THYME'S POV:
The words "You are not from this timeline, child" didn't just echo; they reverberated, a sharp, crystalline clarity slicing through the market's dull, humid roar behind my eyes.
Someone could see me. The thought was a jagged shard of ice in my gut, twisting with a sickening lurch. My head snapped around, my heart hammering a frantic, wild-bird rhythm against my ribs, to confront the woman who had spoken. She stood there, calm in her mid-thirties, her expression serene, a gentle smile playing on her lips that did absolutely nothing to quell the frantic, trapped-bird panic thrashing in my chest. Her presence was an impossible anomaly, a variable my terrified mind simply couldn't compute.
"You… you can see me?" The question was a pathetic squeak, barely audible over the market's clamor.
She offered a slow, knowing nod, her eyes holding an ancient wisdom that chilled me to the bone. "Yes, child, I can see you. Not as I see the living, but as I see the restless spirits that linger here". She gestured subtly to a space just behind me, and I instinctively flinched, a cold sweat breaking out on my skin. I whipped around, my gaze darting through the bustling crowd, but saw nothing but the indifferent faces of strangers. A fresh, dizzying wave of confusion washed over me, thick and disorienting.
"You cannot see them," she explained, her voice patient, as if sensing the bewilderment twisting my features. "You are not ready". Was she mocking me? The idea sparked a flicker of desperate anger, but the unwavering certainty in her eyes left no room for deceit. She was the only person in this impossible, terrifying timeline who had ever acknowledged my existence, apart from the scarred killer who haunted my memories. Alone, exposed, and now, seen by a stranger who spoke of spirits. The isolation pressed down on me, heavy and suffocating.
"You are hesitating to believe," she continued, her voice soft yet firm, a gentle admonishment. "I will not force you. But I will warn you: you must stop returning to this time". My jaw tightened, a desperate need for answers clawing at my throat. "What do you mean?" I wanted to interrupt, to demand more, to shake the truth from her, but she simply raised a hand, her expression hardening, turning grave. "You don't belong to this timeline. Nothing good will happen to you if you stay here".
"I don't understand what you mean!" I pleaded, my voice strained, thin. "Can you please elaborate what you are trying to say?" She simply shook her head, her gaze unyielding, and turned, walking away, melting into the passing bodies of the crowd. "No!" I lunged, desperate, stretching out a hand to catch her, to force the answers from her. But then, as if a switch had been flicked, the sky ripped open.
A sudden, violent downpour erupted, huge, cold droplets slamming into my skin, instantly blurring the world around me. The market became a watercolor smear, figures dissolving into indistinct shapes, colors running together. My frantic chase became a clumsy stagger. The rain lashed harder, blinding me, the heavy drops blurring everything into a chaotic, watery mess. And then, just as suddenly, the deluge above me vanished. The relentless assault of water simply… stopped.
A deep navy umbrella, impossibly solid, materialized above my head, casting a sudden, dry shadow. I blinked, water streaming from my lashes, my eyes struggling to focus through the sudden shift in light. My gaze followed the arc of the umbrella's handle down to the hand holding it, then up a familiar arm, a broad shoulder, and finally—Meta's face.
"Do you want to get sick? Why are you outside when rain is pouring this hard?" His voice, deep and resonant, was undeniably familiar, and my eyes widened in a fresh wave of shock and disbelief.
Meta. But how? How was he here? How did he also travel through time? I tore my gaze from him, frantically scanning my surroundings. The bustling market had vanished, replaced by the familiar, imposing facade of my university's faculty building. We were back. I was back. The impossible shift sent a fresh jolt of confusion through my already reeling mind. I still couldn't believe any of it—the time travel, the year 1990—even though I'd experienced it. Who would ever believe such a thing could happen in real life?
"Are you okay?" His voice, closer now, cut through my dazed thoughts, pulling me from the swirling chaos in my head.
"Ye… yes, I'm okay," I stammered, the words catching in my throat. In that instant, a cold, sickening dread washed over me. I had forgotten something crucial. Something terrible.
"Great, now you can't run away from me," he said, and before I could react, his fingers clamped around my wrist, a strong, unyielding grip designed to ensure I wouldn't be able to escape.
Shit. The memory hit me then, a punch to the gut: I was supposed to be hiding. I was running from him because I couldn't face him, not yet. And now, I was caught, trapped. A wave of pure panic surged through me, thick and suffocating. I twisted my wrist, tugging, trying to wrench free, but his grip was like iron.
"Stop running away, kid. Do you think after declaring that in front of many students, running away is the best solution?"
Shit. He already knows. The words hit me like another physical blow. Argh! I wanted nothing more than to be back in 1990, to vanish into that impossible market, anywhere to escape Meta. My entire body tensed, a whirlwind of nervousness, embarrassment, and raw fear churning in my stomach. He began to pull me, his grip firm, inexorable, dragging me towards the parking lot where his car sat waiting.
Shit, think, Thyme, think! You need to escape. As we passed by other students, I could feel their eyes on us, their whispers like needles pricking my skin. Meta holding my wrist again—we would absolutely become the university's newest topic of gossip. The humiliation burned, but the fear of being trapped, of facing him, was a cold, relentless terror.
