book one: time
❝ fifteen seconds ❞

Second Day, Fifth Phase
sixteen:thirty

Edison slumps forwards in his old wicker chair, the woven strips of beaten wood groaning beneath his weight. His chest rises and falls fast, heaving stale, recycled air into barren lungs, mouthfuls thickened with warmth.

He hates this.

Edison’s grown to tolerate the heat, poorly furnished environment and uncomfortable chairs, but he loathes waiting, despises it, each excruciating second seeming to stretch on for hours. Wasted time rings true the longer he sits, and waits, able to count seconds and feel hours shift and blend together. He almost finds it amusingly ironic that Zitao, the time weaver should have such little patience.

Almost.

Sweat collects on Edison's brow beneath the goggles resting on his hairline, the salty droplets sliding down his cheek and pooling on his jaw, steadily dripping into the respirator mask hanging loosely around his neck. Every part of him is covered in grime, dirt darkening with hidrosis, and normally unruly strands of bleached blonde hair plastered to his forehead.

The room is too small for the amount of people trapped between all four walls, swarms of bodies occupying every chair and bench and available floor space from all trades in Compound III through V. Merchants, physicians, technicians, factory workers, scholars and scientists whose social rank was not yet high enough to be considered part of the nobility, the telltale particles resting on heavy duty boots and the number of stripes on clearance cards clipped tightly around upper arms giving away status and power at first glance.

The soft wheeze and gasp of the iron bellows forces air in and draws carbon waste out, mingling with the muted noise of heavy breathing and creaking chairs, dispersed by the crackling intermittent call of identity numbers over the intercom. Soon he, and the other occupants find their breathing in time with the rhythmic pumps of artificial air, and the room breathes as one.

It's his seventeenth cycle, two:twenty-three hours of it spent awaiting his refurbished identity tag, a requirement for Area 1 to officially recognise his length of life, unable to leave without it, ceasing to exist beyond this room. A thick lump swells in the back of his throat, rising until he forces it down along with brewing memories of men, women and children lost due to careless behaviour and misplaced identification.

Mistakes.

Anticipating his turn becomes mind-numbing, his eyes closing briefly with a wave of heat-induced fatigue, arms growing limp and legs splayed out against the parquet in a feeble attempt to get comfortable despite splinters poking through his grubby singlet. The furniture was made for anything but ease, woven to increase anxiety and stress, pressure and tension rising to near-suffocating heights.

Overhead the fan stutters as it turns, the movement slow, jarred by time and rust that claims exposed framework, bright reddish-brown patches flaking off aged steel bending across the ceiling from large bricks lining the inner walls, barely doing more than churn sweltering heat in the cramped room.

“Three-three-eight-oh to the collection desk, calling three-three-eight-oh to the collection desk.”

Reluctantly he stands, fighting every urge to rest sleepy knees and ankles as they direct him to the familiar window in favour of getting out and existing once more. Behind the protective glass sits a girl no more than nineteen-cycles, Irene Bae the tag reads, her skin fairer and hair darker than most, tips dyed pink with a mix of scarce minerals and manufactured water.

Her appearance is pristine, clothes freshly pressed, long glossy locks pinned back with white gold barrettes although he can see rebel strands and the sleeves of her shirt wave with a fabricated breeze. Not a single drop of perspiration befalls her heat-regulated cubicle. The air must taste better, more expensive, on her side of the glass, a thin veil between the poor and the Aristocracy.

He clears his throat and she scrutinises his appearance, a routine they’d built up over the cycles, her eyes scanning over his features briefly before she slides him his ID.

“Congratulations on your seventeenth cycle. May you live long enough to see the next.”

But there's no warmth to her rehearsed words, and it's as close to a “happy birthday” as he's going to get. He smiles gratefully anyway in the face of her disinterested expression, thumb brushing lightly over the embossed lettering on his tag, taking in the new addition.

EDISON HUANG [338O]
II DAY, V PHASE
XVII CYCLES
COMPOUND IV, BUNKER II
MECHANICAL ENGINEER

The girl calls out a new number and a burly man bearing the same tanned skin and rough palms, shoves Edison aside, disrupting his observation. The tag slips between his fingers and slides against the floor. His stomach drops in alarm, fear momentarily flooding his mind with the idea of being expired before his time, foot clamping down on the beaded chain to stop it from disappearing between the cracks.

