The forest's breath was thick with humidity and whispers. As Aryan sprinted through the underbrush, the shadows twisted unnaturally, coiling and snapping like living things. Behind him, that... thing followed. Not walking. Not running. Flickering.
It made no sound.
No crunch of leaves, no breaking of twigs. Only its presence—pressing, distorting reality like a smudge on time itself. It didn't run. It pulsed. One moment near, the next impossibly far, and then again just behind his heels.
Aryan's lungs burned, his legs shook, but he didn't stop. He couldn't.
The creature—Echo, the Watcher had called it—was like something torn from a nightmare or an anime villain drawn with corrupt pixels. Its body shifted constantly, a silhouette with no fixed shape. Sometimes it looked humanoid, other times like a beast with claws made of broken glass and a grin stitched from static.
The only thing that didn't change was its eyes—dark voids with tiny, spiraling pupils—like black holes feasting on the present moment.
Earlier that evening, when Aryan had stumbled into the ancient temple, it had been just another strange day in his life. The tattoo—this mysterious clock that had appeared on his wrist—had already altered the rhythm of his world. But that moment, when the Watcher told him to run... it had split his reality open.
The Echo hadn't emerged from the trees like a predator—it had bled out of the air itself. Like a glitch in space-time. Like a punishment for tampering with something sacred.
"This being," the Watcher had said as it approached, "is a wound in time. A result of the Law reacting too early."
Aryan didn't understand then. He barely understood now. But he felt the threat. In his bones. In his gut.
The Watcher's words echoed in his memory even as he ran: "Echos are not alive in the way we understand. They're not born. They are consequences. When a Law is disturbed before balance is formed, time reacts. It creates a ripple. The Echo is that ripple... made flesh."
But this one... this Echo was different.
Not just an anomaly, but a message. Its face, in some moments of horrifying clarity, morphed into the faint resemblance of someone else—a shadowy male figure with silver eyes, a cruel smirk, and something unmistakably human.
Branches slapped his face, his arms bled from thorny brushes, but Aryan kept moving. He reached a steep slope, skidded down, tumbling but still conscious. He landed hard on a rocky bed, groaning.
When he looked back, the Echo hadn't followed. Not visibly.
Then—
Flicker.
It stood at the top of the slope, head tilted unnaturally. Observing.
Aryan whimpered. "What do you want from me?"
It didn't answer. Of course it didn't.
Suddenly, the air thickened. Like syrup. Time slowed—but not by his will this time.
The tattoo on his wrist glowed, but instead of comfort, it burned. The Echo had entered his field of power, and its presence was corrupting the natural flow.
He couldn't run. He couldn't fight.
But he remembered what the Watcher had said:
"Time does not give power. It reveals choice. Even a second can change everything."
Aryan closed his eyes. He forced himself to breathe. In. Out.
The forest faded into the background as he listened—not to sound, but to the rhythm of time around him. The ticking.
11:11.
The moment froze.
In that frozen slice of time, he could think. And he saw—just barely—a thin vein of golden light running through the undergrowth beside him.
Not a path. A thread.
Instinct overrode reason. He dove toward it.
As he touched the light, the world warped violently. His body was flung sideways, as though pulled through a crack in the page of reality.
He landed in a clearing.
The Echo didn't follow.
At least, not yet.
He lay there, panting, clutching his glowing wrist.
"What... was that?"
The Watcher appeared beside him—not from behind trees, but simply there, like he had always been.
"You survived."
"Barely! What the hell was that? Why did it look like—like a person?"
The Watcher's eyes grew serious. "Because the Echo doesn't just echo your disturbance. It mirrors your potential enemy. The Law that chose you—Time—was the first disturbed. But another is already watching. Testing. Preparing."
"Who?"
The Watcher didn't answer. Instead, he looked up at the stars peeking through the canopy.
"Echos appear when the balance shifts prematurely. The moment you slowed time—when you saved that girl—that was the catalyst. Your Law awakened too soon. And this Echo was sent to restore equilibrium, or destroy it."
Aryan sat up, still trembling.
"So this thing will keep coming?"
"Yes. Until you learn to control the Law fully. Or until it kills you."
Aryan laughed weakly. "Great. No pressure."
The Watcher finally smiled. "You're taking it better than most."
"I watched Jujutsu Kaisen, okay? I know what cursed spirits look like."
He tried to laugh again, but his voice cracked. The humor was thin armor.
That night, Aryan made his way back home in silence. The city was quiet. The chaos of earlier felt like a fever dream.
But the tattoo was still there. Still glowing.
He slipped past his parents, up to his room, and collapsed on the bed.
The Echo hadn't just hunted him.
It had marked the beginning.
Somewhere far away, across stars and galaxies, other Laws stirred. Other echoes were forming. And the entity whose face that Echo mimicked... he had noticed.
Aryan wasn't alone.
And he wasn't safe.