by Holly Hook
And they're blocking our way forward.
There must be hundreds of them. If not, thousands. Time has pumped out its entire army, not knowing that it's useless against us. It's the most disgusting thing I've seen.
“Quickly,” Isabel says.
Horror explodes through me.
We have to go through them. The other option is to wait for that Nazi to find us and kill us.
Simon grabs my hand and Isabel's. I take Monica's. She grimaces at me. We're going through. We're actually going to have to touch these things if we have any hope of survival.
Footfalls come closer. We're almost out of time.
“Now,” I breathe.
Isabel pushes forward. The first Chronophage indents a little from her body as she pushes between it and the next one. It lists a little to the side, but doesn't react.
We follow. I keep a tight grip on Monica's hand and Simon's. We can't lose anyone. I feel as if I'm about to get swallowed by filthy foam.
“Where are you?” Isabel's father roars. He repeats what I think is the same phrase in German. He's not far.
The two Chronophages rub against my skin and press against me. Against my chest. They squish. They feel disgusting. They have a revolting texture, like filmy soap mixed with mud and silk. I hold down a gag. They smell like a dirty sink full of old, damp food. I keep my hands linked with Simon's and Monica's. Squeeze as hard as I can. All I see is grayish-white, pushing against my face and trying to suffocate me. I have to keep my chin tucked down in order to breathe.
But that's not the worst part.
Black pulses race through my mind. I get the sense that I'm standing on the edge of some void, some deep pit of nothingness that's pulsing around me. There is no hope here. No love. No meaning and no point. Life is all in vain. We should give up. It won't matter what we do, anyway. I want to cry with it. Scream.
No, I tell myself. Keep going. The Chronophages are making us feel this way. There's something terrible inside of them, just on the other side of those rank membranes.
Monica whimpers. I pull her past the walls of gel. It presses against us and I struggle to suck air into my lungs. None of the stuff is sticking to us, thank God. Isabel says something else and Simon tugs at me. “Don't stop,” he says. He's muffled. “This feeling should end once we're out of here.” I don't miss the strain in his voice. He's struggling against it, too.
The four of us move in a line. We're still linked. Somewhere behind us, Isabel's father curses in German. At least, I think it's cursing. I hear more horrible squishing noises. He's actually coming through these things after us.
Isabel stops ahead, then abruptly changes direction. We need to be silent now. Any speech will give us away, any sound.
Deeper. I can't breathe in here. The blackness pulses through me like the void's trying to eat me, trying to snuff me out of existence. The feeling is maddening. What if there is some kind of horrible void out there, one where nothing can exist? Some kind of chaos, like they speak of in the Greek myths? I bite in my screams. There's no chance of us fixing anything. What's the point of loving my family? What if life is just an illusion and this is all there is?
I can't let it make me think like this. I focus on that day Simon and I met, on the sun and the waves on the beach. On the happy sounds of the carnival, so far from here.
“We're almost out,” Simon breathes in my ear.
At last, we pull out of the masses of spheres and gel and goo and emerge back into the Main Chamber of the Hub. There's air. I breathe precious oxygen, convinced I'm going to add claustrophobia to my list of fears. We're once again surrounded by the red fog, by the inflammation. Isabel waves us forward. “This corridor,” she whispers so low I can barely hear her.
Someone grunts behind us. It's muffled. Distressed. Isabel's father is still trapped in the mass of Chronophages. I hope he stays lost in there for a long time.
I run into the red. At least I feel like I'm not going to snap out of existence anymore. The black pulses vanish like a horrible dream. Was that what the Timeless versions of ourselves felt right before those things ate us? I fear yes.
We enter another corridor, keeping our footsteps as quiet as we can. Another grunt sounds from far behind us. Isabel's father isn't making much progress getting through those things. I hope they keep him stalled for a while. It'll give us time to find the Civil War and go through. By then, he might be lost. I hope he suffocates in there, even though that nothing feeling is something I shouldn't wish on anyone.