Careless.

Careless.

He can’t afford any mistakes.

Not this time around.

There’s only so much he can do to conceal his true identity, just a teen seventeen-cycles old burdened with the responsibilities of a man twenty-cycles his senior.

Tension bleeds from his pinched brows and his shoulders relax with an exhale.

“Congratulations on your thirty-first cycle. May you live long enough to see the next.”

Her tone is unsympathetic, a cruel mockery in the face of the man’s unsure movements and poorly-concealed frenzy, an ashen paste smeared roughly over the sore blistering skin around his mouth. Clinging to the leg of his slacks is a small child, no more than two-cycles, oblivious to the unforgiving world they were brought into from the safety of a womb.

Edison’s chest lurches. The man won’t survive past the Eighth Phase, a glaring countdown of his remaining days reading zero cycles:three phases:twenty-three:fifty-six hours above his head.

I can fix it. He thinks, I can help.

His fingers twitch and the numbers increase, slowly.

Zero cycles:four phases:oh-hundred, one, two, three, four hours–

For a moment, he’s able to delude himself into believing his interference is helpful, that preventing another child from maturing without a parent’s guidance is worth the risk.

–five, six–

It won’t be the same.

–seven, eight, nine–

It’ll work, it will.

–and then the man crashes forwards against the glass.

The once delirious look in his eyes has been replaced by a glassy daze, legs visibly straining to hold up his deadweight, mouth floundering as it opens and closes with silent words. He collapses in on himself, crumpled and folded against the office wall with momentary paralysis. The girl sounds the alarm and the doors deadbolt, containing the outbreak of Alchemy.

Terrified shouts fill the stuffy air as blaring sirens feed panic into vulnerable minds, chairs scrape against the linoleum floor and able-bodies scramble to get as far away from the man as possible, the cacophony of noise unable to dull the distressed cries of the child snatched from his father’s side.

Edison looked on in horror as he convulsed violently against the floor, unable to recede far away enough from the thud of his skull against the hard surface and choked stutters of his breath, back pressed flush against the stone wall, forced to watch the consequences of his actions.

A swarm of Reapers emerged from the shadows, converging on the man’s writhing form, his lashes fluttering as eyes darted to and fro, face stricken with terror, locked in place as a barrage of images wracked through his conscious mind. He found his voice moments before they began to drag his thrashing body away, voice splintering, searing itself into Edison’s soul, mind forever imprinted with hoarse, feral screams and eyes white with rage, veins protruding from his face and neck.

“You.”

An accusing finger and yellowed nail s in Edison’s direction, froth spitting from between his lips.

“You did this to us.”

Hatred laced his words, truth spat with a venomous ferocity. It’s severity made the boy flinch, squeezing his eyes shut and balling up his fists.

“I'm sorry.”

The world begins to fade, peeling apart into echoes of fragmented time; seconds stop, rewind, rippling through space, changing fate. Beneath him the ground opens up, a black hole through time, lined with reflections of the past.

He falls down,

down,

down.

-

“Congratulations on your thirty-first cycle. May you live long enough to see the next.”

Her tone is unsympathetic, a cruel mockery in the face of the man’s unsure movements and poorly-concealed frenzy, an ashen paste smeared roughly over the sore blistering skin around his mouth. Clinging to the leg of his pants is a small child, no more than two-cycles, oblivious to the unforgiving world they were brought into from the safety of a womb.

Edison glances at the man from the corner of his eyes, loops the tag around his neck and leaves.

The numbers have lowered to half. Zero cycles, one phase, twenty-one:twenty-eight hours.

He shouldn’t have helped.

Another mistake he cannot rectify. Another memory he’s forced to forget. Another life he’s unintentionally shortened.

No matter how much you want it. No matter how pure you think your intentions are, Zitao. If you mess with time, if you change fate. They will die.

-

The airlock door seals shut behind him, goggles pulled over his eyes and respirator secured over his mouth and nose with thick leather straps. Outside of the Compound’s protective walls the sun beats red-hot against his bare arms and he wishes he'd brought protective gear with him to stave off the direct heat, sweat pouring off his body in rivulets.

