Chapter 177
Time path
Reuel leaned closer, his voice dropping to a loud, exaggerated whisper. "Why are you being so mysterious, huh? Could it be… you're finally going to reveal your biggest secret?" His eyes widened with mock drama. "Wait—don't tell me—you're a spy, aren't you?!"
IAM stared at him blankly. "Dude… are you okay?"
Reuel blinked, then looked down at the desk as if just realizing he was half-standing. He tugged at the blue fringe of his hair in embarrassment. "Ahem. You're right. I need to calm down."
He cleared his throat and sat properly, his face suddenly very interested in the design of the desk. Yohan chuckled under his breath.
Henry, however, didn't laugh. He kept his gaze on IAM, eyes slightly narrowed as if trying to piece together something that had been bothering him. "Does it have to do with you not using your Avien?" he asked quietly.
IAM didn't respond.
Henry waited. Then, with a short exhale through his nose, he gave up and turned his attention back to the front of the room.
Vanessa stood by the podium, unmoved by the classroom's minor distractions. She adjusted the angle of her spectacles, then looked out over to the students.
"Well," she said crisply, "now that I've been graciously interrupted, let's go back just a little, shall we? I want to make sure no one's been left behind."
She turned to pace slowly in front of the class, the soft click of her heels echoing through the room.
"We're still discussing dead paths," she reminded, her voice was cool and precise, slicing through the whispers like a scalpel. "We've already touched on the Death Path, but before we move on, I want to clarify something."
She scanned the room, her gaze passing over each student like a slow wave.
""There have always been those ambitious enough to try and pioneer a brand-new path," she said, folding her hands behind her back. "And while it might be too late for most of you to switch to a path you created from scratch—since you've already committed to an existing one—you're not completely shut out. You could still pioneer a new path and pass it down to others."
She paused deliberately, letting the words sink in.
"But," she added, raising a single finger, " You would not have the advantage of always having the most understanding of your path, as you are all already following another path. "
She turned slightly, pushing her glasses up again.
"Now," she said, "as I was saying… We've explored the Death Path. Let's move on to another dead path—the Time Path."
A faint ripple of interest moved through the room.
Vanessa allowed herself the ghost of a smile.
"I imagine many of you have, at one point or another, daydreamed about what it would be like to manipulate time," she said, her voice dipping. "To freeze it. To rewind it. To fast forward. The potential applications are endless—and terrifying."
Her tone sharpened slightly.
"Many have argued that, in terms of raw potential, the Time Path may surpass even the Death Path," she said. "And keep in mind—that's the Death Path we're talking about. A path that is considered the most dangerous path we could have potentially walked."
She looked over her glasses now, her expression unreadable.
"But of course, reality is often cruel and unforgiving," Vanessa continued. "The Time Path is considered a dead path for a reason—much like the Death Path. At most, we can feel time passing... but what do we actually understand about time itself? Not the definitions we've assigned to it, not the way we measure it—but what time truly is."
She let that question hang for a bit before going on.
"For example, let's take space. Did you know that when we look out into the night sky, we're actually seeing the past? Every star, every galaxy, everything we perceive—those images have already happened. The light from those distant objects takes years, sometimes millions of years, to reach us. Even though we see them now, that 'now' is actually long gone."
The room had fallen silent.
"And yet," she said, her tone was slightly thoughtful, "does that count as understanding time? What we're witnessing is simply the delay of light—nothing more. It's not time itself. It's just a consequence of distance, and the speed of light, which—yes—is the fastest thing we know to exist."
She pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose.
"There are countless theories and models. Paradoxes. Interpretations. Some say time is just a dimension. Others say it's an illusion. But no one truly knows. And that's the problem."
She looked over the room, her was voice steady.
"Every path—no matter how abstract—must be built on your personal understanding. But it still needs to brush against truth. And the thing about time is… we simply don't know enough."
A quiet pause settled in. Many students had pensive, faraway looks on their faces.
The concept of time had done what Vanessa intended—it had made them think.
"In the same breath," Vanessa continued, "this is exactly why there are no paths that allow you to see the future. It's not just dangerous—it's fundamentally impossible. The paradox of infinite possibilities makes it ungraspable. To understand something that hasn't happened yet, something that could change at any moment… it breaks the very logic on which Paths are built."
She let that settle, then added with a faint smile, "Of course, as humans, we sometimes experience strange moments—déjà vu, a gut feeling, or even a dream that seems to be similar to something that happens in the future. But those things are random, unexplainable, and far too inconsistent to be relied upon. They fall outside the bounds of any real understanding."
She leaned slightly against her podium, her tone becoming more reflective.
"We can only theorize about what might be possible—what the potential of time could be. But for now, and likely for a very long time… it remains completely out of reach."
Many students nodded slowly in agreement, the significance of her words settling over them.
Vanessa folded her arms, eyes scanning the quiet room.
"There's a quote I heard a long time ago," she said softly. "'The past is certain, the future is not, and the present is now.' It is a simple, but powerful quote. There is no such thing as certainty in the future—only in what has already passed. And the only window we have to shape what comes next… is this exact moment... The future is open, and the present is our only window."
She allowed a pause, then smiled genuinely.
"I hope all of you take that quote to heart—and live by it."
IAM thought it was definitely an interesting idea—the concept of time, in all its complexity. The more he tried to grasp it, the more slippery it seemed. Was the version of time humans used—seconds, minutes, hours—actually real time? Or just a convenient illusion we all agreed to follow?
Right now, light-years away, someone or something could be looking toward Earth and seeing a version of the past. Maybe they'd watch events that had already happened here, just because light took so long to travel. But from their perspective, it would be happening now. And if they tried to reference us in their present… wouldn't that make us their future?
So then—was this our future? Or their past? Or were both sides just existing in completely different frames of the same reality?
Could it be that depending on where you are in the universe, you really could be living in the past, present, and future—all at the same time?
The more IAM thought about it, the more his brain started to ache. He scratched the side of his head and let out a slow sigh.
Time is one of the strangest concepts in both science and psychology.
In physics, time isn't a constant—it's relative. It bends near gravity, it stretches with speed, and it flows differently depending on where you are and how you're moving. What we call "now" is just a slice of spacetime, unique to our position in the universe.
In psychology, time is even messier. An hour can feel like a second, or a second like an hour, depending on what we're feeling. Memories can stretch it. Our emotions twist it. In our dreams, it can feel like hours have passed, even though in reality it was only seconds.
So what is time, really?
No one truly knows. Maybe it isn't one thing. Maybe it's many things. Maybe it's just the space between change.
Time is weird, man.