Night fell slowly over Nexara, but for Alven, that day never truly ended.
Even after the medical staff cleaned the blood from his face and stated that his condition was likely just the result of exhaustion and excessive stress, his body still felt unfamiliar. As if something inside him had shifted from its original place. His head was still heavy, his breathing occasionally short, and every time he closed his eyes, what appeared was not darkness but flashes of events that had and had not yet happened—the exploding plaza, collapsing glass, Lica's paling face, and the ticking of the Chronolocket echoing through it all.
He returned home near evening without saying much. His uncle briefly asked about the situation on campus, but Alven gave a short answer and immediately went up to his room. He was too tired to pretend to be calm, and too restless to rest.
Now he sat on the floor of his room, leaning against the side of the bed, with the main light turned off. The city lights from outside the window reflected faintly on the glass, dividing the room into cold shades of blue. In his palm, the Chronolocket lay still.
The necklace looked like an ordinary object again. The small pocket-watch-shaped pendant showed no light, made no sound, did not move. But Alven already knew it was far from ordinary. It had rewound a day. Or at least, moved him to a point twelve hours before the disaster. And after that, his life no longer followed the same rules.
He opened his hand and stared at the small writing on the back of the pendant.
For Alven. If the time comes, trust no one.
His gaze lingered on those words.
No one.
That meant his mother knew there would be a moment when the Chronolocket activated. It meant she knew the object would one day reach him. And most unsettling of all, it meant she knew there would be people he could not trust.
But who?
His uncle? The campus authorities? The people hiding data about Project Rewind? Or even Lica?
No. The moment that name appeared in his mind, Alven rejected it. He could doubt many things, but not Lica. Even though he had to lie to her earlier, he knew one thing for certain: the panic in her eyes when she saw the blood from his nose was not fake.
Alven exhaled slowly, then reached for the bag he had carelessly thrown near the desk. He took out a portable terminal and placed it on the floor. After hesitating for a few seconds, he took the small data chip his uncle had given him the night before—or rather, a few hours ago, which now felt like a different time.
The chip was dark gray with slightly scratched edges, a sign that it had been stored for a long time. If it truly belonged to his mother, then perhaps this was the only trace she had intentionally left for him.
Alven inserted the chip into the terminal.
The screen lit up, displaying a standard reading system, then stopped at a single encrypted folder. Just like before, an access field appeared in the center of the screen—requesting authentication he did not have.
Alven rubbed his face tiredly. "Come on…"
He was about to give up when the Chronolocket beside the terminal vibrated softly.
One small vibration.
Enough to make his heart pound faster.
He turned toward the pendant just as the small hand beneath the glass moved on its own. A faint golden-blue light appeared from the engraved metal, then spread like a subtle pulse into the surface of the terminal.
The screen flickered.
The authentication field disappeared.
The folder opened.
Alven froze for a few seconds before quickly leaning forward. Inside the folder, there was only one video file. No additional documents. No technical notes. Just a single recording, as if that was the only thing that truly mattered.
The file name was simple, yet it tightened his throat.
For Alven – If I Don't Return
His hand trembled as he pressed play.
The screen went dark for a moment, then revealed the face of a woman he missed too much to look at without pain.
His mother.
Mira Ardian sat in a dimly lit room, wearing a white lab coat wrinkled at the sleeves. Her hair was loosely tied, with a few strands falling along her face. She looked more tired than Alven remembered, but her eyes were still the same—calm, warm, and holding something deep, something that once made a younger Alven feel safe.
It took a few seconds before she began to speak.
"If you're watching this, it means two possibilities have happened," she said softly. "First, the Chronolocket has activated. Second, I failed to return."
Her voice hit Alven's chest harder than anything else.
He swallowed, resisting the urge to touch the screen.
"I'm sorry," his mother continued. "Not for leaving, but for leaving you with too many questions. If things have gone the way I feared, then there is no longer a safe way to explain everything directly."
Mira paused for a moment, as if carefully choosing her next words.
"The Chronolocket is not an ordinary watch. It does not rewind time the way people imagine. It moves the user's consciousness through temporal fractures formed by possibilities that have not fully collapsed. In simple terms, when it activates, you are not reliving the same life. You are shifting into a path that still holds different outcomes."