“You were in there for a while. Something happen?" Maxwell prompts as soon as he’s close enough to be heard, the familiar figure leaning against a parked motorcycle. He’s short in stature, bright-eyed behind his mask, his cropped orange-chestnut hair sticking out in all directions beneath his helmet, matching burnished-leather jacket of his dispatcher’s uniform covering his arms and neck.

He wants to laugh, loud hysterical hiccups of “I killed a man. I killed a man. I killed a man!” threatening to rip from his throat, guilt clawing at him from the inside.

But he doesn’t.

Instead a pregnant pause floats between them as he mulls over his answer and finally shakes his head. There’s nothing to say. He’s executed a rewind, altering the timeline and erasing his error from the sequence of events. History will have no recollection of the man and his child, and once the shame passed, neither would he.

"Nothing happened." Edison lifts his gaze, eyes fixed on the bright blood-orange sky beyond dark tinted lenses.

“Are you sure? You’ve got that look on your face.”

“What look?”

“That I-want-to-tell-you-but-I-can’t look.”

He would have scoffed if it wasn’t true, his stomach twisting uncomfortably as he offers a half-smile, the apples of his cheeks bunched above the hem of his mask.

It wasn’t time yet, being too soon to let such crucial information fall upon unprepared ears.

Maxwell didn’t remember.

The toe of his boot scuffs along coarse ground, shoulders shrugging in a half-hearted attempt to evade any further questioning, and although the shorter male looks skeptical about his evasive attitude he doesn’t press.

Later. He’ll tell him later.

Maybe.

“Whenever you’re ready, then.”

A helmet is pressed against his chest, one of Maxwell’s expressive brows raised, head cocked as an invitation to board the vehicle, engine rumbling loudly beneath the seats, the sound ripping through the silence and echoing for miles over the sand dunes as bronze and bound leather thrummed against their thighs, helmet strapped tightly around his chin and arms wrapped around Maxwell’s middle.

Thick tires tackled coarse ground, wheels tearing at cracked earth and sand, driving up a flurry of red dust in their wake. Loose clothing ruffled in the subsequent updraft, grit and small stones biting at exposed flesh and scuffing along worn leather boots.

He remembers a time when motor vehicles would have been referred to as metal beasts, and the modes of transportation were the two feet one was born with, wheeled carts drawn by oxen, or mounted horses.

Back when Die was covered in lush greenery, and wildlife thrived among the wilderness, when water ran freely from the springs, and bouts of oxygen filled the air, the only storms being welcome monsoons, rain pelting the world’s hard crust into rich fertile land, and the community bloomed on trade rather than status and wealth.

It’s tiring being the only one who remembers; harrowing knowing it was his own selfish actions that brought about the change.

He wonders when Maxwell will begin to remember too, and the other’s will awaken, if they’ll berate him for his choice to save than to sacrifice.

To change fate.

Edison’s dog tag burns where it lays against his bone, heated metal too warm against skin.

-

Time passes in a blur, much like the barren wasteland the bike speeds through, swirls of orange, yellow, and red of distant sandstorms dancing on the horizon.

It’s eighteen:oh-five by the time they stop outside Compound IV and whilst there isn’t a watch secured around Edison’s wrist, he couldn’t be more aware of the time if he tried.

His singlet is soaked through with sweat, moulding to every dip and crevice of muscle and scarred tissue. Wet and uncomfortable, he envies the commissioned dry wick shirt concealed beneath Maxwell’s leather outerwear, and humidifier attached to his oxygen tank, throat impossibly dry, lips chapped, and breaths parched; his overall state warranting a zero:oh-two hour shower, five if he’s lucky, and a clean change of clothes.

“You need to start getting to the office earlier and then the wait won’t be so long.”

“I know.”

“No one in the compounds likes to be there before nine:fifteen, y’know.”

“I know.”

“Then get your head out of those blueprints and your arse there by oh-nine:hundred hours next time.” His tone is stern, expression serious behind his mask and Edison frowns, brows furrowed above his goggles. He’d always disliked Maxwell’s incessant need to treat him like a child, as though he were still six-cycles and not seventeen. But Maxwell was older at twenty-cycles, and therefore wiser by default, level-headed and robust, as good a guide as any; always had been.