“You know what?” Simon asks. “We forgot to mark the Trenton corridor with a shoe.”
My heart leaps. “Isabel, I hope you can remember where that is.”
“I should.”
“So you're saying we're lost?” Monica asks. She's hugging herself again. “I never want to feel like that again.”
“That makes two of us,” I tell her. “I don't think we're lost. Isabel can still remember this place quite well.”
A new set of footfalls come towards us. These slap against the crystal ahead, coming from the direction we're heading. It's not Isabel's father. It has to be someone else.
A man screams. He's running from something.
And then there's a squishing noise.
A figure appears in the mist, bolting towards us. He shouts at us in a language that I can't even guess. As he draws closer, I see who he is: a man in furs who must have come from the Stone Age. I've seen him in the Hub before, leading another man back to his time. He's one of the Timeless--and the only one I've seen since we got here. Something's wrong. When Time was sick before, all the Timeless gathered in Main Chamber, waiting for something to happen. The rifts closed off to all of them. Only mortals could get in and out unharmed. But now there's no one here except for this man. And most of the Chronophages are in the Main Chamber, gathered like they've just finished some feast. A horrible picture is adding up, one that makes me want to scream.
The caveman grabs my arms and pleads with me. There's no way I can make out his words, but the meaning is unmistakable: Don't let them eat me. I'm the only one left. He's trembling. Terrified.
Behind him, a huge shape lumbers out of the fog, taking up the entire corridor.
I don't know what to say to him. If I try to shove him into a rift, it won't let him through. If I pull him into the Main Chamber, there are thousands of other Chronophages waiting for him. It makes Isabel whimper. Behind us, her father shouts something else in German. It's my hope that he doesn't know which hallway we've gone down. If he figures it out, we're dead.
But no shot ever comes. We all remain silent and I stare into the caveman's eyes. A streak of gold races through the brown as if terrified and fleeing. Behind him, the huge shape slides closer. Its jagged mouth looks even more sinister now.
What can we do?
I don't want to see the Timeless get eaten, even if they've done nothing but try to stop me. Not all of them are Frank. Not all of them are crazy and evil. Why can't he be here, getting munched instead?
The Chronophage slides closer, enough so that I can make out the line that's supposed to be its mouth. The man buries his head in my chest. I know what it is. He needs comfort. His last comfort.
I tremble and hug him back. Simon backs away, pulling Monica away from us. This man has nowhere to run.
The man lets go as if he can't bear to face me anymore.
Faces the Chronophage.
“No!” I yell, lunging for him, but it's too late.
The thing's mouth opens and I meet the worst sight I can imagine.
It's nothing inside.
Nothing at all. The mouth is an opening into that void I sensed earlier, one where nothing can exist. It's the enemy of everything that is or ever was.
It sucks, pulling in all the air in the corridor. I back away, but the man kneels before it, hands over his face. He can't bear to look. Is he the only Timeless left? Maybe his friends and loved ones are all gone, the same way Frank's were when they messed with
history.
A high whine fills the air. The mist all soars towards the open maw, vanishing inside.
And with it goes the caveman.
He disintegrates, breaking into mere dust before soaring into the void and snapping out of existence. He leaves only darkness and chaos in his place. Another soul is gone. Monica screams. Isabel turns away and puts her face in her hands.
The Chronophage closes its mouth as if the man was just a hiccup, squishes again, and slides forward towards the Main Chamber.
Simon pulls me into one of the archways. “We have to let it pass,” he says next to me. He's shaking. “Try not to go through the rift.”
I catch my breath. My heart's pounding. The rift makes my skin tingle. We balance between it and the Chronophage. The air seems less alive here, less vibrant now with another soul gone. What did the caveman have to do with Time being sick? Is Time so ill that its immune system is going crazy and targeting all the Timeless?
Isabel and Monica flatten themselves on either side of the corridor as the Chronophage, mouth closed and finished with its meal, slides forward.
