As soon as Ayes Gebra opened his eyes, a gentle morning light, not intense, entered his eyelids. The light was like someone he had known for a long time, calling silently. Before he could even open his eyes fully, he felt the familiar warmth, the familiar smell, the familiar silence.
This was his house. His bed. His window. His world.
For a moment, he felt—everything was fine. Everything was the same as before. His mother's voice came to his ears. A very simple, very real call—"Hurry up, freshen up and have breakfast, it's getting late."
These words seemed to bring him back to reality. It reminded him of a normal day. As if he had just woken up from a dream.
He thought—I must have been dreaming. The dream must have been strange, as it often is. But now it's all over.
Just then—hiss… hiss…
A strange sound passed through his ears, as if it wasn't the wind—it was something invisible whispering inside his consciousness. Ayes wanted to turn around, wanted to turn over. Wanted to pull the blanket over his head.
Wanted to wrap himself up in that safe feeling again.
But—
His body didn't respond.
Not at all.
In an instant, panic gathered in his chest. He realized—his limbs seemed to be separated from his will.
His brain was giving orders, but his body wasn't listening.
The surroundings were silent.
Unusually silent.
A silence where even without sound, you could feel the pressure.
As if the air had stopped, waiting.
Ayes slowly realized—he was no longer in his room.
What he felt beneath his feet was not earth. It had no familiar texture. It was hard, but not static. Soft, but not fluid.
With each step, he felt as if he were treading on time.
Time—which neither moves forward nor backward, but only flows.
Am I still asleep?
Or is this a level where dreams themselves seem real?
These thoughts, though terrifying, were not entirely new.
Ayes had faced such situations before. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath. He was trying his best to focus his mind. So that he could get rid of this whispering sound.
Darkness. Illusion. Delusion.
He knew how to distinguish these three.
He had woken up before—from a purple mist.
Where there is no direction, no time, only observation. Slowly his body came back into control. He stood up. The surroundings were still blurry. The light in the corner of his eyes was blurred and trembling, as if reality itself was taking time to settle.
In front of him—two people.
His chest heaved at the sight of the first one.
A young man, about twenty-four years old. His height was striking—more than 1.86 meters. Thick black hair fell haphazardly over his forehead. His eyes were a strange color—between brown and red, as if they changed color in the light. He was wearing a light linen shirt. He had a few books in his hands, but they were carefully placed in his hands. He was standing under a tree. The shadow of the tree was strange—the leaves did not move, yet the light was moving through the shadow.
And right opposite him—
Another person.
The same face, the same eyes. But time seemed to have taken him to another direction. He was wearing a sixteenth-century-style dress. The folds of the cloth were heavy, the colors faded. A wooden stick in his hand—fine silver patterns that flashed momentarily in the light. An old-fashioned hat on his head. He was walking through a narrow, dark alley. The alley was not real. It was made of memories.
Ayes's breath caught. No… it was no one else.
This young man—he was himself. And these two forms—the first his past, and the rest—.
These were possibilities. Just then, the surroundings collapsed.
Countless stars tore through the sky. Each star was burning, fading, dancing in its own rhythm. He entered that purple curtain again. The images disappeared.
Floating spheres all around. Some were scenes, some were sounds, some were just feelings.
All the previous scenes disappeared—the trees, the streets, the people—everything.
Standing in the middle of the void, Ayes's mind was filled with questions—where is this place?
Why have I come here again?
These two forms… will I become one of them?
Or will both of them consume me?
Suddenly—
The purple mist around him stopped again.
For a moment, everything was silent. The stars stopped moving, the floating spheres stood still—as if time itself had forgotten to breathe. Then—a sharp pressure. Without a word, without any premonition—an invisible current rushed towards Ayes like a bolt of lightning. Before he knew it—it entered his body.
It was not a solid object. Not a liquid either. What was it… ideas. feelings. memories.
In an instant, countless voices whispered together inside his chest.
No language, no words—yet the meaning was clear. His breathing stopped. His eyes widened, but he could not scream.
It felt like—his body was no longer just his own. Something was spreading through his veins.
Not pain—but a kind of pressure, as if the limits of his existence were being stretched.
The scene before his eyes began to change.
He saw—
Unknown skies, where there was not one sun.
Crumbling cities, which were stuck outside of time.
Like Countless eyes—looking at him, but no bodies.
A thought became clear in his head, which was not his own—
"You are not ready…but time waits for nothing."
Ayes felt his heart beat no longer as it had before. With each beat, something new seemed to awaken—a level he had never touched before.
His body shook. He nearly fell to the ground, his knees breaking, but some invisible force held him. The purple mist began to move again. Slowly this time. Moderately.
As if the work was done. The light of the spheres around him faded, and the scenes within them faded one by one.
Ayes stood there, panting. Something inside him—
not moving, not speaking—but lingering.
He knew it wouldn't go away. It wasn't part of a dream.
