We didn't talk about the glow on Ambrose's hands the next morning.
It wasn't denial. It was exhaustion. The kind of tired that seeps into your bones, that whispers, "Don't ask questions you're not ready to answer." And maybe we weren't ready. Not yet.
But something had changed.
Jacob became quieter than usual. Bobby scribbled endlessly in his journals, comparing hand-drawn schematics with real-world coordinates. Ambrose... Ambrose cracked fewer jokes. That scared me more than anything.
"I think it's time," I said after breakfast. The air was thick with silence, the kind that falls right before a decision.
Bobby looked up. "You sure?"
I nodded. "We've been playing it safe. But we need to go back in. The longer we wait, the more distorted this place becomes."
Jacob finally spoke. "We just got anchored again. You want to break that already?"
"I don't think we ever anchored," Bobby muttered. "Not really. Not if the forest still remembers other versions of us."
That afternoon, we returned to the node.
The clearing was the same. The circle of stone. The shimmer in the air, like light bending around an idea that hadn't yet taken form.
Ambrose stood near the edge and flexed his fingers. No glow. Not now.
"You think it'll work the same?" Jacob asked.
"It never works the same," Bobby said. "But it always works."
We stepped through together.
The moment we entered, the pressure hit. A low, dense gravity that made each breath feel like a commitment.
Shapes moved at the edge of vision. Not creatures. Memories. Echoes.
I saw a younger version of myself walking alongside Anita. Holding hands. Laughing. He looked happy.
We moved deeper.
This time, the rift didn't throw us into chaos. It welcomed us. The path lit itself a few steps at a time, a corridor made from glowing trees and mist.
Bobby held his scanner like a talisman. "Energy's stable. Mostly."
Ambrose was the first to break the silence. "So... any bets on what version of hell we're walking into today?"
Jacob didn't even roll his eyes. "Just keep moving."
Time felt strange here. Not stretched or compressed, but folded. Like pages of a book being flipped through by an unseen hand.
We reached a new structure.
It wasn't a cottage or hut or cabin. It looked... modern. Glass and steel warped by time, covered in vines but humming with power.
"This isn't from our timeline," Bobby said immediately.
"No," I agreed. "But it might be from one of ours."
Inside, the air was warm. Machines lined the walls. Monitors blinked. Some displayed graphs, others a looping symbol—a spiral inside a circle.
Jacob pressed a hand to a screen. "What is this place?"
A voice answered.
Not Evelyn.
A voice from nowhere and everywhere at once: "Welcome back."
We froze.
"Did it just say back?" Ambrose asked.
"Yes," I said. And my throat was dry.
Then, from behind one of the glass panels, something stirred. A silhouette. Tall. Human. Familiar.
It was Evelyn.
Or someone who looked like her.
She stepped forward. Same face. Same voice. But colder.
"I told you the node found me," she said.
"What is this place?" Bobby asked.
She smiled faintly. "A sanctuary. A prison. A memory. Depending on which version of you is asking."
Jacob took a step forward. "What happened to the Evelyn who left with us?"
The smile faded. "She fulfilled her loop."
No one spoke for a long time.
Finally, I asked, "Why bring us back?"
Evelyn looked at me. Her eyes softened for just a moment.
"Because not all echoes fade. Some become the song."
Then she turned.
Walked into the shimmer.
And vanished.
Behind us, the portal pulsed.
Bobby checked his watch.
"Guys," he said. "Look at the time."
We had left an hour ago.
But Bobby's watch showed a date.
Two weeks earlier.
We hadn't returned to our time.
We had returned to our past.
But it wasn't just the date.
Outside the rift, things looked... slightly altered. The trees were thicker. Our cottage—still intact—but the porch had two extra chairs. The scratches on the front door were gone.
Jacob was the first to voice it. "This is the same place... but not the same time. Or maybe not the same version of it."
Ambrose turned his hands over. The glow returned briefly—faint, like embers from a dying fire.
"Guess I'm the team flashlight now," he muttered. "Or radioactive. Maybe I'll grow a second head."
No one laughed.
Bobby took out his scanner again, turning slow circles. "This timeline is smoother. Less energy distortion. Almost like... it's earlier in the sequence."
"Then why are we here?" Jacob asked.
"Maybe to stop something before it begins," I offered, but even I wasn't convinced.
The forest whispered around us. And behind my eyes, I could still see Evelyn. Not just her face. Her expression.
Not fear.
Resignation.
We returned to the cottage. It was untouched, but unfamiliar. Like staying in a replica of your home.
That night, none of us slept. And when dawn came, the siren finally returned—low, drawn out, like the wail of something ancient waking from slumber.
But Evelyn didn't return.
And I couldn't stop thinking about her final words:
"Some echoes become the song."
And I wondered:
Whose song are we trapped in now?