The Garden of Time was filled with silence. Not the calm, soothing silence that follows a storm, but the kind that precedes irreversible change. The air felt heavy, infused with an almost invisible silver dust that swirled in currents between the trees, like remnants of scattered memories.
Emiren walked along a narrow path winding through towering trees. Their branches stretched high above, intertwining into a complex web like the threads of an ancient tapestry. But something in this place had changed. He could feel it on an instinctual level, like when a person steps into an abandoned building and knows it will never be the same again.
His footsteps were soundless. The soft moss covering the ground absorbed every noise. Only the wind whispered through the treetops, carrying a faint murmur that belonged to no living being.
And then he saw it.
The branch. It was massive, once covered in leaves that glowed with an inner radiance. But now, it was charred, blackened, lifeless. Its bark was cracked, leaving thin silver veins that flickered and faded like dying embers. The leaves that had once flourished upon it had crumbled into ash, now scattered across the ground.
Something about this sight filled him with an unexplainable dread. This was not just a dead branch. It looked as if it had been ripped from the very fabric of time.
Emiren slowly reached out his hand.
The moment his fingers brushed against the rough bark, the world around him dissolved.
Light. It surrounded him from all sides, forcing him to squint. Everything was too bright, too real. He found himself in a world that no longer existed.
Before him rose towers, coated in a silver glow, as if woven from time itself. People walked the streets—figures that seemed translucent, but not ghostly; rather, their bodies allowed light to pass through them. They lived in this city, their voices filling the air with the music of everyday life.
And then chaos began.
Shadows seeped into existence, first as thin cracks in reality, then thickening like an expanding ink stain. They swallowed buildings, people, light itself. Screams echoed everywhere, but an invisible force muted them. People tried to run, but they couldn’t.
The light faded.
Emiren tried to speak, but his voice vanished into the silence. His body remained still as the city around him dissolved, like an erased drawing removed from time.
And then everything was gone.
He stumbled back, his heart pounding. The branch was still there, blackened and lifeless.
This was not just the natural death of a world. Not the inevitable end of a timeline. Someone—or something—had torn this world from eternity.
“You only see part of the picture.”
A voice spoke from behind him.
Emiren turned sharply, but no one was there. The air thickened, heavy with an unseen presence.
“Who are you?”
There was no answer.
Then he saw it.
A shadow.
It had no defined shape, only a dark outline that rippled like a reflection on water. It did not advance, did not attack. It simply stood there, watching him without a face, without eyes.
“Why has this branch been destroyed?”
The shadow remained silent. Then, slowly, it lifted what could be called a hand and pointed into the darkness between the trees.
“Because time does not tolerate emptiness.”
Emiren felt the change before he understood it. The air tensed, like the moment before a storm. The ground beneath him trembled, as if the roots of the Tree of Time had stirred deep within the earth.
He stepped forward.
The shadow disappeared.
Only silence remained in its place.
He knew he couldn’t stay here.
The branch no longer pulsed with life. It could not be restored. It was the ash of a past that could never return. But now, he knew this was not just destruction. It was a sacrifice.
Time’s currents did not simply wither away on their own. They were being torn, stolen, erased from reality’s fabric.
And he needed to find out who—or what—was responsible.
He took one last glance at the blackened bark, cracked from vanished light, and turned away.
His path now led into darkness.