The closer we moved to Meta's car, the deeper the dread coiled in my gut, a suffocating, icy fear that had nothing to do with him, and everything to do with me. What if he dismissed it all? That video, the declaration, caught for the world to see – if he invalidated it, invalidated me, it would be a wound far deeper than I could articulate. Rejection. The word itself was a brand, searing my skin, echoing every hidden insecurity. What if Meta said that what happened should never have happened? What if he wanted distance? My mind screamed. Only those truly in love, those steeped in the agony of unrequited feelings, should fear rejection like this. But wasn't it far more terrifying to be rejected before you even had the chance to truly know each other? Before anything could even begin?
A sharp, violent ache exploded behind my eyes, a thousand tiny hammers pounding against my skull. The tension, the crushing pressure of Meta's grip, the phantom weight of the woman's warning, the baffling jump through time – it all converged, tightening like a vise around my brain. My vision blurred, colors bleeding into formless smudges. The world tilted, spun, and then, in an instant, everything dissolved into an abyss of crushing darkness.
"Thyme!" His voice, sharp with alarm, was the last thread connecting me to the world, a desperate shout, before it snapped, and I fell.
The words clawed their way into the suffocating blackness, each syllable a shard of ice. "I don't have a gay son!"
It was her. My mother. Her voice, brittle with disdain, grated against the raw edges of my consciousness. Where was I? Why could I only hear?
"Why is he wearing a school uniform of a girl?" Her question, laced with accusation, was tossed at someone else. Who? My disembodied self trembled with a growing, cold unease.
"I don't know what happened, but this might just be a misunderstanding, dear." That voice. So soft, so full of warmth, yet laced with a fragile, heartbreaking despair. Grandma. My heart, or what felt like my heart in this suspended state, wrenched. Grandma? How? How could she be here? How could she still be alive? A desperate, silent sob tore through me, a phantom pain.
"No, Mom! Stop protecting that disgusting child! I will not accept a child like him!" My mother's voice rose, shrill with a venomous anger that felt like a physical blow, a slap across my unseen face. Disgusting. The word settled over me, heavy and cold, confirming the disgust I'd always sensed radiating from her, now made horrifyingly explicit.
A choked sob, thick with pain, tore through the silent void. It was Grandma, her voice cracking. "Let's say he is what we see! He is still your child! It doesn't matter who he is or what he wants to be! What's important is that you gave birth to him! Any imperfection he has, we should accept it, because it's not his choice to be born like that! It's not his choice to be born from you! Your responsibility as a mother is to love him, take care of him, and protect him, not to look at him like he is rotten garbage! I'm not the one who gave birth to Thyme, but he is still my grandson, and no matter what he is, I will love him as he is! So please, for the love of God, don't say things he might hear! I don't want my grandchild to hate you!" Her voice fractured into ragged sobs, a raw sound of grief that tore at something deep inside me, echoing the phantom pain in my own chest.
"No, Mom! I will not accept him in my household! He is a stranger under my roof!" My mother's voice, sharp and cutting, suddenly splintered, thick with a raw, guttural cry. This was new. This was the first time I'd ever heard her cry like this, so utterly broken. A cold wave of recognition, a sickening twist in my gut, washed over me. This… this was it. The memory. The one that had been buried, locked away for years. "Yes, he is my son, but he is also the son of that bastard! After impregnating me, he left me! He vanished, just like a ghost! You know, Mom, how much I loved him, what I sacrificed to be with him, but he left me! He left me in shambles! So how do you expect me to love a child of the man who left me in ruins?!"
The pieces clicked into place with a sickening, audible thud in my mind. This was the aftermath. The car accident. Saving that boy from his conniving homeroom teacher. I was ten then. Ten, and relentlessly bullied because I looked 'like a girl.' They had forced me into a female student's uniform, a twisted form of public humiliation. Even then, I couldn't hate them. Grandma had taught me to forgive, no matter how terrible the transgression. But being hit by that car right in front of the school, waking up in the hospital, still in that uniform—that was when my mother, my family, had misunderstood me so profoundly. And I never cleared it up. Even unconscious, I'd heard every word of their bitter exchange. Every cutting remark, every heartbroken defense. I'd held onto it all, a silent, festering wound that had never been allowed to heal.
Then, the final, devastating truth. The man my mother lived with, the one I called Father, wasn't my real father. I was the son of someone who had abandoned her, left her shattered. That was why. That was why she couldn't love me. That was why her rejection had been so absolute, so complete. My very existence was a painful, living reminder of her deepest betrayal.
This memory, this agonizing truth, had been erased, swallowed by the amnesia after my high school accident. But now, it was back. Why? Why did it have to return? The pain was a physical weight, crushing the air from my lungs. Wasn't it better to never remember?
"No one will love that child." My mother's voice, flat and devoid of emotion, was the last sound, a chilling, echoing pronouncement of my deepest, most agonizing fear, before I clawed my way back to consciousness.