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<11/30/2012 - ??:?? | Location Unknown>

Not too many days passed after I brought myself down from the guilt of looking through time. After begging and pleading to God for these visions of the future to stop, I grew hopeful that I would never see another premonition again. What I didn't count on, were the strong demons we create inside ourselves, dooming our very nature of stability.

When I woke to a pitch black world devoid of any activity, I knew I was in some kind of dream or another. The infinite black space around me was cold to the touch, thankfully not cold enough for me to freeze where I stood. Instead of floating without gravity, some solid surface was beneath me, though I had no source of light to see anything, no source of sound to hear anyone.

The empty dream went on like this for a few minutes. The longer I stayed here cluelessly trying to figure out why I would dream of nothingness, the more I felt on edge and afraid. Not much in the world scares me anymore, but the new world around me was the embodiment of the unknown, a mystery that all people fear. Was I really asleep, lucid dreaming in a world with no data? Or was I awake, transported to a place outside of time and space, banished here for my recent sins of interfering with some kind of plan? Regardless, I needed to have answers before long, less I be driven to madness by the never-ending silence and isolation of the void. "Where the hell am I? What kind of place is this?" Just as I tried walking a few steps forward in the pure darkness, a foot shuffling noise in front of me echoed everywhere, until I heard a voice not of my own.

"You're in the place where all moments of time connect."

"Who said that?" My heart was beating a drum solo in my chest, still unable to see anything despite how close this mysterious woman sounded. I thought I would be thrilled to find somebody in this void, but her mystic reply only made me wary and nervous.

The woman snapped her fingers in the dark, invoking a magic unknown to me which immediately lit the space around us, while allowing me to hear beyond the range this pillar. When she let me see where I was, I wasn't prepared to deal with the haunting reality before me. "Take a look for yourself Reed."

I had no choice but to take my time absorbing all of the sights around me. The woman who snapped her fingers allowed for the infinite space around us to become completely visible, with additional light sources pouring out of oddly shaped obsidian pillars floating through the space. I couldn't contemplate where I was; it was a place unlike any I've ever seen before. The space around us was surrounded by disconnected segments of floating rocky pillars without any particular pattern, angled all the way in one massive cylinder surrounding this universe. The distance between us and those walls had to be a few light-years, and they slowly rotated in synch, sliding around the imaginary cylindrical shape of endless space. I could also see what was beyond the cracks, openings, or broken patterns of the floating obsidian stones, pockets of warped space postulated with vast distant stars.

As I turned around behind me, I realized I was standing on one of the floating obsidian islands, the kind that didn't move with the outer layer of the superstructure. There were other islands as well, but there were also oddly shaped segments of pure energy zooming by the central space in this loosely confined area. The zigzagging segments and patterns of glowing lines were pouring out from a central gaseous sphere of glowing blue light, a star too strong to gaze at directly without being blinded. I only had more questions than I did answers.

The moving segments of energy felt more important than anything else here, and I could hear their high-pitch wines of light-speed travel through the central area, heading on throughout a distance without end. The lines all coming from the glowing sphere of quantum fusion were all flowing in a singular direction, but each line had its own unique shape, its unique set of linear arrangements. Some light segments warped and sped forward with greater acceleration than some others. The collective noise of them all passing by sounded so incredible, the ocean of energy sending waves to my small little shore of floating obsidian stones.

Clearly, I was in some kind of incredible dream. It was harder for me not to panic given what little I knew about the situation, and to the fact that I felt more lucid than I normally would while dreaming. This place, whatever it is must be somewhere in the depths of the deepest pockets of the cosmos, allowing me to breathe despite the lack of air and low-gravity environment.

"Breathtaking, isn't it?"

I had no words to describe this incredible place. The stranger beside me sure wasn't kidding about the breathtaking sights around us. All of this felt impossible, yet I also felt like I was really here. "Where exactly is this place? And who are you?"

The short woman didn't delay in giving me some kind of answer, but it was only as confusing as the last. "My name is Series, though my designation is irrelevant." She spoke directly to me just now, gazing through my eyes with certainty. "While it is unexpected, you've awakened in the entropic center of possibility. Right now, your consciousness is sustained in a place we call, the nexus of time."

