Chapter 3: Anna Heidegger

The whisper had not yet finished when the world around Aris began to move again.

The fire licked at the wood once more. Smoke rose. Screams broke out. Bells rang.

TONG… TONG… TONG…

Savitar was no longer beside him.

Aris staggered, gasping for breath, his chest tight with a single name spinning around in his head: Anna.

The pocket watch suddenly grew hot in his palm. The symbol that had been still now spun. The air folded like wet cloth being wrung out.

And before Aris could say anything

THE WORLD FOLDED INTO ITSELF.

Twenty-Nine Years Earlier

Academia Omnis Veritas, Ariston City

The rain fell neatly that afternoon, neither heavy nor light. The kind of rain that made the schoolyard shiny and the smell of earth rise into the air.

Little Aris Zimmer sat alone under a chestnut tree, holding a book that was too big for his body. The cover featured an astronomical clock with branching hands.

"Time never lies," he muttered, repeating a sentence he had just read. "It's humans who often miscalculate."

"What is that?"

The voice startled Aris. A girl stood in front of him, her brown hair in a messy braid, her black shoes wet from the puddles.

"A book," Aris replied automatically.

"I know it's a book," the girl said flatly. "I mean, what kind of book?"

Aris hesitated. Usually, other children laughed at his interests.

"Physics," he said finally. "About... time."

The girl's eyes widened, not in mockery but in curiosity.

"Can time be studied?" she asked.

Aris nodded slightly. "It can... but it's difficult."

He waited for laughter. What came instead was a smile.

"My name is Anna Heidegger," she said, extending her hand. "I hate history lessons. But I like strange stories."

Aris shook her hand. Her palm was warm.

"Aris Zimmer."

And since that day, they almost always sat next to each other.

Anna wasn't afraid of Aris's strangeness. She actually liked it.

When Aris explained how a sundial worked, Anna listened. When Aris said that time might not move in a straight line, Anna asked, "Then where does it turn?"

They grew up together between the pages of books and the school hallways.

Anna was good at drawing. Aris was good at math. They complemented each other without realizing it.

In sixth grade, when the history teacher talked about plagues and wars, Anna asked quietly, "If people die before their time... where do they go?"

Aris didn't know the answer. But he wrote the question down in his notebook.

The Cracked Years

Everything changed when they were seventeen.

It was a bright day. Too bright for bad news.

Aris was in the school lab when his phone vibrated. A message from Anna, just one line.

Aris, can you go to the hospital?

He ran.

The hospital corridor smelled of antiseptic and cold coffee. Anna sat stiffly on a plastic chair, her face blank.

"An accident," she said without looking up. "Their car... fell off a bridge."

"Brake failure?" asked Aris, trying to be rational.

Anna shook her head. "The police said... there were no skid marks."

Anna's parents died on the spot.

The case was closed quickly. Too quickly.

Aris stood at the funeral, the rain falling again... it always rained in their lives. Wet ground, black umbrellas, prayers that sounded like formalities.

Anna didn't cry. She just stood frozen.

When everyone left, Aris stayed by her side.

"If time could be turned back," Anna finally said, her voice breaking, "I would tell them not to go that day."

Aris stared at the gravestone. The date was neatly engraved.

Something pulsed in his head. A crazy idea. Impossible. But the words came out before he could filter them.

"I'll build a time machine," he said.

Anna turned her head. Her red eyes were empty, then slowly filled with something...dangerous hope.

"Don't joke about this."

"I'm not joking," Aris replied. "Someday. I promise."

The wind blew. Leaves fell.

And behind the pine tree, for a moment, Aris felt like... he was being watched.

The Years That Passed

That promise became his fuel.

Aris studied relentlessly. Physics, mathematics, quantum mechanics. He was accepted into Aeternum Sanctum University. The best university in the city of Ariston, then entered a secret research program.

Anna was always there. Waiting. Supporting. Sometimes questioning.

"Are you sure you're okay? You look pale," Anna asked one night when Aris almost fainted at his desk.

"If I stop," Aris replied, "then they'll really be gone forever."

Anna never asked him to stop. But she began to slowly distance herself, like someone afraid of being dragged too close to the edge.

They remained together. But an invisible distance was built from long working hours and dreams that were too big.

And without Aris realizing it, something began to watch from behind time.

Back to Daconia, Year of God 0110

Aris jolted back to the village square.

The fire had gone out. The old woman was no longer screaming.

Savitar stood beside him again, staring at his pocket watch.

"Promises," the boy said. "Promises are the strongest knot in time."

"You... already knew all this," Aris whispered. "From the beginning."

Savitar shrugged. "I know the versions."

"Anna's parents' accident... it wasn't an accident, right?"

Savitar did not answer immediately.

"In this world," he said softly, "time is fragile because humans fear loss. In your world... time is fragile because humans are always thirsty for knowledge."

"What about KALA?" Aris gritted his teeth. "Is that his doing?"

"KALA is not the reason, Aris," Savitar replied. "He is the consequence."

The ground trembled slightly. The pocket watch in Aris's hand ticked once.

TICK.

Savitar stared at him intently. For the first time, the boy looked... old.

"Anna's parents didn't die by accident," he said. "They were at the wrong junction. At a time when they shouldn't have been."

"Because of me?" Aris's voice was barely audible.

"Not yet," Savitar replied. "But because of what you are going to do."

The sky darkened. The silhouette of KALA appeared in the distance, not approaching, just... watching.

"Your machine," Savitar continued, "is not the first."

Aris turned sharply. "What do you mean?"

Savitar pointed to the pocket watch. Its symbol was now clearly a split circle, with a line returning to the starting point.

