The shard didn't sleep.
Even when Arin did.
The night after the explosion was cold, but inside the tunnel, a faint blue glow illuminated the cracked concrete walls. The Shard of Time pulsed like a second heartbeat under Arin's skin. Wrapped in old blankets, his body rested, but his mind remained a battlefield.
He saw memories that weren't his.
Golden cities floating above the clouds. Mechanical beasts waging war in slow-motion. A man made of gears screaming as he split into dozens of versions of himself.
Arin jolted awake, gasping.
"What the hell..."
The shard in his wrist dimmed, but it was still there. Real. Burning. Dangerous.
Outside, the sound of sirens echoed faintly. It had been nearly twelve hours since the explosion at Sector 17's junkyard. That was when everything changed.
Arin sat up and rubbed his temples. The memory of the Time Shard's whisper still echoed in his head:
"You are not part of the timeline..."
What did that mean? Was he adopted? An experiment? A mistake?
He didn't know. He barely remembered his childhood—just fragments. The old woman who raised him until she disappeared. The days he spent stealing bread. The nights he spent talking to the moon.
But now… everything felt unreal.
He needed answers.
And he wasn't the only one looking.
In a tall black building in Upper Neotera, a red-eyed woman in a silver coat tapped a hologram hovering before her.
SUBJECT 0177 – ANOMALY DETECTED LOCATION: SECTOR 17-B
"He found it," she said softly.
A man in a plague doctor mask leaned forward. "Then Chrona help him. The others are already en route."
Back in the tunnels, Arin emerged into the early morning fog. His hoodie covered the shard, but the occasional flicker still shone through the fabric.
He checked his stolen wristwatch. 6:42 AM. Time for scavengers to start flooding the streets.
He walked slowly through the ruined alleys, heading toward Old Grid Square, the only place where questions got answered—if you had the right currency.
Not money.
Secrets.
Old Grid Square wasn't on any map. It was built beneath the skeletal remains of a forgotten metro station, where graffiti glowed with outdated neon codes and the sound of static radios filled the air.
"Arin?" a voice called.
He turned. A lanky boy with buzzed hair and mismatched shoes appeared from behind a pipe.
"Riven," Arin said, sighing with relief.
"Where've you been? Your hideout was empty. People said the junkyard blew up. You okay?"
"Yeah. Sort of." Arin hesitated. "Can you take me to Len?"
Riven blinked. "Len? The Code Witch? You serious?"
"She knows about old tech. Maybe she knows about this." Arin tapped his wrist.
Riven noticed the glow and stepped back. "What the hell is that?"
"Something bad."
Len was a hacker, a whisper broker, and a partial cyborg. She lived in a room made of screens, each playing a different part of the city in real-time.
She turned her metal eye toward Arin as he entered.
"You bring me trouble, kid."
"Then you'll like this." He held out his wrist.
The Shard reacted to Len. A symbol flashed—a circle within a triangle, then vanished.
Len stood slowly. "That... is not tech from Earth. Where did you get it?"
"I found it," Arin lied.
She narrowed her eyes. "That's not just a shard. It's a God Fragment. You're carrying a dead god's will."
Arin froze. "Dead god?"
Len nodded. "In the old war—the Chronowars—gods used these shards to store their power. After the timelines fractured, the shards scattered. Some merged with time. Others with people. Most were lost. Until now."
"So what happens to me now?" Arin asked.
She turned away. "You die… or you run."
The explosion hit before Arin could speak again.
A hole ripped open in the wall as three figures stormed in—dressed in gray with glassy helmets and rifles crackling with temporal energy.
"SHARD DETECTED," one of them said in a robotic tone.
Len screamed, "Run!"
Arin darted toward the fire escape behind the screens. Riven followed. The glassy soldiers fired—one of the screens exploded, sending shards into Arin's leg.
He winced, clutching the wound, and then it happened:
Time paused.
Everything stopped—bullets mid-air, fire frozen, Riven suspended in a leap.
Only Arin moved.
He stood. Confused. Alone.
And the Shard pulsed.
"You have accessed ChronoState Alpha: Local Freeze."
"Do you wish to continue evolving?"
Arin looked around. The world was his to command.
He nodded.
"Evolution accepted."
The shard grew brighter. The bullets dropped. Time resumed.
And Arin vanished into the alleys, Riven barely behind him.
That night, Len's hideout burned.
Arin and Riven lay low in an old tram car.
"What now?" Riven asked.
"I find out what I really am," Arin said.
"And?"
"And then I find who else has the shards."
Far away, the red-eyed woman received a new update.
SUBJECT 0177 ESCAPED PHASE 2 INITIATED
She smiled.
"The clock is ticking."
End of Chapter 2.
Next: Chapter 3 – The Memory Collector