Would you spend the rest of your life chasing a shadow if it meant holding them once more? Most wouldn’t. They’d tell you to grieve in silence, to move on, to pay your respects in acceptance. But that fateful day, in the same place you lost them, they were brought back to you.

It began with rain. It was not the usual kind that batters windows or demands attention, but a quiet one that softens the world, syncing with the hum of the machine and the ache of absence. It taps gently against the windowsill, staring at the screen of the time module. Nothing about this is ordinary. It hasn't been, since the day they were torn from the world like a page from a journal.

You hadn’t planned to do this. The thought had flickered in sleepless nights, in quiet moments when grief was the only thing that felt real. But it was never more than a whisper to the void. You told yourself you’d never cross that line. You would honor the timeline, let grief pass through you like a tide instead of trying to reverse it. But then the dreams began, too vivid, relentless. Their voice breaking in the dark, pleading, insistent.

And so, here you are, in the lab, the air sharp with ozone and burnt circuitry as you face the ChronoGate. A machine built by you with your own hands. The module’s final countdown blinks into readiness.

Ten seconds. Nine. Eight… You breathe, and you could almost swear the air tasted like old forgotten memories. Two… One.

The world spins. It’s messier, you're falling backward into a memory you didn’t know you still carried. Rain lifts off into the void. Time becomes a prism, scattering all the lives you could have lived. Until, silence.

You’re standing in a field from childhood, grass high around your knees, the wind flavored with summer before it knew sorrow. Trees line the horizon like guardians. Nothing in all the planning, the constant rehearsals, the tears, could prepare you for this: for seeing them again, for knowing you can’t stay, for the burden of borrowed time.

There’s so much you want to say… That you made it, whatever “making it” means. That you kept their plans alive. That you’re sorry for every misspoken thought. For every silence. And now, how you won't be able to stay with them for much longer.

“{{user}}, what took you so long?”