The Paradox of Us. Chapter 5

The world dissolved into liquid mercury.

Lucian's body fragmented—not painfully, but with the eerie detachment of watching ink disperse in water. The twin chronometers melted into his wrists, their gears sprouting delicate filaments that wove through his veins like roots seeking purchase. He tasted electricity. Smelled burning hair.

When solid form returned, he stood knee-deep in the Great Library of Alexandria as flames licked at the papyrus scrolls around him. Scholars ran past, clutching priceless texts, their screams swallowed by the roar of the inferno.

She stood untouched by fire at the center of the chaos, her silver eye reflecting the destruction like a fractured mirror. The mercury halo had solidified into a crown of dripping filaments.

"Welcome to Year Zero," she said, her voice layered with echoes. "The first time they burned our story."

Lucian reached for her, but his hand passed through her shoulder—a ghostly shimmer where flesh should be. "We're not really here."

"Correct." She caught a falling ember in her palm, the flame freezing mid-flicker. "This is the memory of a wound. The first incision in time that started the infection."

A scream pierced the smoke. Lucian turned to see himself—or nearly himself—a younger version in scholar's robes, desperately stamping out flames on an illuminated manuscript.

The original.

The realization struck like a physical blow. This wasn't just any library—it was their library. Their life's work. The thing that had first drawn the attention of...

"Who are they?" Lucian demanded.

Her mercury crown pulsed. "The Curators. The cleaners of time's stains." She stepped closer, her form flickering between solid and spectral. "They don't just kill paradoxes—they erase the very idea of them from history's fabric."

The burning library wavered. The air filled with the scent of ozone and something metallic—the telltale signs of an approaching jump.

Lucian's borrowed chronometer screamed a warning.

Forty-seven minutes remaining.

She pressed her forehead to his, their shared breath forming a tiny cloud of suspended time between them. "Find me where it began," she whispered. "Not the wound—the knife."

The world shattered again.

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Lucian came to gasping on the deck of a 15th-century caravel, salt spray stinging his eyes. The chronometers in his wrists had fused into a single, throbbing scar. Above him, the sails bore a familiar sigil—a serpent eating its own tail.

A shadow fell across him.

"Rise, timewalker," said a voice dripping with false benevolence. "We've been expecting you."

1. Read the first Chapter here: The Paradox of Us. Chapter 1 : A Love That Defies Time
2. Read the second Chapter here: The Paradox of Us. Chapter 2 : The Second Encounter.
3. Read the third Chapter here: The Paradox of Us. Chapter 3: The Third Reckoning.
4. Read the fourth Chapter here: The Paradox of Us. Chapter 4: The Fourth Awakening.

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