There are moments when you know something is wrong before you can explain why.
At first, it was easy to dismiss. A clock running a little fast. Another running a little slow. Small differences that shouldn't matter.
Except they weren't small anymore.
Two minutes.
Sometimes more.
And when time itself seems unable to agree with itself, you begin paying attention.
Ryze looks for patterns. That's what he does. He measures, compares, searches for the place where the numbers stop making sense. I watch him work and wonder whether he's trying to understand what's happening—or reassure himself that it can be understood.
I'm not sure which of us needs that reassurance more.
Because I keep thinking about my father.
Remember your light.
Athros said those words as though I should already understand them. Maybe somewhere inside me, I do.
The mechanism is still waiting. The Helios Ring is still missing. The sun keeps interfering with systems we once trusted to behave predictably.
And now the clocks are drifting.
Something is changing.
I can feel it.
Maybe instability isn't the problem itself.
Maybe it's the warning that something larger is coming.
— Shyne