blurted out.
"What? What does this even mean? Speak human!" The other frowned, annoyed. "You're messing with me again. Why suddenly the idea to speak gibberish?"
Hosen had no idea. The words just came to him out of nowhere, and they just fit.
Otherwise, he'd never dare to express gratitude to this dumbass. But after sitting on it a bit longer, he figured the guy at least deserved a translation.
"It means thank you." For saving his life. For protecting him. For believing in him. "That was a close one. "
Inase paused, slightly taken aback by the rare compliment. It was the first time someone appreciated his hard work.
"Stop it." He chuckled, scratching on his nape to hide his embarrassment behind a joke. "Being grateful doesn't suit you."
"You might be right," Hosen admitted. It felt weird to say it. "Then I'll never say it ever again."
"Now that's uncalled for-!"
A sudden clang interrupted them.
"Oh—I'm sorry! I didn't mean to scare you—"
A nurse stumbled into view—the same one who had taken Hosen's blood when he first arrived at the Facility.
The source of the sound—a scalpel fell to the floor.
She bent quickly to pick it up, hair falling over her round glasses in a thick, ginger braid that had gone slightly loose.
Bangs obscured half of her face. Baggy clothes hung awkwardly beneath the white lab coat. Dark circles under her eyes gave her a perpetually exhausted look, and her nervous energy made every movement seem unsteady, almost silly.
Like a ball of sleep deprivation and cluttered nerves.
The two men's eyes traveled in her direction, putting her in the spotlight.
Truth be told, they thought they were the only ones left in the building. The last thing they expected was someone else lingering inside—especially a scaredy cat like her. So why hadn't she left yet?
Hosen mouthed to his buddy, "She's a nurse."
Ah. That made sense. She had stayed behind to tend their wounds and patch them up while they were unconscious.
Now that they were awake, she was finally preparing to leave as well—tidying up the tools, putting everything back in its place. She was only passing by when she overheard their heartfelt conversation...
"You can continue…" The nurse muttered awkwardly, adjusting her slipping glasses. "I was never here. Ah!"
Clumsy as ever, she dropped a box with a hole in it, elbow bumping a tray.
"Oh no, not again—sorry, I didn't mean—" Her voice cracked from embarrassment. She scrambled to pick up a box that had a hole in it, nearly tripping over her own feet. "Please, continue—"
But the momentum was already gone.
Hosen leaned down to help her pick up the doctor's tools.
"Here." He gave it to her, careful not to touch her directly.
"T-thank you," she stammered, a faint blush coloring her cheeks. "You're a nice person…!" Then she scurried off, flustered.
A nice person, she said… The white-haired man's gaze lingered, doubting he matched her description of him.
Inase whistled.
"Is she your type? Personally, don't see what you see in her."
Then he grinned, since he always had to stick his nose where he shouldn't. That talk about being civilized from before, where did it go?
"I didn't expect it from you. Being nice, I mean. Oof—!"
The blonde doubled over as the jab landed in his stomach. That one hurt—so much it felt like his wounds had torn open again, even if only figuratively.
"She's Selena's older sister," Hosen said, "It's obvious I will be nice to her."
Being on her bad side was like being on Selena's—a woman who had the biggest influence in the institute, second only to the lead scientist. He already wasn't in her favor; what would it do to antagonize her further?
"There's nothing more to it," he added with a flat tone.
"Oho~ I see, I see."
Every time he heard they were related, Inase was surprised. They looked nothing alike.
Selena, the younger of the two, exuded confidence. Beautiful and charismatic. Her dark hair framed a graceful face and a figure that drew attention wherever she went. Always adorned with a blue scarf around her neck. The subtle beauty mark under her silver eye was just a cherry on top.
Loona, the older one, was the opposite—clumpsy, disheveled ginger braid, baggy clothes, bangs sliding into tired eyes, and dark circles betraying long working hours. Where one commanded a room, the other melted into its corners, awkward, nervous, and fumbling over every sentence.
Inase sometimes wondered which one of them was the real older sister.
"...drop it." Hosen's eyebrow twitched, cutting Inase's teasing short.
"Drop what?" Inase asked innocently, while the other knew very well he was doing it on purpose.
"That stupid grin of yours. You look ridiculous."
"Hehe."