## Chapter 6 – *Born Beyond Time*
The girl's presence seemed to fold the air around her.
The moment she spoke, Aarin's vision rippled. The chamber walls twisted as though reality questioned itself in her presence. Not hostile—but... **unstable**.
She stepped closer. Her footsteps made no sound.
> "My name is Elara," she repeated, voice like a melody echoing through layers of thought.
> "And I'm here to guide you through the In-Between."
Aarin's hand tightened around the cube. "You were watching me?"
Elara tilted her head. "More like… remembering you."
"Remembering me? I've never met you."
> "Not in this *thread*," she said gently. "But the In-Between sees all timelines—what could be, what was, and what never happened. In several, you died the moment you touched the cube. In another, you became what the Null Order fears the most."
She raised her hand—and Aarin's mind exploded with images.
---
**Visions flooded in:**
* A version of Aarin standing atop a black spire, crowned in fire, holding not the cube—but an entire **galaxy**, twisted into a ring.
* Another Aarin, older, with hollow eyes and metal grafted into his chest, commanding a swarm of machines across a dead universe.
* And finally, a version of him broken, sobbing at the feet of a dying Guardian, cube shattered at his side.
---
Aarin fell to his knees, gasping.
Elara knelt beside him, placing a hand on his shoulder. Her touch was warm, real. "These are not prophecies. They are possibilities. The cube responds to your choices. Not your power."
> "The In-Between doesn't choose champions. It reflects them."
Raylen's voice echoed faintly from above. "Aarin! You okay?!"
He waved them off.
"Elara," he said, standing slowly. "Why are you helping me?"
She looked at him then, with something ancient in her eyes. "Because I was born inside a place that shouldn't exist. Because my father opened the gate before yours. And because if the Null succeeds, the In-Between will collapse—and I will die in every version of reality."
Aarin froze. "Your father?"
She nodded.
> "Dr. Calem Thorne. The first to enter the In-Between and return. He didn't survive... not in body. But he left me behind, built from the fragments of displaced time."
Her skin shimmered faintly now—like starlight trapped in motion.
---
She led Aarin deeper into the relay vault.
At its heart was a **Time Lens**—a swirling vortex of compressed memory-data, tethered to the cube's frequency. Elara waved her hand, and a new feed unfolded—a map of the galaxy, but overlaid with **temporal scars**.
Places where time had been rewound. Stopped. Accelerated.
Each scar was connected to a **Core**.
"Five total," Aarin muttered. "We found the first. Four more."
Elara's expression darkened.
> "Yes, but one has already been compromised."
She zoomed in on a sector near the edge of the galaxy.
"Planet Rass-Kar. The third core was hidden there by the Voss Initiative before the collapse. The Null have found it. They've infected it with a stasis virus—locking it in a 0.6-second loop. A planet trapped in the same instant forever."
Aarin stepped closer to the image. "Then we take it back."
Elara looked at him with fierce eyes. "You don't understand. Breaking a stasis lock means breaking a *timeline*. The people of Rass-Kar have *no idea* they're frozen. If you awaken them—"
"They'll suddenly experience years of existence at once," Aarin finished. "Their minds could collapse."
"Or," Elara added, "they could evolve."
---
Outside, the Guardian rejoined them, battered from battle but alive. Selene and Raylen stood nearby, faces pale from the earlier clash with the Null. The sky was quiet now—but something told Aarin it wouldn't be for long.
Elara handed him a thin shard of silver crystal.
> "This is a Path Key. It opens a temporary breach into the In-Between. But you can only use it once. The In-Between doesn't tolerate multiple crossings—not unless you're like me."
Aarin held it carefully.
"Where does it lead?"
Elara's eyes shimmered. "To the mind of your father."
> "His body is lost, but his consciousness survived the shift. If you want the truth about the cube… about why you were chosen… you'll have to go where no human mind was meant to wander."
Raylen crossed his arms. "So let me get this straight. We're heading into a place that isn't a place, to speak to a man who isn't alive, inside a reality that doesn't obey time."
"Exactly," Aarin said. "You in?"
Raylen grinned. "You kidding? I wouldn't miss it."
Selene sighed. "Just don't leave me in a paradox again."
Aarin turned to Elara. "What happens if I lose myself in there?"
She met his gaze. "Then a different version of you will continue. But it may not be... *you*."
---
As the team prepared for the breach, the Null ship rose again in the distance—wounded, but not defeated.
Aarin looked at the cube, at the Path Key, and at the stars overhead.
Five cores.
Four left.
And one impossible choice ahead.
He had no idea how many versions of himself had failed.
But this time...
He would not.
---
*