Chapter 2 – The Day the Town Breathed Again
Duskfield, Summer 2005
Elian stood frozen on the cracked sidewalk, blinking against the sharp sunlight that seemed to drape the whole town in a golden haze. The air smelled different here — sweet, like freshly cut grass and warm pavement. He reached up and rubbed his eyes, but the world didn't change.
This was not his Duskfield. Not the one he'd left behind. This was younger, fresher — like a painting before the cracks appeared.
Down the street, a group of kids laughed and chased each other, their voices clear and full of hope. One of them had a shock of curly black hair, a boy about Elian's age with a bright smile and an energy that made Elian ache with a strange longing.
Elian swallowed hard. He wanted to run — to hide — but something held him rooted to the spot.
He took a shaky step forward, then another.
He passed the corner store, where a tall man in a white apron waved cheerfully at a woman carrying a basket. The woman looked familiar — younger, yes, but unmistakably his mother.
Her laugh was light and free. She waved at the man and then turned, walking with a bounce in her step toward the schoolyard.
Elian's heart pounded. There was no mistaking the way she looked at the boy with the curly hair — his father — young, vibrant, and full of life, holding her hand as if the world would never break.
He wanted to call out. To warn them about the storms that would come, the secrets that would tear them apart.
But his voice caught in his throat.
The sky was bluer here, the clouds softer. Birds soared without care.
Elian's footsteps took him down the street to the small park where a fountain bubbled, and children played beneath towering oak trees.
He sat on a bench and pulled out his phone — but it was dead. Not surprising; the device was from 2025, and he was clearly far from that time.
Instead, he looked around, trying to make sense of the memories flooding his mind.
He wasn't just seeing a version of the past. He was inside it.
A figure approached: a boy about Elian's age, with dark curls and wide, curious eyes. His smile was bright and open — the kind of smile that invites you to belong.
"Hey," the boy said. "You're new here, right?"
Elian nodded, unsure how to answer.
"I'm Micah. Micah Hart. You?"
His voice was warm, familiar, but there was something odd about it — a spark Elian couldn't place.
"E-Elian," he said finally.
Micah grinned. "Come on. I'll show you around. It's not often we get new kids in Duskfield."
As they walked, Micah pointed out the sights: the school, the library, the old movie theater, the ice cream shop where everyone knew your name.
Elian felt a strange comfort in the way Micah talked — like they shared a secret no one else could understand.
At the edge of town stood a weathered house with ivy creeping up its walls. Micah stopped and looked back at Elian.
"This is where I live. Mom and Dad and… my sister too."
Elian nodded, trying not to let his breath catch.
He recognized the house. It was the one he knew — but alive again, like a heartbeat brought back to life.
As they stepped inside, the smell of old wood and vanilla filled the air.
"Elian," Micah said, "I've been waiting for you."
The words sent a chill down Elian's spine.
Waiting for him? But how?
That night, Elian lay in a bed that wasn't his, in a room filled with posters he didn't recognize, and felt the weight of something vast and unseen pressing down.
He was no longer just a visitor.
He was part of a story that had been waiting for him all along.