January 14, 2019, before noon.

When I close my eyes to reach for my facet, the headache is immediate, but also less pronounced. Something has improved but I'm unable to determine what.

Even though I used it to enter my time freeze, this is the first time I've actively interacted with my facet. My facet has a very different feeling about it compared to mana. It's less direct. Where mana has immediate potential, facet feels tied to space, time and perspective. At least that's the information I get when I spend focus on it. I'm unable to get it to trigger a proper notification, but I suppose that's enough to work with.

I have two ideas about where to start. The first is my health. Since my regen has been set to zero something about my dissonance must be affecting it. My other idea is my clock. I'm hesitant to start with my clock because the headache I got from focusing on it was so bad. It had hurt as much as breaking the barrier had. So, my health is my preferred starting point.

Directing my attention, plus a little bit of my facet, to where my health is indicated on my status, I try to perceive a link. I mean there should be a link, right? After all, every sensor needs some way to communicate with the readout. Even if it's a single thread or frequency.

After focusing on my health for over a minute I'm able to differentiate an underlying pulse. It seems to be travelling from wherever my status exists, moving back and forth to my body. Following the pulse, I watch as it contacts my body. The pulse stretches from the outer edge of my skin to the center of each of my organs. As I inspect my "health" I realize it's a holistic network. To weaken it anywhere weakens it everywhere. But this is what allows it to shield me as well.

While inspecting my health this way, it's apparent there's static. The signal isn't getting through clearly. The source lies both in my physical body, more specifically my head, and simultaneously in my other space, the clock.

It's more than just causing the static, it's continually wearing at the web that is my health. This, in turn, is preventing it from regenerating.

Doesn't seem like I'm going to be able to escape dealing with the clock, but I wonder if there's anything I can do to prepare myself.

I go back to my earlier attempt to create a shield spell. I may not be able to create a shield outside my body, but maybe I can create one within. Even if I'm not able to restore my clock, if I can create a buffer between my clock and my health network, maybe I can at least get my health regen back.

Bringing up my notebook, I start doodling ideas for different ways to create an internal shield.

My first thought is to wrap the clock in a cocoon but I've no idea how to shape that. While I'm getting better at manipulating mana, my runes haven't exactly grown in scope much since my first three. Maybe I should just try creating a protective barrier using the circle rune, but inside my body. What if I try one of the other runes? I've got fifteen unknown runes I copied down from the stone. Opening my pages from before, I start flipping through them, searching for a rune that might work. I come up with two runes that feel like they could be the answer.

The first is the Q shaped rune that I unlocked mana manipulation with. The second is a rune that reminds me of a corkscrew but in two dimensions. Though the more I look at it, the more I realize that's not quite right. It resembles a corkscrew, but it also appears as if there's more going on.

….

Is it rotating?

….

No, but shifting my perspective I realize the rune is three dimensional.

Runes don't have to be flat. It seems so obvious, but I can't believe I didn't think of it. How did I copy this down without noticing that? I mean, I wasn't paying that much attention at the time, but I should have noticed this. On the plus side, this might be the solution to my shield spell problem.

Moving my focus back outside my body, I create the shield construct I was struggling with. But this time I create a tether that runs perpendicular to the rest of the circle. Holding it in place, I direct my mana into it with an intent to create a barrier. The spell succeeds immediately, and I'm greeted by a pair of familiar notifications.

"Skill increased: Mana Manipulation (13)."

"Spell discovered: Small Shield Barrier (1). Would you like to make this one of your preferred spells? Y/N?"

"Yes," I say to the system as I inspect my new shield. It's as translucent as my non-elemental pierce spell but feels more solid. It's larger than I'd originally been planning, about a meter in diameter. But that's okay. It should be much easier to defend with a shield this size. I have a couple of thoughts to improve the spell already, but I have a more important matter to address first. With my shield spell successfully complete, I return my focus inward, hopeful that I'll be able to make a similar breakthrough with my dissonance.

The next step is to try manifesting my shield between my health and my clock, but I'm not entirely sure how to do that. If creating my shield spell required me to think in three dimensions, this feels like it requires me to think in five.

