Voyager Of Ages

The sun was beginning to dip beneath the horizon by the time Ethan pulled himself to his feet. He stared at the device in his hand—his prototype—now subtly changed. The symbols that once lined its surface had shifted, revealing new configurations. New instructions? Or new warnings?

Hemiunu looked up at him with wide, fearful eyes. "Are you... are you still you?"

Ethan glanced down at himself. He could still feel the echo of that other version of him—his voice, his despair, the weight of countless failed loops. "I think so," he replied. "But something's different."

Sahure and a group of priests stood at a distance, murmuring among themselves. The storm that had once raged around the pyramid was gone, replaced by an eerie calm. But Ethan sensed it wasn't peace. It was preparation.

"The Gatekeeper said I'm the test," Ethan whispered. "And the only way out... is through."

He turned toward the heart of the pyramid. "There's more. Something deeper. Something it didn't show me."

"You're going back in?" Hemiunu asked.

"I never really left."

Inside the central chamber, the air shimmered. The pyramid no longer obeyed physical laws—it bent around him, shifting like a kaleidoscope of timelines overlapping. Walls faded in and out of view. Shadows didn't follow the light. Time itself thinned.

Ethan clutched the device and stepped forward. Each footfall seemed to take him farther than it should—like walking not across space, but through layers of time.

Eventually, he found himself in a circular room with no visible doors. At the center was a pedestal. On it, a single hourglass.

He reached out.

[ACCESS GRANTED: TEMPORAL SIGNATURE IDENTIFIED]

The hourglass split open, revealing a stairway beneath it. No dust. No erosion. As if it had been waiting specifically for him.

Ethan descended.

The labyrinth below defied logic. Hallways looped back on themselves. Rooms led to versions of places he'd never visited—alternate labs, distorted realities, memories that didn't belong to him. In one corridor, he passed a mirror and saw himself as an old man, weary and wild-eyed. In another, he found a hallway lined with doors—each labeled with a year.

10,000 BCE. 3077.

He opened one.

Instantly, wind rushed past him. He stood on a cliffside, overlooking an ocean made of stars. Above him, two moons hung motionless. This wasn't Earth. Not his Earth.

Behind him, the voice returned. The Gatekeeper.

"This is what was before. Before the fracture. Before time was a river."

"Why are you showing me this?"

"Because to heal the present, you must first remember the past."

Images flooded Ethan's mind: an ancient civilization far older than any recorded by humanity. Beings who moved through time as easily as walking through a door. They found the tear—the first rupture. They tried to contain it. Failed. And created the Loop to keep it from destroying everything.

And then... silence. A break.

He fell forward.

He awoke in a chamber of gears—colossal, grinding mechanisms moving with impossible precision. A clockwork heart.

A figure stood by the core.

It was Lily.

But older. Hardened. Wearing a coat he'd never seen, and eyes full of timelines.

"Lily?"

She turned. "Not the one you know. But I've walked many of the same roads."

He approached. "What is this place?"

"The Timekeeper's Labyrinth," she said. "The last stable space in the Loop. From here, you can rewrite the terms."

"The terms?"

"Of existence. Of memory. Of fate." She stepped closer. "But there's a cost."

Ethan looked at the device in his hand. It pulsed faintly, in sync with the rhythm of the labyrinth.

"What do I have to give up?"

She didn't answer with words.

She simply pointed to a console.

He approached it. A message blinked.

It meant he could keep one moment. One person. One memory. Everything else—erased. Streamlined. A single reset.

He thought of his mother. Of the day he first discovered time wasn't linear. Of Lily. Of Sahure. Of the boy Hemiunu. Of standing under the stars and feeling like time itself had a heart.

And he chose.

He pressed Y.

The labyrinth roared to life.

He awoke in silence.

No labyrinth. No pyramid.

Just a white room, and one clock ticking.

He stood up. The device was gone.

But he wasn't afraid.

He remembered everything.

And for the first time, time did not pull him. He walked with it.