The Nexus of Time? Yeah, I must have watched one too many sci-fi shows this month. Series sounded so confident in her answer though, and she wouldn't take her eyes off me. I had too many questions about this place to care. "If I'm really in the nexus of time, am I to assume that all those flying glowing segments of light are moments of passing time?"

"You are correct."

I winced ever so slightly, expecting some kind of argument or correction from Series before an affirmation to the obvious. "And I'm guessing the time gate is somewhere nearby?"

Tilting her head in confusion, Series went for a different tangent. "Time gate? Your assumption of the significance of this place is wrong. There is no possibility of chronicle relocation or time travel. The nexus of time connects our eyes to moments of time yet to pass, our role to extract data from each critical segment for interpretation."

She sure is a weirdo. I didn't want to ask Series to elaborate on the crazy things she was saying; I only understood half of it. "If you say so."

"You doubt our very existence, even after our power has been proven to you back in your physical world?"

My eye brows creased when she said that, opening me up to the reason this person bothered me most. She wasn't acting like some kind of NPC of a dream world, strange as she was. Does Series realize that I'm aware of my dreaming?

"We're both aware of the fact that your physical body is currently sound asleep in your room, while your conscious connects this place through your dream."

"No way!" I finally realized it with her admission, that she somehow knew I wasn't really awake. If this fake person knows that I'm having a lucid dream, what else does she know? "How do you know that I'm dreaming right now?"

"You've wrongfully assumed what the role of dreams serve. They are altered states of consciousness, normally incapable of penetrating an invisible barrier to interact with different dimensional zones of our world. The imagination itself is but a reflection of a place outside a certain existence, real, yet isolated by the boundaries that keep the universe and individual realties stable. Through your dreams, it is possible to momentarily venture into these other worlds. Your very decision on interpretive perceptions determines the synchronization of our consciousness to any specific reality."

She sounds like a super genius, but I clearly don't understand a word she is saying right now. "You lost me at the very beginning."

"There is no need to worry. Your understanding of perspective reality is not essential to fulfill the role for which you were brought here."

"I was brought here? Who brought me here?"

Again, twisting her curious and confused expression, Series spoke to me like I was a clueless kid. "Why you did. All of us were brought here to analyze time and continue the cycle."

"All of us?" I didn't want to jump to conclusions, but I quickly got the sense that this simulation of a person standing before me was not alone. She wasn't an NPC, but she wasn't human either, not if she could exist in this nexus of time beside myself. "Are there other people here?"

Series turned to the edge of the stone, ensuring to be careful not to fall off. She turned her directional gaze to another floating island beneath us some distance away, one with its own weaker source of light, and pointed. "See for yourself."

I took her up on the offer, standing carefully not to fall off the dark stones I stood on. At first, I could only see some of the floating obsidian island in the distance as Series pointed to it, but after enough time, I realized I suddenly had full control over my own distant eyesight and range of hearing. On demand, I could visually zoom onto any direction I wanted, in or out with very little effort of desire. As I did, I started to hear the voices and whispers of a few more people in the vicinity, especially the voice of the person lying flat on her back on that specific island. What I saw made no sense. What I heard opened my mind to new fears I had yet to develop. Whatever this place was, it was no dream. This could only be classified as my worst nightmare.

The girl I zoomed in on was of the exact same body, size, and face as the woman standing beside me, a perfect clone of Series isolated to her own floating island. As I focused on the clone's presence, I could hear the faint whispering chants all the way from here, despite knowing it would normally be impossible to hear her at such range. "Premonition zero-zero-seven, vector coordinates confirmed, chronic span isolated for data conversion, end stream... Premonition zero-zero-eight, vector coordinates confirmed, chronic span isolated for data conversion, end stream... Premonition zero-zero-nine—"

I tried to stop hearing her just to process what this all meant, but the bad feeling in my gut only intensified as I dared not to guess what kind of place this was. Before I could put anything together, my eyes caught the shape of another person in the distance of another floating obsidian island. As I focused on yet another clone and her similar chanting, I gradually became aware of the dozens of additional copies all around us, until a dozen became a hundred, until a hundred became a thousand, and so on. Without much ability to control it, hundreds of voices of each clone of Series started flooding in from all the various directions around us; I could not block it out so easily.

