Chapter 11: The Fight That Shouldn’t Have Happened

The walk back to the park felt different this time. The streets seemed heavier, as if each step Ren took pulled him deeper into a place he wasn’t supposed to be. The sun was beginning to set, casting long, jagged shadows across the cracked pavement. He stuffed his hands into his jacket pockets to stop them from trembling.

Kai walked beside him, silent but purposeful. The usual air of detachment that clung to him was gone, replaced by something Ren hadn’t seen before—tension. As if, for the first time, Kai wasn’t entirely sure what they were about to find.

Ren couldn’t decide if that made him feel better or worse.

When they reached the edge of the park, Ren hesitated, his pulse thudding painfully in his chest. The wind stirred the trees, scattering brittle leaves across the path like pieces of a broken puzzle.

“This is it,” Kai said quietly, his breath visible in the cooling air.

Ren glanced at him. “How do you know?”

Kai tilted his head toward the empty swings that swayed lazily in the breeze. “It’s too quiet.”

Ren frowned. “It’s a park. It’s supposed to be quiet.”

Kai’s eyes narrowed. “Not this quiet.”

The two of them crossed the threshold into the park, the ground crunching softly beneath their shoes. Ren’s heart hammered in his chest as they approached the spot marked by the map from the time machine—the anchor point. The deeper they went, the more the air thickened, heavy with a strange pressure that made it hard to breathe.

“It’s here,” Kai muttered, stopping suddenly.

Ren followed his gaze—and froze.

There, in the center of the park, was something that shouldn’t have existed: a second version of the time capsule.

It sat half-buried beneath a tangle of roots, its surface rusted and cracked as though it had been abandoned for years. The blinking light on its control panel flickered weakly, barely clinging to life. Ren stared at it, his mind reeling.

“How is that possible?” Ren whispered, taking a cautious step forward. “There’s only supposed to be one.”

Kai’s expression darkened. “I told you. The timeline isn’t as stable as we thought.”

Ren shook his head, still struggling to make sense of it. “But... this doesn’t make any sense. I left the time machine in the lab. How did it end up here?”

Kai knelt beside the broken machine, running his fingers along the edge of the cracked control panel. “It didn’t.” He looked up at Ren, his expression grim. “This isn’t your machine.”

Ren’s stomach churned. “What do you mean?”

Kai leaned back on his heels, his voice calm but unsettling. “There are other versions of you, remember? This must have belonged to one of them.”

Ren staggered backward, the weight of Kai’s words pressing down on him. Another version of himself. Another timeline. Another set of mistakes he’d never even known about.

“Great,” Ren muttered bitterly, raking a hand through his hair. “As if one of me wasn’t enough trouble.”

Kai gave him a small, humorless smirk. “Looks like you’ve been busy.”

Ren knelt beside the machine, brushing dirt off the cracked panel. His reflection flickered faintly in the glass, distorted and strange. It was like looking at a version of himself he couldn’t quite recognize.

“So what do we do now?” Ren asked quietly.

Kai’s gaze remained fixed on the broken machine. “We follow the thread.”

Ren blinked. “The thread?”

Kai tapped the faint spiral symbol etched into the corner of the control panel—the same spiral that had flickered on Ren’s watch earlier.

“This,” Kai explained, “is the knot that holds everything together. If we can untangle it, we might be able to stop the timelines from collapsing in on themselves.”

Ren frowned. “And if we can’t?”

Kai shrugged. “Then everything falls apart.”

The words sent a chill down Ren’s spine, but he swallowed the fear rising in his throat. He didn’t have the luxury of doubt—not anymore.

“Alright,” Ren muttered, setting his jaw. “How do we untangle it?”

Kai stood up, brushing dirt off his hands. “We need to power it on first.”

Ren glanced at the shattered display. “It looks pretty dead to me.”

Kai reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small metal device. “Lucky for you,” he said, “I’ve got a backup battery.”

Ren raised an eyebrow. “You carry that around with you?”

Kai gave him a smug grin. “You never know when you’ll need one.”

With practiced precision, Kai connected the device to the time capsule’s power port. The machine groaned to life, its lights flickering weakly as the screen flickered and glowed.

“Alright,” Kai muttered, typing commands into the panel. “Let’s see what secrets you’ve been hiding.”

Ren hovered nervously over Kai’s shoulder, watching as strange symbols and numbers scrolled across the display. It felt like the machine was speaking in a language Ren couldn’t understand—a language that didn’t belong to any one timeline, but all of them at once.

Then, suddenly, the screen froze.

A single message blinked back at them, simple and chilling:

“Tether lost. Searching for host.”

Ren’s blood ran cold. “What does that mean?”

Kai’s expression hardened. “It means the anchor isn’t in the machine.”

Ren stared at him. “Then where—?”

Before he could finish, the answer slammed into him like a freight train.

It’s not the machine. It’s me.

His heart raced as realization settled in. Every time he rewound the timeline, every time he tried to fix something—he had tied himself tighter and tighter into the knot. He wasn’t just a traveler in the loops.

He was the anchor.

Ren stumbled back, panic clawing at his chest. “No, no, no... This can’t be happening.”

Kai gave him a grim look. “It is.”

The machine’s screen flickered again, and another message appeared:

“Host identified. Unstable.”

Ren felt like the ground had been ripped out from under him. If he was the anchor, that meant every glitch, every ripple—it all came back to him.

“So... what do we do?” Ren whispered, his voice trembling.

Kai hesitated for a moment, then spoke quietly.

“We cut the tether.”

Ren’s heart skipped a beat. “What... what happens if we do that?”

Kai looked at him, his expression unreadable. “You disappear.”

The air between them went still, heavy with unspoken weight. Ren stared at Kai, the enormity of the decision sinking in like a stone.

“Is there any other way?” Ren asked, his voice barely audible.

Kai didn’t answer.

Ren closed his eyes, his mind racing. He had spent so much time running, rewinding, trying to fix things that couldn’t be fixed. And now, at the end of everything, the only way to stabilize the timeline was to let go.

“Alright,” Ren whispered, his voice steady. “Let’s do it.”

Kai gave him a long, searching look—then nodded.

“On three.”

Ren took a deep breath, his heart pounding in his chest.

“One.”

The world around him began to shimmer, the edges of reality blurring like watercolor running off a page.

“Two.”

His watch ticked forward—one last defiant beat against the inevitable.

“Three.”

Kai pressed the button.