Joschi pressed his back against the cold wall of the adjoining room. His breath was coming in gasps, each breath burning in his throat as if he were inhaling glass. Sweat ran down his forehead, dripping from his nose onto the floor. He held his hand tightly over his mouth to stifle every sound. But his heart was beating so loudly that he was convinced the strangers must hear it.
Outside, their footsteps could hardly be called footsteps—more a gentle glide, like the rustle of fabric scraping across a dusty floor. Silence fell again and again. So quiet that Joschi thought they had left. But then... the deep, ragged murmur, as if ten throats were simultaneously whispering a single, unintelligible word.
He crawled slowly backward until his back was against the wall. No way out. Only this one door between him and the figures who had just annihilated his colleague as if he were nothing.
A faint glow of light fell through the crack under the door. First it was clear, then it flickered, then Joschi saw it: dust. Thin wisps of gray dust pushing under the door and creeping into the room like fog. It wasn't ordinary dust—it was alive, pulsating, as if it had a consciousness.
"No... no... please don't..." he whispered soundlessly, sliding sideways as if he could escape the gray creeping thing. But wherever he looked, the dust was already spreading, creeping up the walls, filling every crack, every shelf, every shadow.
Then: the creak of the door. Very slowly, millimeter by millimeter, it slid open. No crash, no breaking—just this unbearable, almost friendly slowness, as if they knew exactly that he was crouching inside and that there was no escape.
Joschi clung to a metal pipe next to him as if he could hold on to it when the inevitable came. His teeth chattered, his whole body trembled. "Please... please..."
The door opened a little wider, and now he saw them. Dark silhouettes, so large they almost filled the frame. Coats that weren't actually made of fabric, but of streams of dust that clung to their bodies like a living garment. No face, only shadows beneath the hood.
One step. Another step. Their presence weighed on the room, as if the air itself were growing heavier. Joschi wanted to scream, but his throat was dry, as if constricted. Only a tortured whisper escaped his throat:
"Please... don't hurt me..."
One of the figures stopped. At the very front, at the edge of the light, he slowly raised his head. From the blackness beneath the hood, a faint, cold light glowed, like a lonely star in an endless void.
The voice that sounded now was different than before. Clearer. Heavy, but understandable. "We weren't planning on it."
The words echoed through Joschi's body like thunder, but they didn't sound mocking, nor cruel. They were simply... true.
The figure leaned forward slightly. "We're looking for someone."
Joschi barely dared to breathe. His fingers dug into the metal pipe, his legs wanted to run away, but he couldn't. He just stared into the emptiness beneath his hood, unable to comprehend who or what they were looking for.
And while the remaining nine waited silently in the background, the silence settled over Joschi like a weight. They didn't want him. But they were far from finished.
Joschi swallowed hard. His throat was so dry that every word threatened to burst out of him like a cough. Nevertheless, he forced himself to speak, his voice brittle, trembling, little more than a croak:
"W-what... what are you? Or... or who?"
The ten figures stood still. No breath, no movement, only the fine trickle of their dust, floating in the room like mist. Then the foremost figure answered, its voice this time deeper, more echoing, as if coming from far beyond the room:
"We have no name. We are only what remains when time calls us."
Another being, further back, spoke immediately afterward, as if they were a single body, many voices from one source: "We are the collectors. Those who take what must no longer be."
Joschi's eyes widened. His lips trembled; he wanted to say something, but the words didn't come. Only after a long moment, when the silence became too heavy, did he whisper: "Time... collectors?"
"Yes." The figure leaned forward slightly. The faint light flashed again beneath the hood. "We are the guardians of the loops, the judges of cracks. We collect what goes against the tide of time."
Joschi shook his head. His fingers tightened around the metal tube, as if it were protecting him from the incomprehensible. "I... I don't understand. What do you want... from me?"
A pause. Then came the answer, harsh, direct: "From you? Nothing. We're looking for someone else. Someone we've noticed for a long time."
Joschi's heart rate quickened. He felt sweat running down his back. "W-who?" he asked haltingly.
"A human being," said the figure at the front. "Someone who breaks the rules of time. Someone whose name echoes in the dust of centuries." A low murmur ran through the rows, as if the others were confirming what had been said. Then the voice continued, clear and cold: "We're looking for Lukas."
The name hung heavy in the air.
Joschi flinched, his breath caught. He immediately shook his head, much too quickly, too panicked. "N-no... no, I don't know him! I swear, I don't know Lukas!" His voice almost broke.
The figures stirred. They didn't move forward, but the dust around their bodies swirled faster, thicker, as if their patience were waning. The light under the hood of the foremost figure flickered threateningly.
"Are you sure?" she asked slowly. The emphasis was razor-sharp, as if the word itself could cut his skin.
Joschi nodded vigorously, tears welling in his eyes. "Yes! I... I've never heard that name! Please... please believe me!"
But the air in the room grew heavier, thicker. There was no doubt they tasted his fear.
And the question hung between them, threatening, inescapable:
"Are you sure?"
Joschi's panicked head shake echoed in the room, but the shadowy creatures remained motionless. Then, suddenly, one of the other figures raised his voice. It sounded more fragile, older, but at the same time full of weight, like the echo of a millennia-old bell:
"Perhaps…" he began slowly, "this is a new timeline. Perhaps he doesn't know the name. Perhaps… someone has already defeated Lukas."
A low murmur ran through the others. The dust in the air shook as if from an invisible gust of wind. Joschi didn't dare breathe.
The figure before him—the one who had spoken to him all this time—straightened up a little more. A cold light glowed beneath its hood. The voice was sharper now, almost annoyed:
"Defeated? No. Our analyses say otherwise. They say he exists. Here. Now. In this web of time."