It reminded him of the time before the balance was overturned and space turned askew, when Maxwell was Minseok, the ice breather, he was older, clear-sighted, his demeanour as cool and collected as the frost dispelled from his gelid fingertips. At least that much hadn’t changed.

“Go back to work, old man. Quit bothering me.” He huffed, and Maxwell laughed heartily, eyes filled with mirth.

“Hang on, take these.”

Dismounting the motorcycle with relative ease, he moves to unhook a large cannister of peach-flavoured water from the left-front side, and lifts up the seat to retrieve a tightly wrapped package filled with prime cuts of dried meat, held together with string and cool to the touch regardless of the sweltering heat.

Edison bites the insides of his cheeks to suppress a smile and grunts, trying not to feel pleased about being given such expensive gifts.

“Happy birthday, kid.”

He thinks he fails.

---

Twelfth Day, Fifth Phase
eleven:fifty-two

Shoes clatter against the iron walkway from where he paces back and forth, back and forth before the stairwell. Somehow, Edison had convinced himself to tell the truth, and share his secret with at least one other.

As far as he could tell, his father was the best person, besides Maxwell, to confide in. A jovial man, easily excited by the prospect of a new project, constantly breaking and mending and welding something together in their workshop, the desks in the upper deck sprawling with designs and diagrams, pencil shavings brushed into the corner and balled up wads of paper tumbling out of the waste bin.

If anyone was going to understand his crisis it was bound to be his father.

Gingerly Edison crept down the stairs, greeted by the shrill sounds of machinery and sight of white-yellow friction sparks as they burst from the power tool, metal against metal. In the gloom he can make out his father’s hunched figure on the far-side of the room, tool box open, a plethora of instruments scattered about his workspace.

“Pa!” He speaks up, raising his voice above the high-powered sound of the drill and continuing when the older male shoots him a sideways glance but makes no move to stop his task.

“I need to speak to you about something!”

“Not now, I’m working!”

“It’s rather important!”

“I’m sure it can wait!” He argues, the two of them shouting back and forth just to be heard, each yell concealing the frustration laced within his words, jaw set and teeth clenched.

So he waits.

And waits.

And waits.

-

He hates this.

Edison’s grown to tolerate his father’s eccentricity and work-fuelled addiction, but he loathes waiting, despises it, each excruciating second seeming to stretch on for hours. Wasted time rings true the longer he sits, and waits, able to count seconds and feel hours shift and blend together. He almost finds it amusingly ironic that Zitao, the time weaver should have such little patience.

Almost.

Exasperation builds beneath his skin, festering into thinly-veiled resentment. He thinks it would be easier to assimilate himself into this warped society if he did not know of his origins if he didn’t constantly have the customs of a past time ingrained into his heart to compare his new environment to.

Burdened with a mortal parent, restrained by the body of a child, taunted by the knowledge of his capabilities.

How much longer must Fate punish him for his past mistakes, the pockets of changed time returning bright, and vivid, and fierce as ever.

You.

“I have something for you.”

You did this to us.

“I’ve been meaning to pass this on for a long time now.”

He was half-listening to his father’s words, too enraptured in his own thoughts, his mouth run dry and stress coiled up like a spring, becoming wound tightly to the point he was threatening to explode.

“It belonged to my father, and his father before him, and now, to you.”

Lying in his palms appears to be an old pocket watch denoting a higher class.,and he briefly wonders what they must have done to fall so far from the height of luxury. The intricate filigree has begun to wear away in places, brass covered in scratches gathered from over the years.

It’s a beautiful trinket, engraved with the words tempus neminem manet around the edge, the hands ticking backwards. He thinks this must be a joke, and despite the sincerity in his father’s expression, he can only read contempt.

“I know it’s not much Edison, but this has–

“My name is Zitao.”

His father casts him an odd look, brows raised in amusement. “Don’t be absurd, son.”

“My name is Zitao, and I am not your son.”

He’s surprised by the velocity of his own voice, even more so by the absolute rage projected onto an innocent man. This wouldn’t have happened if the Healer were here. This wouldn’t have happened if he’d put the fate of worlds above the life of one man.

But he didn’t, and it seems he hasn’t learned his lesson, still set in old ways. Unable to mix his new self with the old, an internal battle of self-acceptance.