"Every age has people like you," he said. "Scientists. Wizards. Priests. They all make their way home."

"And they succeed?" Aris asked.

"No," Savitar smiled faintly. "They fail."

Aris froze. "Fail…? Then where do they go?"

Savitar did not answer immediately.

He closed the pocket watch with two fingers, as if afraid the world would hear his answer first. The village bell had stopped ringing, but the echo of time still vibrated in the thin air, like an over-tightened string.

"They didn't go anywhere," he said finally. "They became the place."

Aris frowned. "That's not an answer."

"It's the only truthful answer."

Savitar stepped into the center of the square. The ground cracked thinly beneath his shoes, forming a circular pattern—not random cracks, but like a diagram. Concentric lines, clock symbols, faintly pulsing foreign letters.

"This is Daconia," he said. "One of the Holding Worlds."

Aris swallowed. "Holding... what?"

"Holding failure."

Savitar crouched down, pressing his palms against the ground. The world responded to his touch.

The air around them swirled again, but this time it did not transport Aris to his personal past. He saw flashes of unfamiliar fragments from another world.

A marble city with a giant clock tower, its hands piercing the clouds.

An old woman with dark brown skin exuded a quiet elegance, surrounded by a circle of salt and candles, screaming at the split sky.

A young priest wrote a formula on parchment, using his own blood as ink.

"They all try the same thing," said Savitar. "To make a way home."

"To the past," muttered Aris.

"To the point before the loss."

The ground shook again. The cracks widened, revealing something beneath, not magma, not rock. But a pulsing void, like a breathing chest.

"Every time someone tries to break through the knot of time," Savitar continued, "and fails to return intact... the remnants of their existence settle."

"Settle where?"

"In a world like this."

Savitar stood up. "Daconia is not a natural world. It was formed from the remnants of failure."

Aris felt nauseous. "You mean... the people who failed became... the foundation of the world?"

"Their consciousness," Savitar corrected. "Memories, regrets, hopes that were never used. All of that was too heavy to simply disappear."

Aris looked at the wooden houses around the square. The narrow streets. The faces of the residents he had seen earlier were so real, so alive.

"They are human," Aris said softly. "They breathe. They fear. They pray."

"Because they are formed from humans," Savitar replied. "From fragments of hope and desire."

The pocket watch in Aris's hand vibrated violently, as if in disagreement.

"Then KALA?" Aris asked. "If these worlds are formed from failure... what is its role?"

Savitar turned toward the giant silhouette on the horizon. KALA's form was never clear, sometimes like a living hourglass, sometimes like the skeleton of a collapsed city, sometimes like the shadow of a human being too large to be called human.

"KALA is the guardian of balance," he said. "Or the executioner, depending on which side you stand on."

"What balance?"

"The number of nodes."

Savitar drew a circle in the air. Inside it, points of light appeared.

"Every time someone creates a path home," he explained, "they create a new node. Too many nodes cause time to become tangled. The worlds begin to collide."

"But that's just a theory..."

"A theory in your world," Savitar interrupted. "Here, it is history."

He pointed into the distance. Aris saw the shadow of another city, half-sunken into the ground of Daconia, its clock tower broken, its hands spinning aimlessly.

"That's what's left of the Kalpa Ada World," said Savitar. "It was destroyed when a queen tried to save her child who had died of the plague. She managed to turn back time... five times. On the sixth attempt, the knot collapsed."

Aris imagined Anna standing among the machines he would one day build. Her face was pale. Her eyes were full of hope.

"Anna's parents," he said softly. "They're at the wrong junction..."

"Because of waves from the future," Savitar nodded. "Your machines haven't been built yet, but your intentions already exist. And time... hears those intentions."

Aris clenched his fists. "So I'm cursed even before I've done anything?"

"You're special," Savitar said. "And that makes you more dangerous."

"Why me?" Aris stared at him sharply. "Why not another scientist? Another wizard?"

Savitar smiled crookedly. "Because you don't want to change history."

Aris fell silent.

"You only want to fix one day," Savitar continued. "One conversation. One decision. Small ambitions are often the most destructive."

The ground shook harder. KALA moved slightly... not closer, but changing position, like a chess piece preparing to make a move.

"If everyone who tried failed," said Aris, his voice hoarse, "then why am I still alive? Why haven't I... become the world?"

Savitar stared at him for a long time. A light rain began to fall again, just like in the courtyard of Academia Omnis Veritas back then.

"Because you're different," he said.

Aris frowned.

"You don't see time as an enemy," Savitar continued.

"Nor as something you must defeat."

Aris shook his head. "That's the same thing."

"No," Savitar closed his pocket watch. "The people before you wanted to defeat time. To conquer it. Force it under their control."

"And me?"

"You see it as something that listens," Savitar said softly. "And time is very sensitive to consciousness."

Aris felt something pressing on his chest, a mixture of fear, hope, and guilt.

"Time depends on who observes it and from where it is observed," Savitar stared at Aris, this time without a smile. "If time ever breaks, it's not because the clock stops ticking, but because no one truly notices it anymore. And that's where the greatest danger begins."

"If I continue," said Aris, "what will happen to Anna?"

Savitar did not answer immediately. He just stared at the dark sky.

"Every knot demands a price," he said finally. "And time always collects on the things you protect most."

The pocket watch ticked again.

TICK.

On its surface, the split circle symbol changed. Now there was a small gap between the lines, and it was not completely closed.

"There is still one path," Savitar said. "But it is not the path home you imagine."

"What is it?"

Savitar stepped back, his body beginning to fade, like a shadow being dragged by dusk.

"Seek the First World," he said. "The place where failure has no name."

"How do I know it's the First World?"

Savitar smiled, this time without warmth.