They immediately rushed forward. Elliot ran as if his life depended on it, never faltering for a moment. It seemed the ground moved to meet every step Elliot took. Jack lagged behind slightly, as he had to avoid the occasional projectile and deal with some uneven surfaces. Around them, time fractured, walls bent like soft wax, and shadows danced without light.
Eventually they got too far apart and Elliot lost his footing, faceplanting into the ground. He held his head and screamed in agony as if his soul was burning.
"Elliot!" Jack yelled, catching up to him. "You need to stay close! You can't go too far or else you'll be hurt."
Elliot got back up and slowed his pace, now they were running side by side.
One of the cultists looked up. They had no facial features, no mouth, no nose, no eyes. But Jack could feel that they were aware of everything.
The cultist stood up and pointed at them. A few of the cultists turned to look at them.
"We are so done for!" Elliot moaned. "Is this how I'll die, running towards chaos like an idiot?"
"This isn't how you'll die," jack reassured him. "This is how you'll live!"
Jack braced himself, closing his eyes just for a moment before letting out a yell.
"Ahh!" he shouted as he barreled into the closest cultist, knocking them over.
Elliot followed his lead, knocking over the cultist next to him. For a moment, no one made a move.
"So, uh, what now?" Elliot asked Jack, sounding concerned.
"Honestly, I thought disrupting the ritual would have solved the problem." Jack told him, looking around worriedly as most of the cultists began walking towards them.
"We're going to die," Elliot said fearfully as he got up and stood next to Jack. "We're going to die a fool's death because we got too caught up in the moment."
But as Jack stood in the circle full of impossible geometric shapes, something seemed to click in his mind.
"None of this makes sense." He muttered over and over again. The cultists were still walking over, all unhurried as if they had all the time in the world. Without even noticing, he took out his journal and began writing. He felt as if he was in a trance, his hand moving without his input. He wrote about the broadcast, the cultists' appearances, and the circle. As he did, the circle seemed to lose its vibrancy.
"The signal falters. The voices stagger. The ritual is imperfect. The world is mundane."
But the cultists still seemed relaxed, as if none of this mattered. As if it was all expected. He kept writing and the world kept stabilizing, but it was too slow. They'd get to him before he could do anything.
"Need any help?" he heard an unfamiliar voice yell out. He was jostled out of his trance, his red pen slipping out of his hand. Jack and Elliot looked around in search of the voice.
In the direction they'd come from, they saw a woman of around thirty. Behind her was a balding man who showed no emotion on his face, almost seeming bored.
Before Jack or Elliot could say anything, the lady's hands began to glow a bright red for a few seconds before her body became engulfed in fire.
She ran over towards them, with the man trailing behind casually. The cultists didn't react, moving as casually as they had before.
She quickly made it over to the circle and began pummeling the cultists.
"You know, usually these paradox buffoons speak a bit more," she said jokingly mid battle, though it felt more like a one-sided slaughter. "Usually they talk about chaos or change or even just curse at me. But this just feels like bullying."
"Look out!" The balding man suddenly reacted as if he'd been stung, pointing to the aging cultist. "They're going to activate it!"
Without even questioning him, the woman ran towards the cultist.
"It does not matter what we say or do," A cultist, the one who was shifting ages constantly, responded. "Our mission has been completed, and with it our lives."
As he said that, the circle seemed to glow even brighter. All Jack's efforts had been for naught.
"No!" the woman yelled as she lunged forward. But she was too late.
The world erupted in light, blinding him, and all Jack could hear was the cackling of the cultist and screams of agony from an unknown source.
He felt someone bump into him, most likely Elliot. They tried to grab onto him, before he felt their arms go limp. Merely a few seconds later, Jack followed suit, falling to the ground as his vision darkened.
"Hey, time for you to wake up." Jack heard a voice tell him as he slowly came to.
His eyes slowly opened and he took in his surroundings. He was in what looked to be an interrogation room, the kind you'd see on the posters around town. The ones that's warned people of the consequences if they were found working with the Aitral Sovereignty. He never thought he'd be in such a situation.
"What's going on?" he asked, still feeling disoriented.
"That's what we'd like to know." The voice told him. He looked up and saw a man in his sixties with greying hair look at him.
"Are you the government?" Jack asked him. Maybe they could help fix everything.
"I work for them." The man replied. "Now, tell me how you and your friend managed to sneak past multiple sets of Concordant guards and find the ritual before we did."
"We got lucky, I guess." Jack told him. "I'm sorry, but can you tell me what's going on here. I'm really confused."
"What's going on here, is that you boys are the only people from that town left. And we want to know why." The man said.
"The only ones left?" Jack started to feel panic rising in his chest. Sure, he'd only lived in the town for a few months, but he didn't want anyone to die! "But can't you reverse it all? Elliot's fine now!"
"I'm sorry, but we can't. That ritual you saw was meant to create a town sized paradox. That entire area has been wiped off the map and we're working overtime to make people forget it ever existed." The man said, no emotion in his voice as he delivered the crushing news. "They aren't officially dead. They're in a state of flux. But for all intents and purposes, everyone from the town is no longer alive."
"They can't be dead!" Jack pleaded with the world. His voice suddenly took on a monotone quality as words spilled out in a strange, mechanical manner. "Everyone was fine. There was no paradox."
"And that's another thing. You two seem to be concordant." The man leaned forward into Jack's face. "You're nothing impressive, just a low-level narrative anchor. But it makes me wonder why we didn't have a dossier of you."
"Because I couldn't do this stuff!" Jack cried. "I don't know what's going on!"
"Oh, but it seems you do." The man pulled Jack's journal from his coat pocket. "You wrote down the circle and described the broadcast. Now, it could just be another aspect of your abilities, but it made the higher-ups suspicious."
"You've got the wrong guy!" Jack yelled. "I'm just an intern!"
The man looked at him for a moment before turning to the door and knocking. In came a woman about Jack's age. She had a large smile on her face, as if this whole thing was just a joke.
"Johanna, if you could calm this man down, that'd be much appreciated."
"Of course, Arthur." Johanna replied.
Johanna just continued smiling as if she'd heard a funny joke before locking eyes with Jack. Suddenly, everything felt insignificant. Why bother stressing out or lying? None of this truly mattered anyway.
"Thank you Johanna," Arthur dismissed her with a wave. "Now, where were we?"
"Oh yes, I'd like to know how you and your friend managed to survive." Arthur continued.
"Well, when the broadcast cam on, I felt like I was loosing my mind. But then everything suddenly felt fine. I could comprehend the paradox. And when I touched Elliot and tried to tell him everything was all fine, my voice got weird. But then he became calmer too." Jack said casually. "Then we went to the station and we needed to sneak in, so Elliot made a door. Then we needed a distraction for the guards, so Elliot made the carpet set on fire. And then we got in the room and saw the circle, and- "
"I believe that's enough," Arthur interrupted him, his eyes glowing a sickly yellow. A sheet of paper appeared to slowly materialize in his hands. "I've made your dossiers to turn in."
"I sure hope you're telling the truth." He leaned close to Jack. "Because if there's one thing I'm good at, it's finding a paper trail. And depending on what I turn in, that trail can either end in ink… or blood."