I close my eyes and scream. I'll never get that image out of my head. The caveman, losing his very existence for a crime that's not even his. Maybe he even tried to put Time back together and fix our mistake. Maybe he even begged the others to help find me. But Time, like Frank, seems to have gone completely insane. It doesn't even know what it's doing anymore.
The Chronophage pushes past me, either unable to react to me or unable to care. It brushes across my clothes and my skin, leaving a filmy feeling behind. It's the film of guilt, the worst guilt I can imagine. I'm responsible for the loss of that poor man and for the loss of his Timeless friends. Are these things devouring all the Timeless they can find? Maybe Time is destroying all of them to make room for new ones.
“What have I done?” I manage once the Chronophage passes. It doesn't matter if I make noise now. Isabel's father won't come through that Chronophage—will he? And if he does, maybe I deserve to be shot. “What I have done?” I fall to my knees.
Simon hugs me from the side. “It's okay,” he manages.
“No, it's not.” I stand and face him. “That guy just got eaten because of us.”
“Look, I don't know what's going on here. Maybe Time cleans itself out every once in a while,” he says. “It was horrible. It--”
“Time is used to dealing with Timeless who try to screw with history,” I tell him. “It's not used to mortals cheating the system with memory devices and messing up the course of events. We need to set things back to the way they were. All of us. What else do we do? We save ourselves and someone else has to suffer and die.”
“I don't know if that was death,” Monica says. She has her hand over her mouth like she's going to throw up. “That looked a lot worse than death.”
“Maybe we should just go back and let the Titanic sink.” I can't believe I'm saying these words. “Maybe we really aren't supposed to be here after all. Maybe this is the real reason Frank was freaking out so much.”
“I don't think Frank knew the Chronophages would be attacking all the other Timeless,” Isabel says. “That wasn't in his recent memory. It might have been in his older memories, which I didn't get.”
“Might have,” I say. “What do we do?”
“Well, we might have to figure out some way to save only us. And your family,” Simon says. “When I saved you, Time didn't get sick. I think it was too small of an event to bother it."
“Ahem,” Isabel says.
“When I had Isabel save you the first time, Time never got sick. It didn't even notice anything was wrong for a full year. Small changes don't affect Time so much. Maybe we can go back to the ship and work it out so that you and your family can get on a lifeboat and escape. Me, too. We'll have to let it hit the iceberg the way it should.”
“I'm not going without you. They might not let you on a boat.”
He manages a smile. “There was one side of the ship where they even let men on the boats, wasn't there?”
I search my memory for the studying I did at Nancy's. “There was. One of the officers would let anyone on board the lifeboats. The other side had a guy who refused to let any men on.”
“Exactly,” Simon says. “We can always do that. It'll kill me to let the entire ship sink, but we might not have a choice in this matter. If we want to save Nancy, that is. Our survival isn't going to make such a huge difference in history. Then, if we do that, Time won't get sick and that poor guy won't get eaten or whatever that was. Man, that was the worst thing I've ever seen. I don't even want to see that happen to Isabel's dad.”
“Neither do I,” she says.
I'm beginning to sense some hope. "We can go with your idea,” I say. “And we'll still be alive to save Isabel when she's about to get on her ship. Maybe we can all win.”
“Exactly. Think of this as a big mistake that we're going to erase,” Simon says. “But we still need to take care of Frank. He's still going to try to kill us on the Titanic as soon as he gets out of the ocean. He wants us dead whether or not we allow the ship to sink. He's so crazy and scared of the Chronophages. Let's make sure he can't come back and bother us ever again. And let's make sure his brother never has to snap out of existence.”
“But what will one more change do?” I ask, looking around at the red corridor and the bloody mist. “Time is not getting any better. It can't rid itself of what's bothering it this time.”
