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Sienna stepped into the trial chamber, a place that felt eerily familiar. The floor was made of smooth, dark stone, and the air seemed to hum with an invisible energy. This time, the chamber felt endless. There was no sky, no walls—just an infinite expanse of nothingness stretching out before her. She felt the familiar tug of gravity, the pull of her abilities, but something was different.
Before she could react, a shimmering clock appeared in the center of the room. It was not just any clock—it was suspended in the air, its hands ticking backwards, defying the normal flow of time. The sound of its ticking echoed loudly, each tick making the pressure in the room grow stronger.
The moment she focused on it, Sienna felt the weight of it all. The room began to warp around her. Shadows twisted, shapes flickered in and out of existence. Time felt unstable, slipping through her fingers like water. The clock's hands spun faster, creating waves of distortion that rippled across her surroundings.
Her thoughts raced. This is it. Time. I've always controlled gravity, but this… this feels different.
A voice boomed from the ether, a familiar presence that seemed to reverberate in her very bones.
"You control time, child. But do you understand it?"
The voice was distant, yet unmistakable. The voice of the Trialkeeper, the ancient being who guided the trial of the Eternis Clan.
"You have the power to bend time, to stretch it, to compress it, but can you withstand the weight of that power? Can you endure the trial of Echoes?"
Sienna's heart skipped a beat. Endure?
The world around her began to distort even further. The ticking of the clock grew louder, each second stretching out unnaturally, stretching and warping. As the clock's hands reversed, memories from her past began to appear—fragments of her life, her family, her training. They looped and repeated, distorting her perception of time.
Sienna watched in horror as she saw herself—a younger version—standing in the shadows of her family, never feeling truly seen, always trying to prove she was capable. She saw herself training under the harsh discipline of the clan, her powers not fully under control, her frustration building as the clock continued to spin backward.
Am I really just a child?
The trial didn't just bend time. It reversed it, pulling her into the past, into the moments where she had felt weakest, unsure, and unworthy. She saw her mother's disapproving gaze, her father's silent expectations. The pressure of the past suffocated her, and the ticking of the clock grew deafening.
Sienna stumbled backward, clutching her head as memories twisted and looped around her. The sensation of being trapped in time, unable to escape the endless cycle, filled her with panic.
But then, amidst the chaos, she felt it—the spark of clarity.
She could feel the threads of time around her. Time was hers to manipulate, hers to control. She could feel the pulse of her power. The clock didn't control her; she controlled it.
With a deep breath, Sienna focused, her tiny hands trembling as she reached out and touched the clock. Her control over gravity and time fused, her abilities intertwining as she slowed the flow of time around her. The ticking of the clock became a distant murmur. The distorted images of her past began to slow and fade, allowing her to see clearly.
Her eyes locked onto her reflection—her younger self—trapped in the loop. She reached out, and as she did, time responded, bending to her will. The loop fractured, splintering into fragments of memories that fell away into nothingness. The weight of the past no longer clung to her.
"You control time, but you must learn to let go of it when it no longer serves you," the Trialkeeper's voice echoed, softer now, as the room began to settle.
Sienna let the clock return to its natural flow. The past was behind her, and she could move forward. She had learned to wield her power, but more importantly, she had learned to release the grip time had on her emotions