He doesn’t miss the troubled expression carved into his father’s features this time.

“I’m sorry.”

He  drags a hand down his face and heaves a sigh into his palms, awaiting a reprimand, a disappointed cluster of words. Yet he’s met with silence. Nothing more than footsteps retreating out of the room.

Edison squeezes his eyes shut and balls up his fists.

“I'm sorry.”

The world begins to fade, peeling apart into echoes of fragmented time; seconds stop, rewind, rippling through space, changing fate. Beneath him the ground opens up, a black hole through time, lined with reflections of the past.

He falls down,

down,

down.

-

“It belonged to my father, and his father before him.”

Lying in his palms appears to be an old pocket watch denoting a higher class, and he briefly wonders what they must have done to fall so far from the height of luxury. The intricate filigree has begun to wear away in places, brass covered in scratches from over the years.

It’s a beautiful trinket, engraved with the words tempus neminem manet around the edge, the hands ticking backwards.

“I know it’s not much Edison, but this has–

“It’s perfect.”

His mouth stretches into a smile, and he hopes the weary tone is well hidden behind a prison of pearly whites.

“Thanks, Pa.”

The numbers have lowered to half, and Edison chooses not to see.

It’s better to pretend.

---

Twenty-third Day, Fifth Phase
thirteen:forty-one

A distance hangs between them ever since and the watch weighs heavily in his pocket, as though his outburst has changed everything. He doesn’t like it, so he makes like his father and buries himself into work, breaking and mending and welding something together in their workshop, the desks in the upper deck sprawling with designs and diagrams, pencil shavings brushed into the corner and balled up wads of paper tumbling out of the waste bin.

It’s not so bad, and after the initial prejudice has been discarded he finds diligently working in the dark depths of the workshop is relaxing, therapeutic even. Only himself and the machine working together to create and shape and mend.

He thinks maybe this is why, and how his father has managed to last so many cycles in such an unforgiving world, transferring his concerns into the scrap metal he worked with.

But he’s thought too soon, and a loud crash pulls him from his reverie. His calls of Pa? Are you alright? go unanswered and anxiety fills him with dread.

On the floor of the workshop behind the heavy machinery lies his father's form, his eyes veiled by a glassy daze, mouth floundering as it opens and closes with silent words. A harsh jolt of deja vu tears through him: a man crumpled and folded against an office wall, the loud distressed cries of the child snatched from his father's side.

“Pa, hey- Pa, Pa–”

His knees hit the floor beside his father’s body, hands hovering midair.

Unsure of how to help.

Unwilling to make the situation worse.

Caught between the tumultuous dilemma of apprehension and incompetence.

Lashes flutter as eyes darted to and fro, face stricken with terror, locked in place as a barrage of images wracked through his father’s conscious mind.

“Turn it back.”

He rasps, voice hoarse, sounding much too different to belong to the man he’s known for seventeen-cycles.

“Take back time. I know you can.”

Desperation laced his words, truth pleaded with an undeniable clarity. It’s severity made the boy flinch, and despite the risks, he relents; squeezing his eyes shut and balling up his fists.

“I'm sorry.”

The world begins to fade, peeling apart into echoes of fragmented time; seconds stop, rewind, rippling through space, changing fate. Beneath him the ground opens up, a black hole through time, lined with reflections of the past.

He falls down,

down,

down.

-

A distance hangs between them ever since and the watch weighs heavily in his pocket, as though his outburst has changed everything. He doesn’t like it. So he makes like his father and buries himself into work, breaking and mending and welding something together in their workshop, the desks in the upper deck sprawling with designs and diagrams, pencil shavings brushed into the corner and balled up wads of paper tumbling out of the waste bin.

It’s not so bad, and after the initial prejudice has been discarded he finds diligently working in the dark depths of the workshop is relaxing, therapeutic even. Only himself and the machine working together to create and shape and mend.

He thinks maybe this is why, and how his father has managed to last so many cycles in such an unforgiving world, transferring his concerns into the scrap metal he worked with.

“Pa?”

“Yes, son.”

His eyes rake over his father quickly, checking the stability of his limbs and the whites of his eyes, visibly relieved to see no signs of Alchemy in sight.

The numbers have lowered to half, and Edison chooses not to see.

