Chapter 23: The Chronos Carousel
EXT. THE MULTIVERSE – BEYOND TIME
The void churned with a screaming cacophony of billions upon millions of overlapping realities. Rudy, Quibble, Stix, and Carrie drifted through a kaleidoscope of existence that defied human comprehension. They were supposed to be hunting the "Crown of Aeons," but the pursuit of gold felt hollow when one was literally stepping over the sparking embers of a hundred dying Big Bangs.
"Oh my gooood. This is mind-numbing," Stix groaned, his boots connecting with a floating nebula that hissed like steam. "We’ve spent the last three hours in twelve dimensions where gravity behaves like a confused toddler and one where the entire population was nothing but sentient, screaming loaves of sourdough!"
"The treasure is nearby," Carrie chirped, though her smile was strained and her eyes reflected the terrifying infinite. "At least, it's in one of these timelines. Maybe the one we just passed? Or the one that hasn't happened yet?"
Quibble turned to Rudy, his jester’s bells jingling in the non-air. "Rudy, you have the tactical mind of a god and the hands of a master clockmaker. Why are we trekking through the cosmic mud? Can you build a Time Machine for us honey?”
Rudy didn't blink. The "Fate Magnet" within her hummed—a low, rhythmic vibration that pulsed in her marrow. She reached into her oversized pockets and produced a disparate collection of junk: a toaster with googly eyes, a rusted bicycle chain, and a jagged, glowing crystal fragment scavenged from the sourdough realm. Also a small spring.
Her hands became a blur. It went beyond engineering as a violent reshaping of matter. In under ten seconds, the junk was stripped, bent, and fused.
CLANK! WHIRR! CRACKLE!
A sleek, brass-and-chrome sphere sat before them, venting blue ions that smelled of ozone and ancient paper.
"Ditch the fucking crown," Stix said, hauling himself into the cramped cockpit. "Let’s go see some real history!”
EXT. LONDON – 1888
The machine groaned as it tore through the fabric of the 19th century, depositing them into a London alleyway so narrow the walls felt like they were closing in. It was midnight, yet the air was thick with a cloying, metallic stench—coal smoke mixed with the raw, iron scent of fresh blood.
The silence was broken by a sound that made Rudy’s skin crawl: birds. Thousands of them, hidden in the eaves and chimneys, were chirping in a frantic, high-pitched frenzy that didn't belong in the dark.
"This vibe is... very foul," Quibble whispered. He clutched his rubber chicken as if it were a holy relic. Skully the Skull (the one Quibble always carries) grew jealous. The shadows in the alleyway seemed to have weight, stretching toward them like elongated, hungry fingers.
"I'm not staying here," Rudy said, her face pale. "Move it seventeen years forward."
EXT. THE CITY – 1905
The dial spun, and the world dissolved into a blur of sepia and grey. When they emerged, the horror had shifted from the supernatural to the industrial. It was 1905, and the city was a grinding machine of human misery.
The scene was gruesome. Children with hollow eyes and skin stained black by soot worked under massive, rusted gears that hissed with scalding, lethal steam. A worker stumbled near them, his arm caught in a belt, but there was no scream, only the wet, crunching sound of bone being pulverized into powder before the machine kept turning. The sky was a bruised, chemical purple, and the air tasted of rot and grease.
"Rudy?? I’m scared! You can take us back," Carrie gasped, covering her mouth as she saw a cart of "refuse" that looked far too much like human remains. "Way back! Before the machines!"
EXT. PREHISTORIC EARTH – 66,002,026 BCE
The machine shrieked, its internal components glowing white-hot as it plummeted through millions of years. They landed on a lush, terrifyingly green cliffside. Below them, a herd of titanosaurs let out low, mournful bellows that shook the very ground.
Rudy: “Wait—Dinosaurs don’t roa—“
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In the sky, a second sun had appeared. A massive asteroid, trailing a tail of fire that turned the horizon into a blinding sheet of white, was descending. The heat began to prickle their skin.
"Should we stop it?" Stix asked. For once, his voice lacked its usual bite. He looked down at the prehistoric giants, innocent and doomed. "We have the machine. We could knock it off course! Save everything."
"Leave it," Rudy said flatly, her gaze fixed on the falling star. "Don't mess with the timeline. It won't matter anyway. If they or we die, the system—Time itself—just resets. Reincarnation starts the loop again. It’s all a pre-written script in this stupid novel."
EXT. EUROPEAN BATTLEFIELD – 1756
The machine leaped again, landing in the mud of 1756. They were in the throat of the Seven Years' War. It was a symphony of butcher-shop horrors. Bloodshed soaked the grass and churned the earth into a crimson mire. They watched, invisible and nauseated, as a bayonet charge met a line of infantry. The sound was a horrific medley of iron sliding through meat, the wet thud of limbs being severed, and the gutteral screams of men being mauled. A cannonball skipped across the field, obliterating a row of soldiers into a spray of red mist and jagged bone fragments.
