Chapter 10: The Tides of Time
Liam felt like his head was spinning as the world around him transformed into a pounding cascade of light. He thought that he might lose consciousness at any moment. The air was pregnant with weight, pulling at the very being of him. He thought that she would indeed occur to be disoriented, but she soon put that out of her mind, and her sharp eyes were looking for any hint of what was to come.
And then, just like that, everything went still. The humming light receded into the distance, melting into the wind rustling through alien trees. Liam staggered and instinctively gripped the dirt beneath him with both hands.
Clara was right there behind him, bow held ready in her hands as she scanned the new world they found themselves in. No longer were they in the Tower.
"What is this place?" Liam mumbled, wonder spilling from his voice.
They stood in the midst of a lush forest, where the trees were tall and ancient, whose roots sprawled across the ground like a tangled web. A cool breeze putter through the leaves but bore an eerie silence to set nerves on edge. This was not the cold, oppressive place they had come to know, but something different. Something older.
Clara's sharp eyes scanned the surroundings. "It looks like... the past."
Liam looked at her with growing confusion. "What? How?"
Clara strode forward several steps, eyes searching the area. The butt of her thumb brushed across the hilt of her dagger in a very instinctual, revealing bit of wariness. "I don't know, but I feel like this is a place of significance that we were brought to... a very possibly dangerous place." Before they could think any further than that, a voice rang out in their minds as discomfiting as it was familiar: The Tower.
"You stand in the past, chosen ones. Your next trial will be to reshape the course of history. You must avert the calamity this land is destined to bear before it destroys the future. The clock is ticking, and your choices would echo through time. Succeed, and you shall ascend. Fail, and the world shall be ruined."
Clara turned to him with the frown that said all. "We need to find out what happened here. If we fail, this land... and everything we know... might be wiped from the pages of history."
Liam nodded, his resolve rounding off. "Let's work it out."
Trudging through the woods together, each footstep now encapsulated within the weight of what they carried. Further along the trail, the shape of the landscape changed before them, and then they came across a small village. The air here felt stifled and thick with smoke and flaming wood scorch. A deserted village-but how such an empty space sent shivers running up one's spine that something was watching from the dark.
An exchange of glances was thrown between Liam and Clara; both were weighed down by the same shadow of dread. It was there, as they stepped into the town's hub, that they saw it-a gigantic stone monument, cracked and worn by years of bombardment, standing proud in the square. Surrounding it were faded inscriptions, worn by time.
"'The Calamity Monument,' Clara murmured, trembling in realization. 'This was the place where it all started."
Suddenly, a windstorm swept across the village, repeating the awful ash smell. The ground trembled with their feet as the monument began glowing with its unnatural light. The air had that curling energy in an instant when the ground split, creating a train of shock through the entire village. From the fissure appeared a dark figure emerged from within: a being of darkness, its shape becoming like liquid shadow, shifting, and writhing.
It stood tall, its eyes glowing with malice as it towered over them. It was a monstrous being, unlike anything they had encountered before. Its tendrils lashed out at the air, and the earth quaked in response. The calamity had come to life before their eyes.
"This is the cause of the catastrophe," a voice in their minds boomed, that of the Tower. "Defeat this monster, and history will not be the same."
Clara did not delay. She grabbed her bow, perfectly drew the string, and shot the arrow straight into the creature's chest.
The arrow pierced the dark figure, but instead of seeming damaged, the body rippled as the creature absorbed the strike. A growl of low rumbling laughter echoed from it.
"You cannot stop me," the creature growled. "I am the harbinger of the end."
Liam stepped forward. "We don't have much time. We must find a way to destroy it."
The creature snarled, sending a wave of darkness toward them. Clara sprang to the side and rolled behind a broken structure while Liam ran straight for the fight, hoping to land one last blow. But, as he made it to the creature, it expanded, blackening the entire village under its unending shadow. It was everywhere, and nowhere.
"Will I fight?" He felt his heart racing. The past fell down on the pressure of success. The man had to act; they needed to stop this thing before it ripped everything apart. "Use the monument. It's the key to undoing this calamity," the Tower again spoke inside their minds.The light in Liam's eyes became fixated on the glowing monument in the middle of the village. The beast began circling it, as if it were hiding its innermost secrets in there. Liam knew that instinctively his answer was there. Yet they would have to fight their way through this thing.
"Covers me!" said Liam, to Clara.
Clara understood the scenario well. So she kept raising arrows and raining them on the creature as if feeling it was caught in her claws. Liam skated through lashing dark tendrils, coming to the monument, touching its cold face, and felt immediately frozen within a fierce gust of energy. Markings flared to life, then the great crack uproar came as the beast howled in pain with shadows around it burning away.
The creature screeched as it thrashed wildly, but it could not escape the might of the monument. The shadow form started to turn into dust as it blew away in the wind like smoke. The beast roared one last time and then exploded in a flash of light while the earth settled once more.
The village, which once seemed completely hidden with any shadow, now appeared under a gentle, warm glow. The monument stood upright, entire and solid, as if it still possessed all powers to pulse with life in it. The calamity had thus been averted.
Liam and Clara fell to the ground and heaved, their lungs demanding air. The world around started shimmering, slowly disintegrating into nothing-the forest, as if time had reset. The voice from the Tower echoed again.
"You have made history. The future is rewritten. Now ascend to the next trial."
In a moment, they disappeared.
However, as they transitioned to the next chamber, Liam's mind was still consumed with the implications of what they'd done: they had changed the past, and thus the future. What would that change? Would it be for better, or worse?
The only thing that was certain was that it was just the beginning.
To Be Continued...