"Premonition 037, vector coordinates confirmed—"

"Premonition 084, vector coordinates confirmed, chronic span—"

"Premonition 041, chronic span isolated for data conversion—"

"End stream. Premonition 125—"

"Premonition 146—"

"Premonition 454—"

"Premonition 193—"

"Premonition 10854—"

"Premonition 645—"

"Premonition 3231—"

"Premonition 914—"

"Premonition 1302—"

I held my head and covered my ears to make their resonating whispers stop. Each of their voices stacked on top of each other in random sequence, clouding up my mind with their chanting. I was too horrified by my logical deductions of their words to accept what I was seeing or hearing. They're reading out premonitions left and right, analyzing time, destroying time in the process. "What in God's name is this?" I turned my focus on Series, luckily regaining some self-control when I managed to temporarily ignore the bouncing voices. "Why are there thousands of you plugging into the timeline? What are all of them doing?"

"You already know what they are doing. While your abilities have yet to fully awaken in understanding, the essence of your perceptions maintains such a high level of analytic potential far exceeding normal boundaries most would not conceive of. We're doing what you've already done, five times in perspective to the chronic location you come from. They are invoking the powers you've developed for yourself, reading premonitions of the future and storing that information for future use."

It felt like every organ in my body sank from heavy gravity, though I knew it was only the sickening feeling of all becoming horrible. Thousands of forbidden sins were being committed here. Whether this was really happening or was only part of a dream, I couldn't just sit by and let it happen. Before I could speak to my senses however, I still felt stunned at the prospect that several thousand clone copies of this creep were somehow reading the future of time like this. I was just as floored to hear Series reference my own personal experiences with premonitions, to state that I had exactly five of them. This person is aware of everything regarding myself in the real world, and that's scary when there are thousands of them. "Well tell them to stop! Don't you see they're damaging the timeline beyond repair?"

Though Series was surprised by my reaction, she didn't appear interested in taking orders from my demands. "Your reaction makes little sense. The timeline is incapable of being damaged. If you are instead referring to the fluctuated changes in the future for each recorded premonition, I fail to see why this consequence would bother you."

"You idiot!" I yelled after taking an aggressive step in her direction. "Of course it bothers me! We aren't supposed to know the future like this. If we foresee something bad, we can avoid it. But if we see something good, the future observed also gets destroyed or changed even if we want to take it back." I recently learned this truth the hard way, after destroying a favorable future not only pertaining to myself, but of two other people as well. I may never be able to atone for the damage I've caused, but I'll be damned if anyone will start inflicting the same pain on the previous timeline.

"Whether you react to a future you've seen is a choice left entirely up to your free will. The purpose of our observations is purely for data analysis. It is the embodiment of endless premonition power, to see the fates of time, no matter who, where, or when the data pertains to. My role here is not a mistake; it is the formation of reality that you have wished upon yourself."

"I never wished for the power to see into the future. You're absolutely crazy to insinuate that."

"You have forgotten, so I shall remind you." Series started to scare me with her words and body language, but then she did something else I didn't expect to be possible. "Invoke premonition, negative 125049398, vector coordinates confirmed! Chronic span isolated for data conversion. Open stream!" Once her chant was over with, a sudden portal of energy in a horizontal vortex spawned nearby us, just off the edge of the floating cliff we stood on. Within this huge vortex, the light inside began to change and warp, until the particles all formed a perfect mirror of perceptual playback.

The portal was openly viewing a moment of time for me to observe in the flesh, but it wasn't a moment into the future Series invoked. This memory of mine was part of a more distant past, back when I was starting my eighth grade of middle school. As I rewatched the events of my past on playback, I could hear the noise of the environment watching myself in a third person perspective, while also hearing my own internal thoughts at the same time from beyond the depths of the linked portal.

My past self sat silently to himself, alone with his thoughts, his worries so focused on the future of a particular moment, a moment I've referred to before as priority number one. I racked my brain for hours without talking to anybody, trying to worry about the exact means of how I would get to such a future. I asked myself, how would I sustain my own living when I move up north? What kind of job would I have? What kind of house would I have? Would that job pay enough for me to make ends meet, or will I sink into the depressive phase of poverty designed by the rat race?