But on a high, grassy hill overlooking the slaughter, a man stood alone. He wore a long-sleeved button-down shirt with a loose necktie, tucked into high-waisted baggy shorts with a bold-buckled belt. Dark socks disappeared into sturdy boots, and a white glove covered his left hand. Thick ginger curls framed his freckled face, highlighting his large, expressive eyes. His face—the sharp jaw, the piercing eyes—was an exact mirror of Rudy’s.
"Y’all need to sit down!" the man’s voice roared, cutting through the thunder of the cannons. "All this fighting… and for what? Dirt? Titles? You’re turning Earth into a trash fire!"
Stix gaped. "Rudy? Is that your... relative?"
"An ancestor," Carrie whispered.
The carnage below actually faltered. Men stopped mid-swing, their faces dazed and splattered with the lifeblood of their enemies. Two commanders, JEREMIAH and FELIX, lowered their gore-streaked sabers in unison.
"…He’s got a point," they muttered, the madness of the bloodlust finally breaking.
The fighting ceased. History rippled. The gang watched as the soldiers began to clear the bodies, not into mass graves, but for a settlement. They named it "Happy Town."
Rudy’s chest tightened. "I have to talk to him."
She leaped from the machine before Quibble could grab her. Quibble, panicked, scrambled after her. But as they hit the ground, the Time Machine emitted a violent, dying SPARK. The brass frame buckled, and it vanished in a flash of unstable blue light.
"Oh shit," Stix said, staring at the empty patch of mud where their ticket home had been.
EXT. THE CEMETERY – LATER
Rudy tracked the man—Zane Volkov—to a quiet grove of trees far from the new construction. He stood before a weathered headstone: ANNE VOLKOV WATSON.
He spoke to the stone with an intimacy that made Rudy feel like an intruder. "I saved them today, Anne. But it’s never enough. They’ll forget. They always forget. I just wish you could see what it becomes. I wish you could see the girl who carries our name..."
His words hit Rudy with the force of a physical blow. He wasn't just talking to a ghost; he was reaching through the centuries to her. A wave of profound grief and a strange, quiet happiness washed over her. Quibble stepped up beside her, silently placing a hand on her shoulder.
She turned away, tears pricking her eyes. She left the grove without ever saying a word to him. Some meetings were too heavy for the present.
EXT. THE HILLSIDE – MOMENTS LATER:
As Rudy and Quibble retreated, the air behind Zane froze, turning into a brittle, grey static. PENTUIS appeared, his form flickering like a corrupted broadcast, his hourglass hat tilted at a rakish angle. Zane spun around, his hand flying to the hilt of his sword, his face contorting in terror.
"Who are you?" Zane demanded.
"A fan of the future," Pentuis purred, his voice a chorus of a thousand clocks ticking at once.
"I have a deal, Zane. Give me your soul. Give me your mind! In exchange, I will gift your bloodline the Fate Magnet."
Zane narrowed his eyes. "Huh? What is that?"
"A cosmic force," Pentuis explained, pacing through the air. "It flows across all dimensions and timelines, like a grain and a ripple intertwined. It reshapes causality itself. Your ancestors will have infinite luck that defies godhood. They will never truly stay dead. One day, one of them—perhaps a girl with your very eyes—will gain control over the cycle of life and death. And then… she can destroy all of existence for me—Uh! I mean, she can help me save all of existence!”
Zane looked at his scarred hands, then back at the grave of his beloved. He was hesitant, the weight of a thousand years pressing on his shoulders. "I… I need time to think."
"Time is the one thing I have plenty of," Pentuis smiled, his teeth like rows of ivory sundials. He vanished into a rift of black light. The clouds disappeared as he did.
EXT. HAPPY TOWN – 2002
Rudy and Quibble reunited with a frantic Stix and Carrie near the town center.
"The machine! It’s gone! We’re stuck in the 1700s!" Carrie was hysterical.
Rudy didn't look bothered. She simply reached out with both hands, her fingers catching on the invisible seams of reality. With a guttural grunt, she torn the air open. A shimmering rift in Space-Time appeared, showing the familiar neon signs and paved roads of 2002.
"Let's go," she said.
They stepped through and found themselves in front of a pizza parlor. The sun was setting, the air smelling of grease and normalcy.
"That was… a lot," Stix said, grabbing a pepperoni slice five minutes later. "Can we just be normal people for an hour?"
"Agreed," Rudy said. But as she took a bite, she froze. A sudden, violent shift in reality vibrated through her teeth. Somewhere, in a different eon, she felt a presence—someone attacking across the fabric of time, striking at her very existence.
She sighed, felt the warmth of the pizza, and ignored it. The horror could wait for Chapter 24.
Zora: “Wait, what happened to the plot of Chapter 21–?“
Shut up, I’m the Narrator, girl!
<< THE END OF CHAPTER 23 >>
(Flashback)