“You’ll be alright.”

He’s living a lie.

---

Seventeenth Day, Sixth Phase
seventeen:seventeen

Edison grumbles to himself as he straps on his respirator and goggles, unfairly nominated by the other occupants of Compound IV to collect the biphasic oxygen ration.

He doesn’t want to leave the bunker, worry teetering on the edge of his mind and clouding his thoughts. His father looks tired and weary, more so than per usual and Edison knows it’s linked to his shortening life-span, the numbers decreasing each time Edison rewinds and erases the presence of Alchemy, the attacks occurring more frequently and closer together.

Outside of the compound, Maxwell is waiting patiently, leaning against his motorcycle, a dozen large aluminium tanks strapped into the pulley attached to his bike. On one arm the sleeve of his jacket has been torn, the open strip displaying the white of a bandage wrapped tightly around his forearm.

Edison's eyes fly straight towards it and the shorter laughs behind his mask.

"It's alright, only a flesh-wound, the Alchemist believes I'm still competent enough to work."

The boy frowns, and takes Maxwell by the wrist, turning his arm this way and that to inspect the area, glad at least the immaculate fabric isn't speckled with red. What the Alchemist thinks is the last of his concerns.

"How'd it happen?"

"Bandits. I was doing my rounds delivering these to Compound V and the bastard's swooped in and snatched one. Not before grappling with me first, though. You know how I am about my work."

"Mm, enough to know you're pretty stupid to engage in a knife fight when you don't even have a weapon. I thought you were wiser than that." He mutters the last part, crying out an indignant hey! when he's slapped upside the head, Maxwell's nose wrinkling around the edges.

"Mind your manners young man."

They work in silence, unloading the tanks, rolling them into the compound and down to the storage room one by one.

Once finished, Maxwell perches himself on an empty crate, pulls off his respirator and takes a swig of water, passing the bottle over to Edison once he's had his fill.

"You know, one of the airships has gone missing, along with the Adviser's eldest son."

"How old was he?" He breathes, wiping his mouth free of lime-flavoured water with the back of his hand.

"Seventeen-cycles."

Too young.

Much too young for a child to be separated from their parents, taken by defectors who live outside of Area 1's law, punishing the Aristocracy by laying claim to flesh and blood.

"Who do they think it was?"

"Those bloody sky pirates, that's who. But I've heard rumors it was an inside job, there's no way they'd be able to get past security at Compound II without one of these." He waves his Level III entry pass for emphasis, before dusting off his hands and standing up, stretching the knots and kinks out of his spine, eager to return home and rest.

"A technician will be by to hook these up by nineteen:forty and another dispatch runner will come to collect the empty tanks when he's done. You can keep the water."

Nodding, he swallows around his worries, wanting to speak up and say I think my Pa is dying, for Maxwell to tell him how absurd such a notion is, that he's being ridiculous, to smack him upside the head to get him to think right if need be.

But it doesn't work like that.

He's observant when it isn't needed, and not observant enough when the time calls for it.

Today, Maxwell is too tired to notice, ruffling the younger’s blond locks with a weary smile before he takes his leave.

"Stay safe, kid. And tell your Pa I said hey."

Maxwell retreats up the steps and takes Edison's hope with him.

---

Thirtieth Day, Seventh Phase
oh-eight:forty-three

Edison slumps forwards in his old wicker chair, the woven strips of beaten wood groaning beneath his weight. His chest rises and falls fast, heaving stale, recycled air into barren lungs, mouthfuls thickened with warmth.

He's early, this time, arriving at the registry office before oh-nine:hundred hours. It's still hot, chairs still uncomfortable but the wait is diminished. Almost. The sound of a typewriter resounding throughout the empty room as the identification tag is processed and updated.

Sweat collects on Edison's brow beneath the goggles resting on his hairline, the salty droplets forming from nerves rather than heat, sliding down his cheek and pooling on his jaw. He draws the back of his hand across the dampness and dries his skin against his shirt, hands clasped to stop them trembling.

The soft wheeze and gasp of the iron bellows forces air in and draws carbon waste out. Soon he finds his breathing in time with the rhythmic pumps of artificial air. One in, two out. One in, two out.

It's his father's fortieth cycle.

