The ship could no longer move.
Held in place by unseen forces, it floated like an insect trapped in amber. Outside the viewport, the Cradle's organic-mechanical shell slowly peeled open, revealing an entry path lined with shifting hexagonal membranes. The crew didn't speak. Not because they were afraid—because the Cradle had entered their minds.
Sairaj's eyes flicked, then froze.
He whispered,
> "I saw my childhood. Then… it faded."
Ravi clutched the sides of his seat, face pale.
> "It's stealing our memories. One by one."
> "Then we move fast," Ishan commanded, strapping on the neural extraction device. "Get the relic. Get out. That's it."
The five exited into the Cradle.
Inside was a cathedral of broken logic.
Hallways bent in impossible directions. Sound was visible. Light whispered. Each step forward cost them something—a name, a face, a moment. Yet the relic pulsed ahead, calling them. A silver core suspended in liquid time.
Pulse reached it first.
> "Let's finish this," he said, touching the relic.
The world exploded.
---
They stood in a circle—on Earth. In a lab that no longer existed. Wearing coats. Smiling.
Younger. Whole.
It was the day they discovered the fold equation.
A memory.
No—a test.
The Cradle was showing them who they were, and what they could have been.
> "You gave up everything for freedom," said a voice. Not Elara. Not the Cradle. The voice of the Fold itself.
> "Now choose: Take the relic—and erase your identities forever. Or leave it—and remember who you were."
Ishan looked at the others. He remembered now: they had never wanted to be thieves. They were scientists who just wanted to rewrite limits. The universe had punished them for their ambition—and the only path they found left was crime.
Ravi stepped back.
> "We can't keep stealing time. It's eating us."
Pulse dropped his gaze.
> "We steal because they took our future."
Vian looked at Ishan.
> "One last call. Do we vanish, or begin again?"
Ishan walked forward and touched the relic.
Everything froze.
He made his choice.
---
The vault on Arkon-9 opened months later. Empty. No relic. No trace of the crew. No fold signal. Not even Elara knew what happened.
Some say they folded into the deep future—beyond time's reach.
Others believe they rewrote themselves into different lives, scattered across galaxies.
A few whisper they became part of the Cradle, guardians of the stolen moments.
But none were ever seen again.
Only a single message appeared once in FoldNet, tagged in quantum code:
> "We didn't steal time. We gave it back."