The Path to Nowhere

"Some roads don’t lead forward or backward. Some roads aren’t roads at all. They are choices, waiting to be made."

Viraj had spent years mastering the science of time.

Now, he had to break it.

The realization settled deep in his bones as he stood on the crumbling edge of the graveyard city. The golden rift was gone. The sky had returned to its eerie, fractured stillness.

Aditi was no longer here.

But she wasn’t lost.

Viraj turned to his alternate self, eyes burning with determination. “You said she’s still out there. Tell me what that means.”

The other Viraj tilted his head slightly, as if considering how much to reveal. “You already know the answer,” he said after a moment.

Viraj frowned. “If I knew, I wouldn’t be asking.”

Lucius let out an exasperated groan. “Can we not do the whole cryptic-riddle thing? We have a literal time god to hunt down, and I’d rather not waste time with dramatic pauses.”

The alternate Viraj smirked. “Fine. The Timeborne didn’t erase her. It absorbed her.”

Viraj’s stomach dropped.

“That doesn’t make it better,” Lucius muttered.

Viraj ignored him. “Explain.”

The other Viraj crossed his arms. “The Timeborne exists outside of time. It doesn’t just destroy things—it reclaims them. Aditi wasn’t erased. She was taken back into its existence.”

Viraj’s hands curled into fists. “Which means she’s still alive.”

His alternate self nodded. “But not in a way that makes sense to us.”

Lucius ran a hand down his face. “Great. So, what? We just knock on the Timeborne’s front door and politely ask for her back?”

Viraj shook his head. “No. We find another way in.”

Lucius gave him a dry look. “Right. Of course. Another way into the unbreakable, god-like entity that controls the flow of time itself. Sounds easy.”

Viraj’s mind was already working through possibilities. “There’s always a way in,” he murmured.

The other Viraj sighed. “You’re not going to like it.”

Viraj’s gaze snapped to him. “You know how.”

“I do.” His alternate self hesitated, then said, “The only way to reach the Timeborne’s domain is through the Path to Nowhere.”

Lucius groaned again. “That sounds exactly as bad as I think it does.”

Viraj wasn’t listening. He had read about the Path to Nowhere in the forbidden archives of the Chrono Nexus.

It wasn’t a path in the traditional sense. It was a paradox—a void where time lost all meaning. A place where past, present, and future collapsed into one.

No one who had entered it had ever returned.

Viraj exhaled. “Tell me where to find it.”

His alternate self looked at him, eyes shadowed with something unreadable.

“It’s not about finding it,” he said quietly. “It’s about making the choice to step into it.”

Viraj met his gaze.

Then I choose.

"Some doors only open when you stop looking for them. Some journeys only begin when you stop fearing the end."

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