His father who is bedridden and unable to make the trip himself, a glaring red light for Area 1 and a one-way ticket to the Alchemists. But posing as his father was better than not attending at all.

It'll work, he thinks. It'll buy us some time.

“Three-four-zero-ess, calling three-four-zero-ess to the collection desk."

Those four little digits are like a death sentence and he thanks the high heavens he has them committed to memory, ingrained so much by fear he saw them painted on his lids when eyes closed.

Reluctantly he stands, dread infecting restless knees and ankles as they direct him to the familiar window. Behind the protective glass sits a girl, her skin fairer and hair darker than most, tips dusted yellow with a mix of scarce minerals and manufactured water. He frowns and checks the identification lying against the swell of her chest, Sylvia Kang it reads.

She isn't the same one from before.

Brows furrow, confused, he clears his throat and she scrutinises his appearance, eyes scanning over his features briefly before she slides him his ID.

“Congratulations on your fortieth cycle. May you live long enough to see the next.”

But there's no warmth to her rehearsed words, and beyond her guarded expression, he can see that she knows his physical appearance doesn't bear the weight of forty cycles.

"What happened to Irene?" Curiosity gets the better of him, words rolling off his tongue and biting into the air before he can trap them behind his lips.

She levels her gaze with his, marble expression cracked as hesitation slips through before she speaks solemnly, voice grave. "Alchemy."

Edison snatches up the ID tag and leaves.

-

It's quiet when he returns, striding off the back of Maxwell’s motorcycle with a rushed thank you, light, coloured by terra-cotta red and ochre sand dispelled by the last storm filtering in through the transparent roof and illuminating dust particles drifting through the air. He's unnerved by it, disturbed by the silence, broken by his soft inquisitive call of "Pa?" as though speaking any louder would shatter it.

The bedroom door creaks as he nudges it open with his boot to reveal his father diligently sketching away, pad and paper balanced precariously upon his knee and charcoal poised between his thumb and forefinger. He notices the loose lines and carefully poised smudges are reminiscent of a face, of who he can't yet make out.

"You're supposed to be resting." He utters with a disapproving frown, arms folded across his chest after he's placed the ID tag into his father's waiting palm.

"Afraid that's not possible, my dear boy." His father smiles, wisdom and kindness imbued in the wrinkles of his mouth and the creases around his eyes, his dark gaze bearing a fire of determination. "You know how I get."

He wants to laugh, bitterly, knowing all too well there's no convincing his father when his mind and heart are set on a task. So he relents, pulling up a stool and sitting down, an elbow propped against his father's desk, fingers picking at a loose thread on his slacks.

"Have you been sketching for long?"

"Not at all, I still have a while yet 'til I'm satisfied."

Edison snorts and rolls his eyes, scratching the back of his forearm and flicking off a clump of dirt, palm smoothing over the irritated skin.

"We'll be halfway into the new Phase before you're pleased with that." He retorts, lips stretching with a chuckle when he notices a small red gash on his father's face, skin split over the curve of his chin.

The corners of his mouth turn down with concern.

"You're hurt."

"I am?"

"Yeah, there." He lifts a hand, tapping against his own chin and watching rather displeased at how unphased his father seems to be, curious, charcoal-covered fingers probing at the open wound with a hiss, eyes lingering on the dots of red colouring his fingertips before he wipes them clean on his sheets.

"It's just a little graze. Nothing to worry about."

"We have every reason to worry about it."

"Edison."

"You haven't even thought to dress the wound, and what happens if it gets infected?"

"Edison–"

"You're already sick as it is, Pa, you don't want it to get any worse." He fusses, beginning to rise from his seat to search around the room, sifting through their belongings for the first aid kit.

"Zitao, stop."

Instead, he finds himself bound to his seat, eyes widened and jaw locked, apprehension fringing the downward curve of his lips and the rigid hold of his shoulders.

Zitao, stop...

Zitao, stop..

Zitao, stop.

"You know."

"I know," The man continued to sketch, lifting the page and blowing at the loose black grains strewn across it, blowing a dusky black cloud into the air.

"How long?"

"Since the first attack. I didn’t forget."

Edison's throat hurts, contracting around an intangible lump of emotions building and festering in the insecure cavities of his being. He wants to jump and rewind, erase the unease coiling in his gut, although the desire must be written clearly on his features because a hand touches his arm.

