#timecraft

The Time Balance Department smelled like burnt metal.

That wasn't normal. The scent of scorched time only appeared when a timeline collapsed incorrectly, but what filled the main chamber was worse: it was the aroma of something broken that was never meant to break.

Timekeeper Cookie felt it before she saw it.Her clockwork eye spun violently. The floating gears around her all stopped at once. The silence was absolute.

—Assistant —she called.

No answer.Normally, you would appear within the next second with your logbook and your patient half-smile. But this time there was only the echo of her own voice bouncing off the chamber walls.Her hand tightened around the handle of the Sonic Embroider.

—Assistant —she repeated, louder.The silence grew heavier.Then she remembered: you had gone to timeline T-842. A terrible war had broken out there. Not just any war — a temporal war, the kind you don't win with armies, but by erasing enemies from the past. You went because you were the only one who could read future documents and find a peaceful solution.Timekeeper let you go because she trusted you.That was her meShe appeared on the battlefield of T-842 without a sound.

The sky was ash-gray.

The air smelled of molten metal and torn time. And at the center of the crater, surrounded by smoking debris, stood the Timecraft.

Your Timecraft.

The ship she had personally designed for you to travel between timelines. Now it was just a heap of dying sparks and cracked crystals. The wings were bent at an impossible angle. The cockpit… the cockpit was torn open like a rusted tin can.

Timekeeper stepped down from the Sonic Embroider with slow, heavy steps.Her eye scanned the wreckage. The temporal propulsion system had exploded from within. It wasn't an external attack. It was an overload failure. Someone had tried to make an emergency jump without fixed coordinates.Someone who was no longer there.

—No —she whispered.

She knelt among the debris. Her mechanical fingers touched the edge of the pilot's seat. There was your logbook, open to the last page.

The letters trembled, written in haste:"Director, if you're reading this: the war can't be stopped from outside. I had to jump to the epicenter. I'm going to rewrite the origin of the conflict. I don't know if I'll come back. Please take care of the Department for me."

Below, in smaller, almost childlike handwriting:"Thank you for letting me be your assistant. It was the best job in all the timelines."Timekeeper closed the logbook with a sharp snap.

Her eye spun. Fast. Faster. Then it stopped.—Fool —she murmured.But her voice trembled.

—Fool, fool, fool… —she pressed the book against her chest—. Who gave you permission to die?The ash wind did not answer.

Timekeeper Cookie didn't cry. Time goddesses didn't shed tears because time didn't stop for anyone.But then something warm rolled down her cheek. She touched it in disbelief. It was salt water.

—Oh —she said in a voice she didn't recognize as her own—. So this is what it feels like.

She stood up. Her gaze sharpened like the scissors that accompanied her.

—No. I'm not accepting this.

She raised the logbook toward the gray sky.—HEY THERE, TIMELINE T-842! —she shouted—. YOU'VE TAKEN THE ONLY THING I NEEDED AND I'M GOING TO MAKE YOU REGRET IT!The sky didn't answer.

But she didn't need permission. She was Timekeeper Cookie. She was the permission.With a snap of her fingers, the Sonic Embroider transformed into its largest form. Its gears roared like awakened beasts.

—I'm going to find every atom of you —she whispered to the wind, as if you could still hear her—. And if you don't exist, I'll invent you again. It might take me a thousand years, but…She closed her eyes. For one second — just one second — her mask of an indifferent goddess cracked completely.

—…but I'm not going to be alone again. Not anymore.She opened her eyes. The swirl of her pupil burned with a determination no clock could measure.

—Wait for me, Assistant. Wherever you are.And she leaped into the void of time, your logbook pressed against her chest and the name of every star as her only prayer

Centuries later, in a timeline no one remembers creating…A girl woke up in a bed she didn't recognize.

The sheets smelled like cinnamon and freshly oiled gears.

On the nightstand, there was a logbook with a sticky note attached:"Found you. Don't run off without telling me again. — T.K."

You smiled. And behind the door, leaning against the frame, Timekeeper Cookie smiled too.She never told you how much she cried that day.

But every time she saw you sleeping, she would brush your cheek with her cold fingers and whisper

Don't leave. Not ever again.