All of the little questions I used to ask kept bottling up inside me, kept festering until my background worry overloaded my mind beyond any comfort. It was in that moment that I wished for a second miracle. I already had the first miracle of meeting Lumina, but I wanted more afterwards. I wanted to be more certain of everything I would do before committing to any action. Even more recently, I've been behaving this way; shooting down any potential idea for the benefit of my future, so long as I was not 100% certain it was a solid plan or course of action. So, I wished for a new miracle, the desire to be certain what course of action would occur far ahead of my current moment on the chronological continuum. I wanted to be sure that any action I took would prove to be fruitful, would prove to get me where I wanted to go. In essence, I wanted to know whether or not I would succeed given my best efforts and faith. I wanted to be sure what would happen in the distant future before setting myself up to try. I wanted the ability to confirm what would happen ten years from now before ever reaching that point, so that I could alter my course as necessary.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Watching the memory of my own past thoughts, I knew my heart was in the right place, my desires most pure and focused on the happiness of myself and Lumina. Yet somehow, despite being impossible for wishes to magically be granted, this one started to come true. After Series was sure I recalled everything correctly, she closed the portal with few words, causing the moment to vanish.

The realization that I caused this, having inflicted a power more cursed than ever onto myself made me too sick to stand, the painful butterflies in my stomach locking me in place. "How is this possible? I don't understand how this can happen!"

"This is happening because deep down, you wanted this to happen. I said it before. Your imaginative powers far exceed the potential of any normal construct. This alone would not be enough to alter reality, change possibilities, or connect segmented states of existence. However, there is an anomaly of luck surrounding you."

"I sure ain't feeling lucky right now!" I could barely hold myself back. I wanted all of this to end. This place, this nexus of time and all of these clones of Series reading segments of time must be the very reason why I'm able to experience premonitions in the first place!

"Further back through time, you silently wished for a bigger miracle, the ability to make deeper connections with someone meaningful, the desire to not be alone, and the desire to make others happy in the process. Your experience with the purge and Lumina could have been imagined, but the events that played out happened to perfect reality instead. The chances of the existence of any person is not high, less so for a species such as the Altiri. The chances of Lumina finding you through clairvoyance were much less so, and the chances of her choosing to purge you would have been impossible if even the smallest detail prior to the moment were different. After all this time, you've also experienced the impossible luck of dedicating real premonitions to your state of mind."

I couldn't speak for a moment, hearing the words from her mouth. I don't know how Series knew about Lumina, or how she was as certain as I was that Lumina is part of reality and not imagination, so I continued to listen.

"Before Lumina purged you, you have held onto a particular power that most others do not have. This power hides behind the manifestation of a more potent and hyperactive imagination ability of the brain, but in truth, it is a partial nexus between one state of reality and another. The reason you can look up into those stormy skies and feel another world passing by you, the reason you are so sure an afterlife exists without any empirical data to prove it, and the reason you experience montrums when thinking about alternate worlds, is because these altered worlds and other dimensions do actually exist. You have a soft sense for their existence, an ability to feel the presence of other realities and other worlds. The boundaries between these worlds makes it impossible for people to detect them, at least while in the state of the physical world, such as your body, or Lumina's Altiri body. Your senses partially penetrate these boundaries, not enough to experience them in full or to learn from them, but just enough to become aware of how infinite our shared existence really is."

I still couldn't comprehend a single word this person was telling me. I knew what she was referring to, but I couldn't make any sense of what she was trying to tell me. "That's enough out of you! You really think I would want to know everything? To know all as I am now would lead to pure madness. Even I understand something as complementary as that."

"Correct," she granted. "To have infinite knowledge of events of the future would likely plunge your conscious state into a manifestation of madness darker than the void you woke up to today. You claim to not desire knowledge of the future, yet here you are at the center of the nexus, present for the moment you wished upon yourself."

