The last time traveler’s secret

Elliot Graves had spent his entire life slipping through the folds of time. He had witnessed the rise and fall of empires, the birth of revolutions, and the quiet moments that history books never recorded. Yet now, he stood at the edge of existence, the last time traveler, burdened with a secret that could unravel everything.

The world had changed. Time travel had been outlawed, its dangers deemed too great. The Temporal Council had hunted down the remaining travelers, erasing their existence to preserve the stability of the timeline. Elliot had survived longer than any of them, hiding in the past and the future, never staying long enough to leave a trace. But he knew his time was running out.

His last journey had taken him to the year 2147, a world that no longer remembered him, a world that had rewritten history to remove the existence of time travelers. He wandered through the neon-lit streets, his presence like a ghost in a world that had moved on. But there was one person who still knew.

Dr. Celeste Armand had once been his closest ally. A physicist turned rebel, she had fought against the Council’s iron grip on time. Now, she lived under an assumed identity, her past buried like his. When Elliot appeared at her doorstep, she did not look surprised. She simply stepped aside and let him in.

“You’re running out of time,” she said, pouring him a glass of whiskey. “They’re closing in.”

“I know,” Elliot admitted. “But I have one last secret to protect.”

Celeste studied him, her sharp eyes searching for the truth he wasn’t yet willing to reveal. “What is it?”

Elliot hesitated. He had carried this knowledge for years, shielding it from those who would exploit it. The Council believed they had erased all knowledge of time travel, but they were wrong. There was still one last rift—a single point in the fabric of time where everything converged. The Origin.

“The first machine,” Elliot said at last. “It still exists.”

Celeste’s breath caught. “That’s impossible. The Council destroyed it.”

“They thought they did,” Elliot corrected. “But I hid it. In a place they would never look.”

Realization dawned in Celeste’s eyes. “The Beginning.”

He nodded. The first time machine had never been destroyed; it had been sent to the moment before time travel was ever conceived. A paradox, an impossibility—yet it remained, untouched, waiting. If the Council found it, they could rewrite history in their favor. If anyone else found it, time itself could fracture beyond repair.

Celeste set down her glass. “Then we have to destroy it.”

Elliot shook his head. “If we destroy it, we erase everything. Time travel, the Council, even our own pasts. We wouldn’t exist.”

“Then what do we do?”

He met her gaze. “We hide it one last time.”

The plan was simple yet impossible. They would travel to The Beginning, just before the machine’s discovery, and bury it in a pocket of time where no one could reach it. A moment outside of history.

As they prepared, Elliot felt the weight of his years. He had lived a hundred lifetimes, but this was the only one that mattered. If they failed, the Council would reclaim control. If they succeeded, time travel would fade into legend.

Their final jump took them beyond recorded history, to an era before civilization. The air was thick with the scent of untamed earth, the sky a canvas untouched by artificial light. And there, in a cavern hidden beneath time itself, they sealed the machine away.

As they stepped back into the present, Elliot felt a shift in the air, as if the universe exhaled in relief. The Council would never find it. Time would flow as it was meant to.

Celeste turned to him. “What happens now?”

Elliot smiled, the first true smile in years. “Now, we live.”

For the first time, he was not running. He was free.

And the last secret of the time travelers remained buried, forever lost to history.