Chapter 28: Shattered Lines
The sky over Central City was calm, a black velvet canvas pricked with stars. Streetlights flickered below, the hum of late-night life buzzing somewhere far from the quiet stillness of the Cortex rooftop.
Barry stood next to Dante, both silent, both staring upward as if the stars might give them answers.
Then Dante spoke.
"I know you went back in time once."
Barry turned to him, startled.
He hadn't told anyone. Not Cisco. Not Joe. Only one person had known—Harrison Wells. Or rather, the man pretending to be him.
"How do you know that?" Barry asked.
Dante didn't look at him. He just lit a cigarette, took a slow drag, and exhaled smoke into the cold night air.
"I felt it," he said simply. "The day that metahuman nearly drowned Central City. The one who manipulated tidal forces."
Barry remembered. That day, he'd pushed himself harder than ever before—so hard, he shattered the limits of speed and time. And for a fleeting moment, he had gone back. One day. Just one.
"It was like time cracked," Dante continued, eyes on the stars. "It wasn't a clean break—it was violent. I'm not a speedster like you or reverse flash. But I move through something else."
"The Void Force," Barry whispered.
Dante nodded. "And that day, time didn't just crack. It shattered around me. I felt like I was being dragged into a black hole. Next thing I know, I wake up a day in the past."
Barry's eyes widened.
"You time-traveled too?"
Dante nodded once, slow. "Not on purpose. And not like you. But it happened."
He paused before adding, "That's how I knew it was you. You were the only variable that made sense."
Barry exhaled, shaking his head. "Cisco ran a test on the blood we found at my house. Two samples. One was mine… but from the future. I guess that confirms it. I already went back once."
"And you didn't save her," Dante said softly.
Barry closed his eyes. "No. I didn't."
Silence stretched between them.
Then Dante asked, "You ever think about doing it again?"
Barry hesitated. "All the time."
Dante didn't answer. He didn't need to.
After a few more quiet seconds, he turned and walked back into the Cortex. Barry followed.
The room was quiet, with Cisco, Caitlin, and Joe gathered around monitors. They all looked up as Dante grabbed a pen and stood in front of the blackboard.
"I want to show you something," he said.
The room fell silent.
He drew a straight line.
"This," Dante said, "is our current timeline. This is the life we all know."
He marked a small dot along the line.
"This is where Nora Allen—Barry's mother—was killed. That moment created the Barry standing here now. The Flash. The man who carries this team."
He looked at Barry, then back at the board.
"Now," he continued, "let's say you go back. This time, you save her."
He drew a new line, branching off from the first at the point of the dot.
"This is a new timeline. One where your mother lives. Where your father isn't in prison. Where you have a normal, happy life."
He looked over his shoulder.
"But what do you think happens to you—this Barry?"
Barry frowned. "I guess I'd keep living. Just in that new world."
Dante shook his head.
"No. You won't."
He circled the space between the old and new timelines. "You don't belong in that world. Not the way you are now."
Caitlin stepped forward. "Wait—what does that mean?"
Dante looked at them all. "Your body would remain. But your memories? Your speed? Everything that makes you The Flash? Gone."
Cisco's face twisted. "Like… overwritten?"
"Exactly," Dante said. "In that new timeline, you never became the Flash. You never met us. Never fought Reverse-Flash. Never saved Central City."
He pointed to Barry. "You wouldn't exist as you. Just as the boy who grew up with his parents. A new Barry Allen. A different life."
Barry stared at the board, the lines, the possibilities.
Joe finally spoke. "But he'd have his mom. His dad."
"And he'd lose everything else," Dante said. "All his victories. All his pain. His friends. The person he is now."
The room went quiet again.
Barry's heart pounded. "So… if I save her… I die?"
Dante looked at him.
"Not your body. But everything inside you. Everything you've built. It dissolves."
Barry looked at Caitlin, then Cisco, then Joe.
All the laughter, the near-deaths, the wins and losses. Iris. Wally. Ralph. All the people who looked up to him. All the people who stood beside him.
Gone.
He clenched his fists. "Then why does the future me do it anyway?"
Dante studied him.
"Because sometimes, pain makes us do irrational things. Even if we know the cost."
Barry leaned against the console, the weight of it all pressing down on his shoulders.
Cisco rubbed his face. "So what do we do now? We stop Barry from going back?"
Dante shook his head. "No. We prepare him for the choice."
Joe stepped forward. "You don't have to do this, Barry. You're not alone. We can carry this pain together."
Barry nodded slowly, his eyes misty.
But Dante wasn't done.
He turned to the board and added one more line.
A jagged, fractured path leading off the second timeline.
"And if you do go back and try to change things again," he said quietly, "you don't get a third chance. That's when everything starts to break. That's when time becomes unstable. And when that happens…"
He looked at them all.
"You won't just lose yourself. You'll lose everything."
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