Simon glares at the corridors. “I'm glad Time's in pain. Maybe it deserves to feel it a little longer,” he says. “Remember what it did to us? Remember how it tore us apart?” His face draws close to mine. “It should feel this for a while. Besides, when we go back to 1912 and do things right, it'll go back to normal. Like I said, small changes aren't going to bother it that much."
“But what about saving Frank?” I ask. I'm scared. Scared to proceed and scared to try anything more. I know the Chronophages won't try to eat mortals...for now. What if Time becomes so sick that that changes and they come after us? There won't be any point to our mission anymore...and no point at all because we'll cease to exist.
“Saving Frank is a small change,” Simon says. He kisses me, lips brushing mine. They're warm in the cold air. I take in his kiss and press my body against his. His heart's pounding. He's sharing my terror, but being a guy, he's trying to hide it. It's just like the Simon I've always known.
“Okay, “I say. “We go the Civil War. We save Frank, get our butts back to our own times, and make sure only you and my family survive the sinking. Wow, I hate leaving all those other people behind. There's fifteen hundred of them. All those other little kids and families and--”
“We're doing our best,” he says, lifting one finger to my lips. “Our best. That's all we can do. Killing others isn't worth it. But if we do it this way, things should turn out okay for everyone.”
“Okay.”
Isabel peels herself from the wall. “The Chronophage is almost out of the corridor,” she says, peering through the mist. “If we wait until it leaves that opening free, my father might come through looking for us. We need to get to the rift and make ourselves scarce before that happens. He could be standing out there, waiting.”
We all get away from the walls and the tingling on my skin stops. Whether it's the tingling from the nearby rift or from Simon's kiss, I'm not sure.
The four of us break into a jog again.
“How much father?” I ask. One more thing, I think to myself. One more thing, and then we can set everything back to the way it should be.
“About another mile down this way,” Isabel says. "Then we're to Frank's time." She breaks into a full run. Is the end of our corridor free yet? Her father must have heard that guy screaming at us even if he was still trapped in the mass of Chronophages.
We break into a run again. My sides scream out and I'm not sure how much longer we can do this. I wish Time had installed some kind of moving walkway or somethi
ng that would have been in Arnelia's time. Teleporters, even. The distances here are too great.
“Isabel!”
Yes. He's coming this way. He's distant, but that'll change.
The thing has moved out of the way, not caring that he's going to try killing us. I wonder if the Chronophage somehow told him that we're this way.
“Faster,” Monica huffs. “We should duck into one of these rifts again.”
“No,” Simon says. “He'll just wait for us to come back out. As long as he can't see us, we're good.” Simon coughs. We're all running out of breath.
He might be there when we exit the Civil War, I think. We'll have to deal with the issue then, but I don't bring that up. My skirt slaps against my legs as we run. How much longer? I gasp for breath. I hope that he's at least getting as tired as we are. And what if we run into another Chronophage? Is there more than one per corridor? It would block our way forward and we'd have no choice but to go through some other rift. Or wait for Isabel's father to get closer.
At last, Isabel slows. "This one.” She's hoarse. Exhausted.
It's another archway that looks exactly like the others. The sound of footfalls reach my ears, growing louder and louder. I look at Simon. We're going through no matter what's on the other side, and we had better do it now.
“You ready, Monica?” I ask.
She nods. I can tell that means no.
I make sure I'm still wearing the hair clip. It's still there. I rub my hand over the body and my scalp tingles as it sucks in my new memories. I clutch Simon's hand in mine and Monica's in the other. Isabel takes Monica's free hand and makes the jump. She wavers and vanishes as if the red crystal has swallowed her whole.
Then Monica goes.
Then me and Simon.
We fall through the universe. It screams all around us as if in pain.
Chapter Thirteen
The moon peeks through trees.
I blink. The ground's solid under my feet.
We're in a forest. At night.
I shake my head. Where are we? I squint and let my eyes adjust in the moonlight. I stand with my hands linked with a girl and a guy who stares at me, probably wondering the same thing. I let go of his hand, blushing.