It would stay with his. And right then, a terrible realization dawned on his —
He was no longer the Ayes he had been.There was no pain.But in that very moment the boundaries of his existence shifted.
It was not a feeling that could be felt with the body. It did not touch the bones, it did not reach the blood.
It happened at a level of existence—where people usually never look.
It was not a memory. Not a scene, not a past.
It was—a concept.
A kind of fundamental knowledge of time, which could not be learned, which could not be explained. It just woke up. In his chest, just behind his heart, something slowly settled.
No pulse. No light.
Yet Ayes knew—it was there. A name floated deep into his consciousness,
Not a word—but like a truth.
Chrono Veil Pathway
Level 11 — Watcher of the First Tick
These words were not his own thoughts. He did not think them. They were—like the sky is the sky, like time is time. He felt—time had noticed him now.
Not friendship. Not enmity.
Not using. Not protecting.
Just—silently, mercilessly—observing. Just then, his surroundings changed. Countless fine lines floated through the void.Timelines.Some bright—
full of potential, simple, almost comfortable. Some broken—as if the future had already died there.
And some—which made his chest feel heavy just looking at them,
as if he hadn't yet had the right to see them.
Ayes realized—he couldn't control them.
Not yet. He could only watch.
A silent warning was etched deep into his consciousness. Not in words, but in meaning. "This is not power. This is the stage before it becomes power. This is—the beginning." The purple mist slowly began to thin. The stars went out one by one, as if the stage lights were being lowered.
The void was silent again. Ayes stood there panting.
His heartbeat was the same as before, but the rhythm was no longer the same.
He knew—from this moment on, time was no longer neutral for him.
He knew—every decision he made, every hesitation, every fear—would leave a mark somewhere.
And that was it —
The purple fog suddenly stopped being as calm as before.
It wasn't a storm, it wasn't an explosion. It was—a sign of losing structure.
Ayes didn't hear the sound at first. He felt it.
The energy that had been lingering in his chest vibrated slightly. This vibration wasn't energy—
It was a warning. The layers of fog, which had been floating steadily for so long,
now began to slowly move incoherently with each other.
As if trying to stay in the same place for more than one time—
but couldn't.
"What's happening…?"
Chiara stopped suddenly.
In front of her was the canvas, the paint still wet.
She felt it right then—the light in the room seemed to be moving a step late.
As she raised her hand, she saw that the shadow of her finger was falling back differently than usual.
Then— Suddenly
The walls of the room were no longer walls.
Everything slowly melted into the purple fog.
Chiara's chest heaved.
She saw—she was floating. There was no ground under her feet, no sky above her head.
Just an endless purple fog,
with countless tiny lights shining inside—some soft, some heavy, some uncomfortable to look at. Chiara noticed it first.
She saw—the light and shadow inside the fog didn't match.
Even though she was standing in the same place, the scenes were changing in her eyes a second later.
Funch was standing in his laboratory.
On the table were spread glass instruments, calculation paper, and a strange metal ball—through which light was spinning.
He realized right then—his instruments weren't keeping up with time.
The clock was stuck.
Then the air in the lab became heavy.
A purple glow swept over the glass.
Before Funch could say anything—the world collapsed. He was no longer on the floor. He was floating.
Just like Chiara—in a boundless fog.
"It's… breaking?"
He said uncertainly.
Funch still didn't say anything.
Not panic in his eyes—
but confused analysis.
He was watching—
the floating particles of light in the fog suddenly forgetting their position. Some light was falling down, but there was no "down." Some light was rising up, but there was no "up."
The most terrifying aspect of this place was here—here, direction depended on time.
Ayes understood why the fog was breaking.
This purple fog was not a normal place. It was a temporary intermediate layer—
a thin curtain formed between time and reality.
Chiara saw Ayes first.
His figure was blurred, his face was unclear—as if he could change it if he moved his eyes.
Funch floated beside him.
Both of them were silent.
Before speaking, they both felt the same thing—
Here, meaning is more powerful than words. Ayes herself was surprised.
She didn't pull them—but time took center stage with her presence.
"Where is…?" Chiara whispered first.
Funch surveyed the surroundings, trying to analyze out of habit—but she couldn't grasp any formula, any rule.
Ayes spoke slowly. Her voice was quiet, but heavy.
The purple mist moved.
The light blurred. But the problem was—Ayes was new.
Immature. She was "holding" the mist unconsciously, not intentionally.
And now—three conscious beings were present here at once.
Three different time signatures.
The weight of three different realities.
This level wasn't ready to withstand so much pressure.
The purple fog is so ready to break—
because it knows—
Chiara suddenly touched a piece of fog with her hand. The scene changed twice around her finger. Once—her present. Once—an unknown future, where she was not sitting in front of the canvas.
She pulled her hand away in horror.
"I… I saw something else," her voice trembled.
Funch understood then—"This place is not stable," she said slowly.
"If it breaks… we may not return to the same place.
Maybe not even at the same time."
Ayes closed her eyes.