Time Differentials

The rain was still falling when Owen got home.

Not the violent downpour from earlier, but a steady, persistent weeping—as if the sky had run out of strength but refused to stop crying. The streets below glistened black in the darkness, empty of life save for the occasional headlights smearing yellow across the wet asphalt. His hair was plastered to his forehead, clothes heavy with moisture. By the time he reached the apartment door, his shoulders ached from tension he hadn't realized he was carrying.

The moment he stepped inside, his voice broke the silence.

"Lilith?"

Nothing answered but the hollow echo of his own voice. Of course. She didn't have a key. He hadn't given her one—hadn't even thought to. The realization sat like ice in his stomach.

He dropped his bag by the door, kicked off his shoes with uncharacteristic carelessness, and moved quickly down the hall. Water dripped from his sleeves, marking his path across the floor. Her door—closed, unmoving—seemed suddenly like a barrier between worlds.

He knocked once. Then again, a little harder.

Still nothing.

For the third attempt, he raised his knuckles, hovered there. Hesitated.

Then, from behind the wood, a voice. Small. Fragile. Like something preserved in glass.

"...Leave me alone."

It wasn't sharp. Wasn't angry. Just soft, tired, and sweet in the way broken things were sometimes sweet—a porcelain doll with a crack running through its face.

Owen froze, hand still raised, breath caught in his throat. He didn't realize until that moment how tightly he'd been wound—muscles coiled like springs, bracing for the worst. And somehow, that voice, even in its sadness, offered a strange kind of relief.

She was home.

How? When? He hadn't given her a key. That fact kept circling in his mind, an accusation. He should have. Should've done a lot of things. But somehow, she'd made it back. Back to an apartment that wasn't truly hers. Back to a world that wasn't truly hers. Back to him.

He lowered his hand slowly, forehead coming to rest against the doorframe. The wood felt cool against his skin.

"Okay," he whispered, not sure if she could hear him. Not sure if he wanted her to. "I'm here if you need anything."

No response came. None was expected.

He stepped away, leaving damp footprints on the floor.

Time passed. Three hours, give or take. The rain kept tapping on the windows, a gentle percussion underscoring the apartment's silence.

The wall clock ticked loudly in the kitchen—a steady, mechanical heartbeat measuring out moments that felt strangely disconnected, as if time itself had been disrupted. As if this apartment now existed in yet another dimension, caught between worlds.

By dinner, Owen stood in front of the fridge, door open, cold light spilling across his face. Nothing fresh. No energy to cook. His eyes landed on the plastic container at the back—leftover curry. They'd made it three days ago. Maybe four. She'd insisted on adding more spices than the recipe called for, claiming Earth food was "criminally under-seasoned." He'd complained, then eaten two servings.

He didn't care about the taste now.

He warmed it up. Two plates. Muscle memory. Set them on the table, side by side. Rice on the left, curry on the right—the way she preferred it. A reflex. A pattern.

And then he stopped, hands still on the edge of the table, reality crashing back in.

She wasn't coming out. Of course, she wasn't. She'd locked the world outside with one small sentence. That was all she could give right now. He couldn't expect more.

He picked up her plate and walked quietly to her door. Knocked twice, softer this time.

"I just heated some curry," he said, voice gentle in the quiet apartment. "Should I leave it here? Or... hand it to you?"

No answer. Just silence—but a different quality of silence now. A listening silence.

Then a soft click from the other side. The lock.

Owen frowned, uncertain.

Had it been locked this whole time? Was she unlocking it now? Or locking it again? He stared at the handle, the metal catching dim light from the kitchen. He could try it. Could check.

He didn't.

He just left the plate on the floor, careful not to spill anything, and walked away without another word.

Back in the kitchen, he ate in silence.

The curry tasted like nothing. Just texture. Just warmth. Not even the extra spices registered. His tongue might as well have been made of paper. He chewed mechanically, swallowed without thinking, his eyes drifting repeatedly to the table—where the scroll still lay, untouched since he'd placed it there.

Two weeks.

That was what the King had said.

Two weeks since she left Elarion.

Lilith had told him once, back when she first arrived, that time moved differently between worlds. She had studied it, prepared for it. Said something about dimensional layers overlapping, vibrating at different frequencies. Said Elarion's calendar ran slower—much slower—than Earth's.

He hadn't cared at the time. It was just another bizarre detail in the never-ending parade of weirdness she'd brought into his life.

Now he cared.

Two weeks there. Six months here. That was the ratio.

He set his fork down slowly as the calculations formed in his mind. If her father sent that message two weeks after she left... and she spent six months wandering invisible in this world before Owen saw her... and then another two months since then...

The moment she appeared in this world, unseen and unheard, her world was already beginning to crumble.

The moment she found him—two months ago—it was already too late.