It was hard to be this angry with her when she was right. I did wish for this cursed ability on myself, never realizing it would actually happen. I never considered the consequences of peering through time, because I never thought having premonitions was possible. "There's a simple solution to all of this." I glanced all around me before I made myself clear, observing all of the countless islands with whispering clones of Series calculating data I wasn't aware of yet. "Let's shut this all down. I already know I want no further knowledge of the future."

"Your current wish is impossible to stop."

Angered by her refusal to cooperate, I held the girl's bare arms, shaking her until she complied without taking no for an answer. "Don't give me that load of crap! You're the one in charge of this insanity, are you not? I don't know what the hell you are, but you're going to do as I say. I refuse to have any more premonitions!"

Series didn't fight me, or react in any aggressive way to my physical contact. She stared at me with a blank emotionless expression on her face, though still puzzled by some lack of understanding. "Have you not figured out by now what we are? I only referred to myself in designation as Series in order to prevent early confusion through the explanations I knew I would be required to bestow upon you. My identity is not segmented from your own. My consciousness and my role here, including every clone of myself in this nexus is actually a part of you."

I gasped so strongly as to starve myself of oxygen, unable to believe what she was saying. "What are you saying?"

"My appearance is false, an identity unnecessary to understand the process. Reed? I am you, and you are me. This has always been how the subconscious mind works. Every other person out there on those nodes peeking through time represents another version of yourself, a version that is further ahead of time than your current chronicle location. The premonitions they are acquiring, and the numbers they are whispering are moments of yourself in the future, drawing on the same power to analyze and store data from time yet to pass."

With her explanation, the conception brought me to my knees. My thoughts accelerated too quickly for me to act anymore, and I held myself stuck in limbo to the secret of this nexus. Everything about this dream, everything about this world was both imaginary and real at the same time, each element a metaphor of my entropic destiny, my entropic doom. The woman I've been calling Series all this time has been a reflection of myself, my subconscious desires manifested as another person, a person who favors premonitions and meddling with the timeline. Each clone of this person out there was a clone of myself, representing moments yet to pass, moments of me interpreting more futures through premonition. The numbers I recalled earlier exceeded ten thousand! The idea of having even one more felt like a kick to the stomach, but thousands more? They're not random people meddling with the timeline; it's me. I'm the one who can't stop seeing into the future. I'm the one going out of control.

"There is still endpoint uncertainty in the premonition protocol you've developed for yourself."

"Shut up!" I didn't understand what she was saying, and I didn't care to. The perpetual hell flooded my fears, the hell of destroying over ten thousand future possibilities without the control to stop it.

Series didn't stop talking on my account. She wanted to explain something else that she found odd. "It was determined what your very arrival to this nexus, your awareness of it, your knowledge of this moment was not meant to be linked to any particular premonition scheduled for processing. This means that you are not supposed to be here. The fact that you are must be proof that you have a strong desire to stop experiencing premonitions altogether, a desire in equal strength as the wish that brought life to this existence."

"Are you saying I can stop this myself? I can shut all of this down if I wish for it hard enough?"

"Everyone has a choice to make, even though many choices are of unequal value." Series bent her knees, getting her face eye level with my own, and she held out her hand, expecting me to take it. "I can show you every location through the nexus, every moment already mapped out by future premonitions you have yet to experience. Reed, if you take my hand and come with me, I can show you the entire future as it pertains to yourself. You can absorb all of the knowledge of future premonitions in a single present moment, this moment. No other living creature in the entire universe has this opportunity. You can become a master of events to come, learn what will happen, and mold the timeline to your heart's desires. If you learn the future, you can change the future. And if you wish to change nothing, you may change nothing."

My eyes creased again to those words, meeting her gaze. I couldn't believe what she was offering me in the first place, a one-way trip to obtain knowledge of my entire future as opposed to a short segment or two. Her choices are either, learning everything now and change what I want, or gradually wait in idle, experiencing thousands of premonitions randomly throughout the rest of my life time. She's supposed to reflect a version of me, but I am no longer the same person.

With little thought, I slapped her hand away from my face, towering my emotions over this powerful entity. "Screw you! You're supposed to be me, huh? You claim to know all the same things I do, but you obviously haven't learned anything!" I was already screaming near the top of my lungs, angered by the way things were going. "You might be able to live with the consequences of destroying futures, as an older version of myself, but I vowed never to do it again."

