The Chronarch's enforcers cornered them in a collapsed library, its shelves spilling books like broken dreams. Tylor faced his future self, rage and despair colliding. "Why?" he demanded. The Chronarch's eyes softened briefly. "I lost everything—Amaira, Kayla, you. I used the machine to fix it, but every change made it worse. Now I stabilize time, no matter the cost."
Kayla stepped forward, her voice fierce. "You're not him yet, Tylor. You don't have to be." Her dreams, she revealed, weren't random—her mother, a scientist in the Chronos Collective, had worked with Tylor's mother, passing down memories through time fractures. Kayla's connection gave her glimpses of this future, a warning to stop it.
Amaira, trembling but defiant, held up the journal. "Mom's stabilizer can close the fractures," she said, pointing to a final diagram. "But it'll destroy the machine." Tylor hesitated, the weight of erasing their past—possibly their present—crushing him. The Chronarch lunged, his device humming, but Kayla tackled him, giving Tylor time to reach the stabilizer's core in the machine's wreckage.
As fractures tore the sky, Tylor activated the stabilizer, its light blinding. The Chronarch screamed, fading into nothingness. The world shimmered, and they landed back in their attic, the machine now ash. Amaira hugged Tylor, her warmth real. Kayla's hand found his, her eyes steady. "We're still here," she said, but the journal lay open, its final page glowing with new coordinates. The fractures were sealed, but the Chronos Collective's shadow loomed, promising new battles. For now, Tylor held his family close, choosing hope over the darkness he'd seen.