I suppose I could try to think in four dimensions first. Time is the only fourth dimension I can think of, so when I try casting the shield internally, I picture the shield as not just appearing now, it's also forming in the past and in the future. While I feel like this must be the right track nothing special happens. I can tell that I manifested the shield, but it's outside my body.

Continuing on, I try several more variations of casting my shield inside my body. I have one partial success where I manage to create a shield between my body and the other space. I try to make it small enough to only block the clock. But I'm unable to change the size intuitively, so when it appears it's not just blocking my clock, it's also blocking access to my entire interface including my facet, health, stamina, mana and focus. Luckily, the barrier disperses itself after a minute so my connection to my mana returns.

I just about decide to stop after losing my connection to my mana. As silly as it may seem, I feel as though I could live without health and facet at this point, but I don't know if I'll ever be able to go without mana again.

But as my papa would say, setbacks are part of life, you never get anywhere if you quit, so I continue. Cautiously. I bring the shield into existence outside my body so I can inspect it to make changes. The first thing I try is adjusting the size by reducing the amount of mana I'm supplying the spell. Instead of getting smaller as I'd intended, the shield becomes less solid. When I try pumping more mana in, the shield not only becomes more solid, additional decorative details start to appear. The most noticeable being metal banding and wood grained slats. While cool, I stop supplying it mana for the moment but make a note to investigate the strange behaviour later.

Trying a different tactic, I make the rune smaller which translates to a smaller and closer shield, which is basically what I need. Bringing my new knowledge into my other space, I place a much smaller shield between my clock and everything else. This time it doesn't cut everything off, but it's still not helping with the clock.

It seems like I'm either going to have to wrap the clock up or I'm going to have to address the damage.

Keeping the internal shield in place to hopefully reduce the pain, I brace myself as I send my thoughts and facet towards the clock. The shield seems to work, as although there's pain, it's much less intense. It's also possible I've recovered, which would mean my shield is doing nothing. I'm not keen on investigating why the pain has diminished. It's enough to know it has.

Inspecting my clock reveals that the damage is not only pervasive, its messy. There's a lot of associations with my memories, but the clock is assigning the same timeframe to several different memories at once. It's also assigning several timeframes to the same memory.

For example, I know that it wasn't October 13, 3020 or June 2, 1852, when I came home from swinging in the park with my father on the day of the great storm. It had been a sunny morning just before returning to school, so I'm pretty sure it was August, maybe September. Since my father was still there, it had to have been at least nine years ago. Plus, you know, both of those are the wrong freaking century! Clearing away all the timeframes that don't make sense, I'm left with August 29, 2010. Each change costs me facet but once I'm done the memory feels better, more pristine.

I'm about to continue cleaning up when a glimpse of my father's face draws me into the memory. It's strange, but watching it like this, I swear everything is clearer than it should be.

As my young eyes look around, I note there's a strange calm in the air, the kind which only happens before a powerful storm. The joy in my papa's eyes as he picks me up then spins me around is something I haven't seen in a long time.

More than I have in years, I'm reminded of my father's love. Here, in this moment, he's still the strong healthy man I remember.

There's no sign of what's going to happen to him at Christmas. And why would there be? As the memory continues, we talk about the storm as chill air flows around my hand.

He tells me that during a storm is the best time to find peace. "Because nothing and no one likes being outside in a storm," he would say. "Everyone wants to take shelter. So, if you're prepared and have shelter, then a storm is simply a reminder of everything you've accomplished. There ain't nothing to do but let it pass."

My memory continues as we walk into our yard, my father carrying me on his shoulders. Partway back I started dragging my heels to get him to pick me up. It worked just like it always did. Even if there was more of an "umph" than there used to be when I was younger.

But my time with my papa is cut short as mother comes out, demanding to know why we were outside and don't we know that she needs to be downtown so my father had better drive her now (even though she had her own vehicle so could easily have driven herself).

Giving me a quick hug, my papa didn't even question my mother as he sent me upstairs then told me to be good while he was gone.