"I do not understand your reasoning."

"Let me spell it out for you! Every single premonition that I've seen already came to pass in an altered chronicle stream, even when I desired no change to be made. It's impossible to see into the future and change nothing at the same time. Every tiny thought we have from learning the forbidden knowledge creates an alternate timeline alone. I don't care how small the effects are, they still differ!"

"You desired the ability to change an unfavorable future, but now you desire the opposite? If you were to take my hand right now, you would have no trouble with your personal project, priority number one; a life well spent with Lumina."

"Don't touch me you sicko!" There was no way this person used to be me. This manifestation of consciousness before me doesn't seem to grasp the concept of such consequences... Maybe it really is a version of me long past, the version who desired easy results without any thought for the cost. This version of me doesn't care about the possibility of ruining other futures on other people, because back then, I didn't care either; I never knew it could happen, so it was never a thought to begin with. This version of me is one who failed to think things through all the way, a version who forgot to be careful for what they wish for. If I take this person's hand and observe the entire timeline, there will be no going back from that, dream or no dream. It's the kind of knowledge that can bring death to the soul, knowledge that doesn't belong here with me, this me! "I'm not taking your hand. These premonitions, they end today! I'll build that future with Lumina without your help, using my own two hands! Shut them all down right now."

"I have no intention of shutting down the premonition chain that is yet to come."

Wrong answer! I didn't want to have to do this, but I guess I'm going to have to throw this woman off the edge of this stone. She might look like some random cute high school girl, but this embodiment of my past self has become an impossible monster. I slowly stepped closer, intimidating the girl until she understood how serious I was. "I'm not giving you that choice. If you don't tell your drones to shut this place down right now, I'll throw your ass into the void around us."

"I'm sorry to inform you that the properties of this world and myself will not allow damage to be inflicted from an action so simple as what you've threatened."

"Are you trying to tell me you can't die? I think I should test that first before you get so bold."

Series didn't defend herself, though I delayed putting my hands near her, especially since her emotionless face kept me in enough suspense to fear what she might be capable of. "You and I are an existing contradiction. You're desire to shut down the premonition project within your own mind directly opposes your previous desire to bring this place into current existence, a desire that I myself am made of. I am therefore unable to stop the process that is already in progress through the nexus of time."

I balled up my fist, thinking about the lengths I would have to go through to get my way. I've never-ever once hit a girl, nor have I ever been in a position where I had to hurt somebody for the greater good. Even if this is a dream world, even if this place is simulated, and even if this woman is actually just a simulation of my past self with a different appearance, it was much harder than I expected to convince myself to take any violent actions. "I'm the one in control here, not you."

"Both processes are true," she replied in monotone. "Your very decisions and choices are powerful. As of now, your desire to destroy this construct equals the desire of the wish that generated this personal nexus. As a result, the choice to shut the nexus down lies only in your hands, not mine."

"What are you babbling on about now?"

"You wish for this zone's destruction, yet you ask the wrong person to carry it out. The nexus belongs to both versions of us, you and me. You have the power right now to delete this place from existence, to shut down this fate that would empower you. However, if you do delete this place, I may be allowed to restore it."

It was hard for me to follow along with her logic when she was giving me information I could use against her. Was she trying to deter me from shutting the nexus down with her threat of rebuilding it, or was she simply stating the fact that I could control more than I thought I could in my own lucid dream? It's never worked before, but I've never been as determined as I was now to fix my own mess. I let my gaze wonder back to the heart of the nexus, giving life to more segments of time only to be analyzed by future versions of myself if this place remains alive. I let myself smirk after realizing the brilliance of my own certainty. "You would rebuild this place huh? Then I guess, when I delete the nexus from my thoughts, I'll have to delete you along with it. I refuse to give any more power this this nexus, or to you, the mistaken version of myself."

"If you desire this world's destruction, so much that I would be unable to rebuild it, made possible by forsaking me so much, then I will be unable to rebuild the nexus."

"That's the idea, punk."

"I await your decision."

Seconds passed in silence, while I just stood there puzzled by her reaction. "You're not mad about what I'm about to do? You're not going to try and stop me?"