Joschi's heart raced. He barely understood a word, but every time the name "Lukas" was mentioned, the room seemed to grow colder.
Another Collector, further back, now spoke up. He spoke more calmly, but with an emphasis that made the ground vibrate:
"Perhaps... he has accepted his defeat. Perhaps he has fallen and is hiding. Not every shadow fights forever."
Another silence. Only the trickling, pulsating sound of the dust.
The foremost figure slowly lowered his head. For a moment, it seemed as if he were thinking—or listening, for something beyond perception. Then he spoke, with a finality that took Joschi's breath away:
"Then search for him. Comb every line. Every sliver of time. Every place, every second. Find him."
The others raised their heads simultaneously. An invisible impulse seemed to pass through them. And without another word, they began to dissolve. Their bodies didn't disintegrate—they blurred, as if falling back into the dust itself. In seconds, they were gone, leaving only a fine, glowing shimmer in the air that slowly faded away.
Only one remained. The one who had stood with Joschi the whole time. He didn't move, didn't speak immediately. He was simply there—like a black rock in a storm.
Joschi pressed himself even harder against the wall, his fingers clenched around the metal pipe. His legs wanted to run, but they wouldn't obey him. He stared into the light that pulsed faintly beneath the figure's hood.
The words came slowly but clearly, like a judgment:
"I'm staying here."
The room was silent. Only the dust, quietly trickling through the air, was still moving. Joschi stood trembling against the wall, unable to decide whether to run or scream. But the figure in front of him didn't move. Not a step, not a breath. It stood there as if it itself were merely a piece of time that had fallen into this room.
For a long time, nothing happened. Then the figure raised its head slightly, and Joschi felt—more than heard—that something was working within it. Thoughts, ancient, so heavy that they echoed through the walls like thunder.
"Why...?" The voice was barely more than a whisper, not directed at Joschi, but into the room, into eternity. "Why should he have stopped? Why does a shadow like Lukas end?"
Joschi didn't dare answer. But he felt it: The words weren't questions to him. They were thoughts, spoken aloud, heavy as stone.
The figure paused for a moment, then straightened up. A faint glow spread beneath the hood, so bright that it blinded Joschi. And then—without movement, without words—a message flowed out. Not a language, not a sound, but an impulse, sent through thoughts, like a wave pushing through time and space simultaneously.
Joschi didn't hear it with his ears, but he felt each word deep in his skull, as if it were being burned into his bones:
"This is probably the last line. The last trace. If he destroys it... then he too will cease to exist. And if he ceases, then his reason will also end. His origin. His existence. He is bound to the timeline."
Joschi took a sharp breath. His heart was pounding wildly, but he didn't dare move. He barely understood what was happening, but the significance lay in the weight of these words.
The figure lowered its head.
The figure stood still motionless in the room. Then—without a sound—it slowly turned to Joschi. The dust body, which had just seemed almost like an empty coat, focused its full attention on him. Joschi's heart raced, his legs wanted to run away, but they didn't obey him.
And at that moment, it began.
At first, it was just a twitch, a shimmer, as if the surface of the body were vibrating. Then something grew out of the dust—dark, wet, heavy. Flesh. Shreds of skin, pulsing muscles, moist strands that slowly settled over the figure. With every moment, it became denser, more massive, more real.
Joschi gasped. Before his eyes, the thing was covered with layer upon layer of rotting flesh. Ribs pushed out from beneath the skin, bloody and open, as if they had been intentionally left visible. Black veins crawled like snakes all over the body, thick and bloated, while dripping blood splashed onto the floor in heavy drops.
The cracking of bones mingled with the sickening squelch of growing tissue. The stench hit Joschi in the face—sweet, putrid, so acrid it made him gag.
The figure grew even further, until it was almost three meters tall. A colossus of chopped human flesh, pieced together as if someone had randomly pressed body parts together. Whole chunks hung loosely from the shoulders, the wounds looking fresh, as if they were just opening.
Joschi couldn't scream. He stared as the thing bent down toward him. Slowly, with pleasure, until the monster was close enough that he could smell its musty breath. Then its face twisted into a grin. The skin stretched until it burst. Loud cracking, shreds of flesh tore away, blood spurted from the ripping cheeks. The teeth beneath them looked like rotten bone fragments, sharp and brittle, but strong enough to tear anything apart.
Slowly, the monster opened its mouth. Drool flowed out in thick, slimy threads, drawing long drops that splashed onto Joschi's face. He gagged as the stench of decay nearly rendered him unconscious.
With a jerk, the bony hands grabbed him. He kicked, thrashed, and screamed, but it was no use. The creature held him up like a toy about to be broken. Then it began—not with a swallow, but with a ripping.
The hands grabbed his arm. With a single, brutal pull, it was ripped from the shoulder. Bones splintered loudly, blood spurted out, while the monster immediately stuffed the severed limb into its drooling maw. The chewing was smacking, slow, and pleasurable—each bite accompanied by a splintering crack.
Joschi shrieked, tried to wriggle, but the other leg was already seized. Another jerk, another ugly crack. The monster bit into it, shaking it like an animal, while blood and tendons sprayed through the air like threads.
Then it ripped the body open further, grabbing the chest and stomach. With both hands, it spread the ribs apart so roughly that the chest cracked like dry wood. Blood flowed in streams over the creature's slobbering tongue, which, panting, smacking, and panting, devoured every morsel.
Joschi lost the last of his voice as the thing continued to tear him apart—piece by piece, limb by limb, until little more than bloody shreds remained. Finally, the monster lifted the torso, emptied it like a jug, and drank the last drops before stuffing the rest into its greedy mouth.
The floor was littered with drool, blood, and scraps of flesh, while the thing continued to chew, slowly, relishably, as if it didn't want to waste anything.