Echoes of the Past

The world around Clea was crumbling, but it wasn’t just the Glass Tower that was falling apart anymore. Time itself was splintering, unraveling in jagged shards like broken mirrors reflecting impossible versions of reality. Each crack, each shattered piece, was a reminder of the devastation she had wrought.



How can I fix this?



The question echoed in her mind, and for the first time, she wasn’t sure she had an answer. Her body felt heavy, as if every breath pulled her deeper into the sinking darkness. Time was no longer a steady river—it had become a raging storm, and she was caught in the middle of it.



Clea stumbled through the broken halls, her fingers brushing the jagged edges of glass, its surface shimmering with strange, fleeting images. She glimpsed flashes of her own past—moments she thought long forgotten: the orphanage where she grew up, the street corners where she’d stolen her first coin, the faces of people she’d once loved and lost. And always, there was the darkness—the creature, watching, waiting, its whispers ever present.



“Stop running, Clea.”



The voice wasn’t the Keeper’s. It was… hers.



She spun, her heart racing as the fractured vision of herself flickered like a flame about to be snuffed out. There, standing at the end of the hallway, was the version of her that had never taken the shard. The one who had never broken the glass. Her own reflection, but untarnished, untwisted.



The other Clea’s eyes were dark, filled with sorrow, and yet there was a strange serenity about her. She stood perfectly still, watching Clea with a mixture of pity and understanding.



“You can’t fix this,” the vision of Clea said softly, her voice almost sad. "You broke it all, and now there’s no way back.”



“No!” Clea shouted, her voice cracking. She reached out toward the reflection, but the vision dissolved into a cloud of dust, leaving nothing but an empty hallway in its wake.



The air around her shimmered, and she felt the weight of the tower’s collapse intensify. A crack of thunder echoed through the chamber, and the walls groaned as if the very structure of reality was bending. Clea could hear whispers again—this time louder, more insistent, as though they were coming from all directions.



"Clea…"



She spun, but there was nothing. The room was empty, save for the echo of her name. She reached out, feeling the pulse of the fractured glass beneath her fingertips. Each touch sent ripples through the fabric of time, and every second felt like it was slipping away faster, further from her grasp.



The ground trembled again, and Clea’s legs buckled beneath her. She fell to her knees, her fingers brushing the jagged edges of broken glass. The fragments cut into her skin, but she barely noticed the pain. She was too focused on the distant sound, the growing whisper that had followed her for so long.



The creature.



Its presence was growing stronger, filling the air with a suffocating sense of inevitability. The whispers were no longer just words—they were visions, memories, possibilities that hadn’t happened yet. It was trying to drag her into its embrace, pulling her back into its dark, consuming void.



She looked down at her hands, the shard still glowing faintly in her palm. It was warm, almost too hot to hold, but it was the only thing that had given her power—control—in this fractured reality. But now, as she gripped it tightly, the creature’s voice echoed louder than ever in her mind.



"You can’t escape, Clea. You can’t fix what’s broken."



Her vision blurred, and she saw flashes of the future—futures that were no longer fixed, no longer certain. A thousand versions of herself, each one stumbling toward a different fate. Some were victorious, some broken, some lost. And in each of them, the creature’s influence was there, pulling at the seams of her soul.



In one, she saw herself standing in front of the broken Glass Tower, the sky above her swirling with storm clouds. In another, she was running—always running—from a shadow that clung to her heels. But in every vision, she was the same: alone. Always alone.



She couldn’t bear it. Not anymore.



“No,” Clea whispered again, shaking her head. “I won’t let this be the end.”



She pushed herself to her feet, determination flaring in her chest. The creature was inside her mind, inside her thoughts, but it did not control her. It could never control her. She had made her choice. She had shattered the tower to stop the creature, to stop the chaos.



And now, she would do whatever it took to finish what she started.



Her mind flashed back to the Keeper’s words, fragments of his voice floating through the fractured air.



"You were always meant to fix this, Clea. Always part of the cycle."



The cycle. She had been running from it her whole life—the thefts, the chaos, the uncertainty. But the truth was clearer now than ever. She had been part of the tower, part of its design. She had been shaped by it, by time itself.



She had always been meant to break the glass.



The world around her was still splintering, but for the first time, Clea didn’t feel like she was losing control. She felt… empowered.



The shard burned hot in her hand, and she closed her eyes, focusing on the fractured reality before her. The creature was still whispering, still trying to drag her into the void, but she could feel its grip weakening. With every breath, the tower’s collapse slowed, its chaos becoming more manageable. She could feel time reforming, the shattered pieces beginning to settle.



She wasn’t running anymore.



Clea turned her gaze to the center of the room, where the last remnants of the creature’s influence swirled like smoke. She gripped the shard tightly, her eyes blazing with determination.



It was time to end it.



The air around her shifted, and Clea thrust the shard into the heart of the chaos.



Everything stopped.