Time's Risk: Tor's Rebellion

I stood on the rocks overlooking the ocean. It had been three years since the collapse, but here it was. The water was still black and toxic, but there was no mistaking the view.

I had been born in a city like this, but that was long ago. I had spent my first sixteen years with my parents in this place, before they died from radiation poisoning, and I had spent the next thirty years at an underground lab, like some kind of experiment. Only now did I have enough courage to return.

"What do you think?" Pyr asked. He came up beside me and placed his hand on my shoulder. "You've seen it before."

I glanced to him and nodded. "It's... just like I remember," I said slowly. "The lights... they're still on." Even after all this time, the lights were still on in every building standing along the shoreline.

"It's a waste of electricity," Tor scoffed as he strode toward us from the rovers parked nearby. "They should turn off the power at least." There was a hint of irritation in his voice, but even after all these years, I could still detect his nervousness by how quickly his hands moved back and forth in front of him when he spoke. "We don't know what will happen if we touch them," he had told me once during training sessions back at Pyr's lab. "We can't simply knock down buildings again or move things around like we used to do at Chicago," he continued sadly, shaking his head as if he remembered something he didn't want to speak about out loud.

Pyr turned to face Tor and placed a gentle hand on his shoulder as well, rubbing him softly with his thumb as he looked into his eyes deeply. "Yes, dear," Pyr said calmly to him soothingly before turning back to face me again and giving me another reassuring smile. "These people weren't ready for what we brought them, but we have to try again," he said determinedly as he turned back to look at the city that sat before us on the water's edge. "Time travel is real now," he whispered reverently as he gazed out over the blackened city skyline before us through narrowed eyes, squinting almost as if seeing something else there beyond what we could see with our own eyes.