Black in Time – Part 4 

by Ryan Hsu, 10

A Summer 2025 Monthly Story Challenge Winner 

The cold, metallic air of the Emperor’s courtyard hit their faces as Chuck and Barley dashed toward the exit, their armored boots echoing like the countdown to a cosmic collapse. Above them, the sky had darkened, and a vast void swallowed the stars as if time itself were unraveling at the seams. The vibrations beneath their feet grew stronger, the tremors shaking the very core of reality. They were running out of time—literally, and they knew it.

Barley’s mind raced, his neural interface connected to the chrono-harmonics of the tether. “We need to reach the relay station before the tether collapses completely,” he muttered, his voice vibrating with urgency. “If the signals destabilize, the temporal fields will fragment—nothing will be stable, and no amount of proximity will help us. It’ll be like a quantum singularity pulling apart the fabric of spacetime.”

Chuck was silent for a moment, processing the magnitude of their mission once again. Barley’s face was lit by the flickering glow of a temporal display, his eyes darting between their diminishing window of escape and the fractured sky above them. They had no time left now.

Barley abruptly halted and pointed toward a narrow trail that led deep into the mountains. “That’s our way to the relay station,” he said, determinedly. “The relay amplifies the tether’s energy field, stabilizing the connection to the future. If we can access it, we might just be able to mitigate the collapse.”

Chuck’s gaze scanned the landscape, where the once-pure sky had become a roiling mass of dark clouds and erratic electric storms. “You think that place will stop the collapse? How do you even know where it is?”

Barley didn’t hesitate. “It’s part of an ancient quantum network designed to regulate temporal flux in this region, a relic of a civilization that mastered the mechanics of time travel. It was hidden in plain sight, built into this mountain. You could call it a temporal anchor.”

Chuck grimaced. "But how do we know it still works? It's been centuries since anyone used it, and everything’s gone haywire. This could be our only shot."

“We’ve run out of options,” Barley replied. “It has to be now or never.”

As they reached the foot of the mountain, another violent tremor shook the ground, and the air crackled with static energy, an electric hum vibrating through the atmosphere, pulling at the edges of their perceptions. The atmosphere felt heavier, thicker—like reality itself was being bent under the pressure of temporal instability.

"We need to hurry!" Barley shouted, his voice tight with urgency as they bolted up the jagged path.

The mountain path opened into a cavern, where the hum of the relay station’s machinery vibrated through the rock. Barley pulled up a holographic interface and began accessing the station’s systems. “We need to find the primary control hub," he said quickly. "If we can amplify the signal and correct the temporal harmonics, we might stabilize the tether—long enough to return us to the proper timeline.”

Chuck wiped his brow, his breath shallow as he took in the massive structure before them. “What if we can’t? What if the tether’s too far gone? And also, why is there a relay station here at this time?”

Barley’s gaze darkened as he glanced back. “Then we don’t have a future to return to. The tether holds together not only our timeline but every potential reality connected to it. If it fails, we all become part of a never-ending chaos—no past, no future—just entropy.” He glanced at the mounting pressure. "It’s a quantum unraveling; there’s no second chance. As for your other question, it can wait."

The door to the control room loudly hissed open. Barley moved swiftly to a terminal, connecting their suits to the station’s failing quantum core. He tapped a sequence of commands into the interface, his fingers flying over the keys. “We need to amplify the temporal oscillations to counteract the destabilization in the signal.”

Chuck glanced over his shoulder as the faint sound of boots echoed from the hallway behind them. “And if we don’t?”

Barley’s expression hardened. “We’re not going to have a future to worry about if we fail.”

The door to the control room exploded inward with a force that rattled the walls, and a dozen guards, clad in ancient, heavy armor, stormed in. Swords and spears clashed in the air, the sound of metal against metal ringing through the room.

Barley’s eyes snapped to Chuck, his face hardening. “We need to buy time. You’ve got to keep them away long enough for me to stabilize the tether!”

Chuck gritted his teeth and grabbed a steel rod from a fallen piece of equipment. He swung it wildly at the nearest guard, sending them stumbling back. His heart was pounding, every second feeling like it was stretching too long. The room flickered—reality seemed to bend and warp as the temporal field grew unstable, causing the air around them to twist and shimmer like a mirage.

Barley’s fingers flew over the controls as the hum of the station grew deafening. The shields were weakening, flickering, their energy flux feeding into the unstable quantum matrix of the tether. Barley’s lips moved in silent calculation as he rerouted power to the core. “I need just a few more seconds,” he muttered under his breath. “We can still fix this.”

Chuck slammed another guard to the floor. “How much longer?”

“I’m close,” Barley answered through gritted teeth. “But we need a full power cycle to trigger the temporal feedback loop and stabilize the breach. Without it, we’re toast.” He hit a key, rerouting the energy. “The feedback has to be precise, or we’ll overload the entire system. The collapse could become permanent.” 

The tremors intensified. A thunderous roar from the mountain’s core sent shockwaves through the station. With one final command, Barley’s hand hovered over the activation button.

“Now!” he shouted.

The entire room rumbled violently. Reality itself seemed to distort around them. Chuck covered his ears as the lights flickered and then stabilized. They had done it. The tether was repaired. But just as Chuck exhaled in relief, a dark silhouette appeared in the doorway—a massive figure, its glowing eyes cutting through the shadows like a predator's gaze.

Barley’s face drained of color as recognition hit him. “No way. It can’t be.”

The figure stepped forward, its form shifting unnaturally, like a distortion in the very fabric of reality. “You have no idea what you’ve just done.”

Chuck’s pulse raced again. "Who the heck are you?"

“I am the keeper of the timeline,” the figure declared, its voice carrying a resonance that seemed to echo across dimensions. “You have disturbed the flow of time, and the tether was never meant to be tampered with. Now, you will witness the consequences.”

Barley clenched his fists. “You must be one of the guardians. I didn’t know you were real... But I don’t care. If we don’t fix this now, everything will fall apart.”

The keeper’s dark form flickered with malice. “You are too late. The collapse has already begun.” The figure raised its hand to the ceiling. “What you’ve done is irreversible. The tether was never meant to be repaired—it was designed to break."

With a single motion, the air above them warped violently, and the station’s lights shattered in a burst of static. A blinding flash of light erupted from the core, and time itself fractured into pieces.

Works Cited

Hawking, S. (1988). A Brief History of Time. Bantam Books. 

Gribbin, J. (2011). In Search of Schrödinger’s Cat: Quantum Physics and Reality. Bantam.

Lanza, R. (2016). Biocentrism: How Life and Consciousness Are the Keys to Understanding the True Nature of the Universe. BenBella Books.

Tegmark, M. (2014). Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality. Knopf.