That thought alone twisted something deep in his stomach. Like hands wringing out a wet cloth, squeezing until it hurt.

He didn't feel guilt for a choice he hadn't made. Even now, he didn't know if going to Elarion would have changed anything. The King's message had made it clear: they'd sent her away not to find a hero, but to save herself.

But still—those two months.

She'd laughed with him. Teased him. Burned eggs and accidentally broken mugs and scared him half to death when she appeared suddenly behind him in the mornings. She'd tried to learn his world, adapt to it, even as she clung to the belief that she could save hers.

And none of it had mattered.

No—that's not true. It mattered to her. It mattered to him.

But not to fate.

For fate, those two months were just a cruel delay before delivering the blow.

He hated that thought. Hated that it had crossed his mind at all. Hated the part of himself that calculated time differentials while she sat alone behind a locked door.

He hated that he cared…

He pushed his plate away, food half-eaten. The apartment felt too quiet suddenly—not peaceful, but hollow. Like a room where important words had been spoken, and now the air still vibrated with their absence.

The tap in the kitchen dripped once, twice. The clock ticked. Outside, a car drove by, tires hissing on wet pavement.

He finished his dinner without tasting it. Scraped the plate into the trash, rinsed it in the sink, and stared at the water circling down the drain like it held answers to questions he hadn't figured out how to ask yet.

Then, he reached for his phone.

A few taps. The call connected.

"Yo," came the familiar voice of their part-time job boss, Ren. Ambient noise in the background— Café Lumière was busy tonight.

"Hey," Owen said, voice lower than usual. "It's me."

"I know. What happened? You're not on tonight."

"It's about Lilith. She... she won't be coming in. For a few days. I don't know how long." His thumb traced nervous circles on the kitchen counter. "She's not okay. I'll take her shifts."

A pause.

"You?"

"Yeah. I can do it. I'm fine."

"That's debatable." Ren's voice carried a dry tone, but something softer lurked beneath it. "Since when do you volunteer for extra work?"

"I just don't want you to fire her. It's... for..." Owen searched for the right words, landing awkwardly on, "...humanitarian reasons."

A beat of silence.

"When did you start caring about humanity?" Ren asked, not unkindly.

Owen didn't answer right away. The light above the sink flickered once, casting brief shadows across his face.

Ren chuckled, the sound warm through the phone speaker. "Right. Not humanity. Lilith."

Another pause stretched between them. Then, a resigned sigh.

"Fine. Long as you can manage both schedules, I won't say a word. But don't come whining to me if you pass out on day three. You two have the same sections anyway."

"Got it. Thanks."

Owen hung up, letting his hand fall to his side.

The apartment felt bigger now. Emptier. The space between rooms seemed to have expanded, as if the walls themselves were pulling away from each other. Not in a good way—not the comforting solitude he'd once prized, but something heavier. Like air before a storm.

It was the kind of quiet that wrapped around your chest and squeezed. Not peaceful. Not even lonely. Just... still. Waiting. The suspended moment between lightning and thunder.

He passed by her door again. Her plate was still there. The curry had gone cold, a skin forming on its surface. The rice had hardened at the edges.

He didn't knock again.

The scroll still rested on the table. Unmoving. Silent. Its presence seemed to warp the space around it, drawing light and sound into itself like a black hole.

Owen paused, one hand reaching out toward it, then withdrawing.

Earlier that morning—was it really only this morning? —Lilith had laughed.

The memory hit him with startling clarity. She had been standing in the kitchen, morning light catching in her white hair, turning it to spun gold. She'd been talking about his coffee mug—the one with the crack running down its side that he refused to throw away.

"This vessel has served its purpose admirably," she'd declared in that mock-formal tone she sometimes used, holding it up to the light. "But it's clearly ready for honorable retirement. You Earth people and your strange attachments to broken things."

He'd rolled his eyes, said something sarcastic about royal standards.

And she'd laughed—not the polite, controlled sound she sometimes used, but something genuine. Something real that started in her chest and bubbled up through her throat, light and free.

That had been hours ago.

Now, she wouldn't even open the door.

He looked down the hallway, at that closed door. At the untouched plate on the floor.

The world hadn't ended today. Not his world, anyway.

But the weight of a whole destroyed realm—mountains and rivers and cities and people—sat just on the other side of a thin wall. Compressed into the small space of a room. Into the even smaller space of Lilith's heart.

And all he could do was listen to the rain.

Just as he had at the beginning. Just as he had when she first appeared beneath that streetlight, a ghost no one else could see.

He picked up her plate, took it to the kitchen, covered it with plastic wrap, and placed it in the refrigerator. In case she wanted it later. In case there was a later where food mattered again.

Then he returned to his room and closed the door gently behind him.

Tonight, they were both ghosts, each haunting different sides of the same apartment—visible but untouchable, separated by more than just walls.