The Collapse and the Void

"Arthur!" Elara screamed, racing after him.

The wind hit her like a physical wall, knocking her back onto the snowy steps of the dormitory. She didn't have her coat. She didn't care. The "Iron Maiden" was dead. The anxious girl who hid from danger was gone, burned away by a love so fierce it defied the boundaries of time.

She forced herself up, fighting through the thigh-deep snow, following the deep, rapid footprints Arthur was leaving behind.

The night was pitch black, illuminated only by the faint, eerie glow of the ice reflecting the scattered campus gas lamps. The storm had reached its terrifying peak. The roar of the wind was deafening, sounding like a chorus of screaming banshees.

Ahead of her, looming in the darkness, was the massive, gothic silhouette of the central clock tower.

Arthur had already reached the heavy oak doors at the base. He was kicking them open, screaming into the darkness. "Get out! The roof is failing! Move, move, move!"

Students began pouring out of the basement, terrified and disoriented, clutching blankets and coughing. Arthur stood by the door, physically hauling the slower boys out into the snow, acting as a human shield against the wind.

Elara was fifty yards away, fighting through a massive snowdrift. "Arthur!" she shrieked, her voice tearing her throat.

Above them, the sky seemed to groan.

It was a terrifying, foundational sound. The massive load-bearing arch on the southern wall of the tower snapped with a sound like a cannon firing.

The masonry gave way.

"Arthur, run!" Elara screamed.

Arthur pushed the last two freshmen out into the snow, shoving them hard to the ground away from the blast zone. He turned to run, his hazel eyes finding Elara in the darkness. He smiled at her. A brief, beautiful, tragic smile.

Hundreds of tons of stone, ice, and copper collapsed.

The earth shook violently. A massive cloud of white dust and snow exploded outward. The stone crushed the entryway, burying the heavy oak doors and the space where Arthur had just been standing.

"NO!" Elara roared, lunging forward, reaching out her hand toward the rubble.

Simultaneously, the magic of the pocket watch sitting in her sweater pocket violently snapped. The timeline had righted itself. The fixed point had occurred. The anomaly was no longer tolerated.

A blinding flash of violet light consumed Elara.

The freezing wind vanished. The roar of the collapsing stone was silenced.

Elara hit the ground hard.

She opened her eyes, gasping for air in the sudden, silent warmth. The smell of woodsmoke and snow was gone, replaced by the sterile scent of old paper and dust. The harsh, fluorescent glare of the battery-powered lantern blinded her.

She was back in the modern-day archives. The concrete walls were intact. Outside, the muffled sound of the present-day blizzard raged on, a pale shadow of the 1899 storm.

She was alone.

Elara collapsed onto the cold concrete floor, curling into a ball as a wave of absolute, soul-crushing agony ripped through her chest. She screamed, a ragged, guttural sound of pure heartbreak. She had watched him die. History had played out exactly as the books said it would. She had traveled across a century only to be a helpless observer to his execution.

All hope was lost. She was back in the safety of her cage, and the only man who had ever made her want to leave it was buried under a hundred years of rubble.