Alven's breath caught.
So that was why the details at campus had changed. He hadn't simply gone back. He had entered another branch of possibility.
"If you've already used it," his mother continued, "then you must have realized one thing: saving someone does not mean stopping the disaster. Time will always seek balance."
Alven closed his eyes briefly. The blood from his nose, the explosion that still happened, the other students who were nearly hurt—all of it suddenly felt like pieces of an answer he didn't want to accept.
"Listen to me carefully," Mira said, her voice firmer now. "Every use of the Chronolocket will demand a price. At first, it's small—fatigue, dizziness, minor bleeding, disorientation. But the more you use it, the more it takes. Memories. Emotions. Even your ability to distinguish what time is real and what is not."
Alven stared at the screen without blinking.
A chill spread from the back of his neck down his spine.
"If you can, don't use it more than necessary," she continued. "Because it wasn't created to give humans second chances. It was made to delay a far greater collapse."
At this point, the video glitched. The image trembled with static lines. Mira's voice broke for a second, then returned to normal.
"Project Rewind…" she said the name carefully, as if even the walls could hear it. "They will tell you it was made for safety. For disaster prevention. For city stability. Don't believe it completely. There are those who want to control time, not protect it."
Alven's heartbeat quickened.
"If the Chronolocket has reached you, it means they are already closer than I expected." Mira's eyes glistened, but her voice remained steady. "I don't know who you can still trust when that moment comes. Even those who seem to protect you may only want to keep this artifact within their reach."
Alven clenched his fist against the floor.
His uncle crossed his mind, then a name not yet known to him—like an empty space waiting to be filled. The campus, the security system, the locked files, the strange warning from the emergency speakers. Everything made his mother's message both more logical and more terrifying.
"Your father is not a traitor," Mira said suddenly.
Alven looked up sharply, his breath catching.
"If the world has told you he caused the laboratory accident, that is a lie. Satria tried to stop the final experiment. He knew the project had gone too far. He knew what they would unleash if it continued."
Hot tears filled the corners of Alven's eyes. For years, all he had were fragments of news, whispers from adults, and a sense of shame he never fully understood. And now, in a single sentence, his mother shattered the lie that had supported his entire childhood.
The video flickered again.
Mira glanced to the side, as if hearing something off-screen. When she looked back at the camera, her expression had grown more urgent.
"If I don't return, don't look for me recklessly. Listen to that, Alven." Her lips trembled slightly. "There will be times when you desperately want to use the Chronolocket to turn everything back, to save someone, to fix a day that feels unfair. But the more you chase lost days, the further you lose yourself."
The tears he had been holding back finally fell. Alven quickly wiped them away, but the recording continued.
"I know you'll still try," Mira said, with a sad smile that knew him too well. "You've always been like that. When you care about someone, you'll carry the burden alone so they don't get hurt."
Alven lowered his head. Her words felt like her hand reaching through time and touching the wound that had just opened today.
"When that moment comes," Mira continued, almost whispering now, "please remember one thing. Saving someone by losing yourself is not a victory."
A sound came again in the background—a low alarm, a metal door, hurried footsteps.
Mira's face tightened. She seemed to know her time was running out.
"I love you," she said quickly, but clearly. "Whatever others may tell you later, whatever you discover about me, about your father, about Project Rewind—don't let hatred decide your path."
She paused for a second.
Then her final words came out so softly that they hurt the most.
"And if one day you must choose between keeping someone by your side or letting them live without you… will you have the courage to choose what hurts the most, if it's the only way to truly save them?"
The screen went dark.
The room fell silent again.
There was only Alven's uneven breathing, the city lights in the window, and the Chronolocket lying quietly beside the terminal—as if it bore no responsibility for everything it had just revealed.
Alven stared at the black screen for a long time.
His mother hadn't died in a normal accident. His father was not a traitor. The Chronolocket was not a gift, but a burden. And every time he used it, a part of himself could be lost.
Yet among all those warnings, only one sentence kept echoing in his mind.
If one day you must choose…
His thoughts immediately went to Lica.
If that day truly came—if Lica's safety required Alven to step away, to let go, or even to lose her for something greater—would he be able to love her without trying to hold on for even a second longer?