"My role has nothing to do with the person you've become. I'm still here, which means you have not entirely made up your mind just yet. You should know, that if you seriously turn your back on this nexus and on me, there will be no second generations. My formation was a one-time manifestation of a moment already passed, granted existence by a very rare occurrence of wishful powers brought on by this anomaly of luck around you; it isn't likely to ever happen again if you succeed. It would be impossible for additional premonitions to occur after the sixth if you make the choice you've been leaning on."

I get it now. She either doesn't care that I could end her, or is powerless to stop me. If it's because she doesn't care, then it means that old version of myself was more robot than human, focused only on the ability to see through time instead of questioning what I would really want. "I declare this nexus of time bullshit done and over with. Series? I forsake you, and I disown you. You are no longer part of me beyond a shadow memory. I refuse to experience any additional premonitions. That is my final answer. And don't try to weasel out of it somehow, because if I see one more vision of the future, I will find way to re-enter this place and kill you."

"Very well." Series still didn't seem to fight back in any manner, as if she accepted what would come.

At the same time, the entire world around us began to fall apart, quickly fading out of existence bit by bit. The speed of the fading was so fast, I knew it would only take less than a minute before nothing remains, including Series. I was glad to see wishing for this world's end was all I had to do in granting my wish.

"There's one more factor you should be aware of while I'm being deleted."

"What's that?" This better not be some kind of trick.

"Due to spacial phase out between this nexus and a point between two segments of time, you will experience one more premonition after this dream ends."

"How? I thought I shut this place down!"

"You have," she confirmed. "The nexus is degenerating, and nothing can stop it. However, premonition 006 has a chronicle delay factor after this current moment for residual quantum span entanglement. While it will be the last premonition you see, it is not something you can avoid witnessing."

That's why she said it would be impossible for more to occur after the sixth. Premonition 006 must be something I can't avoid no matter what. It better not be like the last one I had. If I'm lucky, I shouldn't have a single vision of the future after this is over. "I meant what I said earlier. If the visions don't stop, I'm coming back in here after you. I'm serious about my choice. I don't ever want to see another premonition again!"

"After premonition 006 triggers, your ability to invoke further premonitions will be impossible. Your will to dismantle the very nature of this ability exceeds my desire that brought this world into existence. That is why I am powerless to stop it. Though I wonder... Can this new version of you really survive what is to come?"

"You're seconds away from becoming nothing. You're riddles don't scare me."

"My intention is not to scare. I wanted to understand how you will accomplish your heart's greatest desire, when you no longer have the means to be certain you will achieve it." With that, Series faded from head to toe in only two seconds, her existence wiped away with the rest of the world around me.

For the brief moment I had remaining before I would be ejected from the void sucking up everything, I let her harsh words dig into me. Given how I've felt recently and what I said earlier, I knew I was right to not invoke powers that would let me confirm with total certainty that my future goals would come true, since there would be the risk of my behaviors leading up to that moment changing as a result. However, as it pertained directly to my heart's ultimate desire, living a life on Earth free from the blazing summers keeping us apart, not knowing how to get to that point forced me to rely on something weaker than psychic powers; faith.

Can I really live like this? Can I be okay with relying on luck to reach the future that I want, knowing there is an uncertain chance it won't ever happen no matter how much I want it? I want to be sure that I'll be able to live a happy life ten years from now or less, but I cannot be certain. It's better not to know the future. At the same time, if I don't know what's going to happen, how can I ensure I make a good life for myself? What if something I can't see ahead crashes into my plans, stopping me in my place while I drown in the despair that would follow?

I left the strange world knowing what was best for me where it came to premonitions. Now I was left wondering what I should do, if I'm to assume the many harsh factors of life will claw away at my faith, and tear down the tower of time I'm trying to build. I can't be happy if I know what's going to happen beforehand. At the same time, I can't be happy not knowing for sure if all I'm doing is enough, if everything I'm doing is worth it. I was relieved to shut down the premonition factory inside my own mind, but I wasn't happy. I now have to wonder, stranded among my own oceanic thoughts, how will I accomplish priority number one, and live with Lumina happily ever after?