"It's alright." A reassurance he didn't know he needed. Maybe Fate isn't punishing him after all.

"Hey, Pa?"

"Yes, son."

He puts his sketchpad aside, and clasps his hands together in his lap, his patient, attentive expression contrasting ridiculously with the red staining his chin.

"You still need to dress that wound."

---

Fifteenth Day, Eighth Phase
eighteen:thirty-six

His numbers were decreasing much faster than he’d anticipated, constantly changing, the amount of time trickling away, unable to be stopped.

How comfortable Edison made his father feel, or how attentively he cared for his every need wasn’t of importance anymore, as though a sand timer had been his father’s life and now nothing was able to sway expiration from its fast descent.

He knew it had all taken a turn for the worst when his father began refusing to eat and drink, spending the majority of his days in a sleep-glazed stupor, drifting in and out of consciousness.

Positivity was becoming hard to maintain, the facade draining what little will he had left. Whenever fatigue claimed him, his eyes would open and the numbers would have dropped dramatically once more, time lost in the moments stolen by exhaustion.

The rate in which his father deteriorated was alarming, cheeks gaunt, skin once pulled taught over muscled limbs now sunken into the curve of his ribs and the dip of his sternum, clavicles resembling deep basins, and perspiration gathering in the depths whenever he broke out in cold sweats, his skin cool to the touch.

His speech slurred, reduced to nothing more than muffled noises and groans, his words forgotten, chewed up and swallowed by his disease. Edison sat rigidly by his father’s bedside, workshop abandoned, and projects put on hold, his hands clasped beneath his chin, elbows digging into the center of his thighs, and feet numbing with an onset of paresthesia.

He was fine yesterday.

He could speak yesterday, tongue and teeth working together to produce coherent speech.

Now, only a wet gurgle rumbles in the back of his throat, and Edison finds himself supplying both halves of conversation, giving him a feeble, reassuring pat on the back of his hand to fill the silence.

Fifteen seconds pass between one breath and the next, and Edison’s ribs constrict.  

He watched his chest lurch, as though his entire body was attempting to draw in the last of his breaths.

Quiet, yet loud. A single gasp shattering the suffocating hush of the room, blood pounding, roaring, between the quickening of Edison's heart and the wait between his father’s last breath and the next.

Fifteen seconds.

Sixteen.

Seventeen.

But his numbers hit 00:00:00:00.

Eighteen.

And his frail body ceased to move.

Nineteen.

Air escaped his father's lungs with a cathartic hiss.

No, inhale.

No, exhale.

Deflated.

Dead.

Gone.

-

Minutes, maybe hours had passed and fists pounded against the locked door, the dull sound reverberating throughout the room, echoing far off in the distance as though Edison was perched undersea, an engulfing abyss of distorted time.

Deadened orders barely reached his ears, the thumping growing louder, more insistent as he sat and stared blankly ahead, shock bleeding throughout his nerves, freezing him in time and place. Disoriented and dislocated, he felt the past, present and future all at once.

The peace corps break the door down.

-

He wouldn’t remember much of what happened next, the incident enshrouded in a suppressive mist before being committed to memory.

A boy without a father, questioned on the nature of his death, detained for his defiance, released on lack of evidence, taken back to his compound by a worried friend to an empty home with an empty room, an empty bed, an empty desk.

The silence smothered Bunker II like a desolate fog, thick and heavy, expanding and filling his core with every breath breathed too loud. No more would he hear the shuffling of papers, irritating humming, or scraping of power tools, an identification tag left on the bare pillow the only evidence another lived here besides himself.

WILLIAM HUANG [340S]
XXX DAY, VII PHASE
XL CYCLES
COMPOUND IV, BUNKER II
MECHANICAL ENGINEER

If only it was as easy as he wished it to be.

As if one jump, just one little jump, one rewind, one quiet whispered apology and the problems would be erased.

Time would have been better spent, misunderstandings straightened and memories rewoven.

Edison slumps into the nearest chair, the woven strips of beaten wood groaning beneath his weight. His chest rises and falls fast, heaving stale, recycled air into barren lungs; mouthfuls thickened with warmth, and lips flavoured with liquid salt.

You can’t prevent death.