For a moment, nothing happened. Then, a low hum resonated from the device, vibrating through his arm and into his chest. A faint, blue light emanated from the seams of the brass housing, growing brighter until it illuminated the snow around him.
"Just a few more minutes," Elian whispered to himself, his fingers tracing the cold metal of the casing. 440-2838-008.jpg
He checked the central display of his chronometer. The digital readouts glowed a soft, steady white. The main counter read 10:10:30, and the secondary display below it held steady at 03. He breathed a sigh of relief; the timeline was holding, and the temporal rift was stabilizing exactly as he had calculated. For a moment, nothing happened
He looked up at the sky. The stars were beginning to emerge, but they were not the familiar constellations he knew. They shifted and danced, a visual manifestation of the temporal instability in this region. He needed to activate the stabilizer before the rift widened any further. "Just a few more minutes," Elian whispered to