Fragments of Dawn

Kai stood on the precipice of something vast, something that stretched beyond the limits of his understanding. The power within him—the fragment embedded in his flesh—was no longer just a strange phenomenon he was burdened with. It was alive, an extension of something ancient, something dangerous.

And if he was going to master it, he had to stop fighting it and start listening.

The Keepers watched him as he steadied himself. The training chamber was unlike any place he had ever been. The walls pulsed with light, responding to the energy within the room. It was as if time itself was fluid here, shifting between moments, testing the limits of his perception.

The lead Keeper—who still had not given a name—stepped forward. His eyes, deep and unreadable, locked onto Kai’s.

“You are connected to the fabric of time, Kai Voss,” the Keeper said. “To wield it, you must first understand its weight.”

Kai exhaled, rolling his shoulders. “And how exactly do I do that?”

The Keeper gestured, and the room around them began to shift. The walls shimmered, the air crackled, and suddenly, the chamber dissolved.

Kai stumbled backward. The world around him was no longer the sanctuary of the Keepers—it was a battlefield. A city in ruin. Fires burned in the distance, and the screams of the desperate echoed through the night. The air was thick with dust, choking his lungs as he tried to process what was happening.

He knew this place.

It was Earth, but not as it was now. It was from the first days after the Moon’s destruction. The day everything changed.

A figure ran past him, a man clutching a child in his arms. Behind them, the ground cracked and split open as gravity twisted unnaturally, pulling debris into the sky. The very air seemed to be unraveling.

And then he saw himself

Kai stood frozen as he watched a past version of himself stagger through the chaos. His suit was torn, his face bloody, his breathing ragged. This was him—just moments after he had crashed back to Earth, after barely surviving the collapse of his mission.

“What is this?” Kai demanded, his voice shaking. “This isn’t real.”

“It is a memory,” the Keeper said, standing beside him. “But memory is not just a vision of the past. It is an anchor, a chain that binds us to the choices we’ve made.”

Kai clenched his fists. “Why are you showing me this?”

The Keeper extended a hand, and suddenly, the scene shifted again.

The past version of himself fell to his knees. In the distance, a woman cried out for help—a voice that Kai barely remembered but now sent a stab of pain through his chest.

He had been too weak to save her.

He had been too afraid.

And now, he was being forced to relive it.

Kai gritted his teeth, his heartbeat hammering against his ribs. “I already know what happened. I don’t need to see it again.”

The Keeper’s gaze bore into him. “Then change it.”

Kai’s breath caught. “What?”

The Keeper gestured to the fragment pulsing in Kai’s arm. “You have the power to rewrite the flow of time within a small radius. So do it.”

Kai hesitated. He had barely scratched the surface of what his power could do, and now they wanted him to alter something that had already happened?

He turned toward the scene. The past version of himself was still on his knees, too weak to move, too broken to act. The woman in the distance was about to die, just as she had before.

Kai’s heart pounded.

He extended his hand, focusing on the moment, the raw energy of time itself bending around him. His fragment pulsed in response.

And then the world fractured.

For an instant, everything froze. Time itself became a shattered pane of glass, fragments of reality suspended in midair. Kai gritted his teeth, pushing against the resistance. The air around him warped as his power fought to rewrite the past.

Then—suddenly—the woman moved.@@novelbin@@

She gasped, her body shifting slightly, as if fate itself was hesitating.

But then—

The force of time snapped back into place, violently rejecting Kai’s interference. A massive shockwave erupted, throwing him backward. He slammed into the ground, pain lancing through his skull.

When he opened his eyes, the battlefield was gone. The training chamber had returned. The Keepers stood around him, their expressions unreadable.

Kai’s breaths came in ragged gasps. His entire body ached, his vision blurred at the edges.

The Keeper crouched beside him. “Now you understand.”

Kai clenched his fists. “Why… couldn’t I change it?”

The Keeper studied him for a moment. “Because time is not a thread to be unraveled at will. It is a force, a will of its own. You are not yet strong enough to bend it without consequence.”

Kai gritted his teeth, frustration burning inside him. He had felt the shift, had seen the moment bend. It had almost worked.

But almost wasn’t enough.

The Keeper stood. “Your power is dangerous, Kai Voss. If you do not learn control, you will destroy more than you save.”

Kai pushed himself up, his muscles protesting. He met the Keeper’s gaze, fire burning behind his eyes. “Then I’ll learn. No matter what it takes.”

The Keeper studied him for a long moment, then gave a slow nod.

“Very well. Then let us begin again.”

As Kai continued his training, the world outside was shifting.

Far beyond the Keepers’ sanctuary, deep within the ruins of another city, a different force was moving.

A figure stood atop a collapsed skyscraper, the moonlight illuminating her silhouette. Ava.

Her eyes—now glowing with an eerie violet hue—gazed down at the city below, where dozens of figures in dark armor moved like shadows through the wreckage. A faction. A force rising from the ashes of the old world.

She extended her hand, and a fragment embedded in her palm pulsed with raw energy. The air around her distorted, space itself bending under her command.

She had become something else.

Something more.

And soon, the world would understand what that meant.