As they drove away, I climbed out the window of my bedroom onto our roof to watch the storm come in. Even as the lightning crashed down and the thunder rolled across the skies, I kept my watch, waiting for papa to return.

Eventually, the sky unleashed hail and sleet so I was forced to retreat inside. I lay in my bed, dreaming of peace while visions of lightning and echoes of thunder lulled me to sleep, the sound and feeling familiar like an old blanket.

I didn't see papa until the next morning.

Wow, that was way more vivid than I remember.

It had been like I was reliving it for a second time. Though this time I knew my mother was going downtown to gamble, while my papa was trapped there with her by the storm.

I think the pain coming from the clock has decreased, but it's still pretty strong. That's the only memory I've cleaned up though, so I start working through more.

The next memory I come across is me and my cousins, Thomas and Alex (yes, I have a cousin named Alex, that's why I go by Lex or Lexi) hanging out near the lake by my auntie Sharon's place. This was only a few years ago when mom realized she'd never been to China so she really needed to go. There may have been a man involved, in fact, I'm sure there was, but I never met him.

Before I knew it, I was spending a semester with my cousins in the Rocky Mountains. It was one of the better periods of my life after the ugly tree incident. I got along well with Thomas who was my age while Alex treated me much better than he treated his little brother. Uncle John wasn't around much as he was always working, but he seemed nice when he was there.

Auntie Sharon even offered to keep me around when my mom got back, but my mother said something about family welfare so she dragged me back to our leaky apartment in the rainy city. Even as I finish clearing out the, oh so wrong, timeframes, I once more get drawn into the memory, near the end of my stay.

Mom had just called auntie Sharon to tell her she was on her way to pick me up, so auntie had come to find me with a cup of peppermint tea. I was playing pool in the basement with Alex, Thomas and their best friend, who was also my secret crush, Joseph.

Auntie Sharon took me aside before telling me my mother was coming back so I had to go home. After crying into her shoulder while sobbing out that I didn't want to leave, auntie Sharon took me by the shoulders then looked me in the eyes, "sweetie, I'd let you stay if I could, but she's your mother. If your father were still around, things might be different. But listen, if you ever need me, just call. I'll be there for you every way I can."

Then she pulled me closer again, holding me until I stopped crying.

When mom finally showed up the whole family was home to say goodbye. Uncle John even pulled out the barbecue saying they couldn't send me off hungry now could they.

I called her every week after that, though I haven't been calling her as often lately. She'd lived up to her promise the few times I'd needed her though. If things hadn't worked out at home, I know she would've done something to help.

I wish I could call her to tell her I'm okay.

The next memory I tackle is from my time at space camp. I ended up going because mom had met a guy, who knew a guy, that ran the camp, so she ended up dating him for a couple months. I knew it wasn't going to work out because he seemed like a pretty good guy. I was right of course, but at least I got to go to space camp. That's where I met my best friend Sab_733N, or "just Sab" when we get together in "meatspace" as she calls it.

We met during a rocket workshop where we were paired together making a model of the famous Saturn V rocket. Sab was super excited to be making the rocket, but then, she loved everything about the camp. She spent most of the workshop telling me about how it was the biggest rocket humans have ever built and it was super awesome because it's the only rocket that has taken people beyond low Earth orbit and people who don't believe we landed on the moon are total nutters.

She was like that all summer, sharing trivia about everything space related. I thought she was incredibly smart. It was kind of funny though, if it wasn't space-related, then she just didn't have the interest. Even as we got older Sab's interest in space never waned, though she never was interested in being an astronaut. It's too hard on your body, plus I need corrective lenses. She'd say.

When camp ended, we swapped numbers, followed each other, promising to keep in touch online. Which we actually did.

She only lived an hour away from me, but neither of us had passed our driving tests. Not having a licence, never mind a car, kept us from meeting up very often. Though we do manage to arrange monthly sleepovers and we see each other online every day.

Well, we did. And we will once I get back to earth. And I'm going to have the best story ever! I'm like freaking Merlin here.

A few minutes and the memory of poor Mr. Mewmew's funeral later and I've cleaned up the timeframes on a significant portion of my muddled memories. At this point, the pain has basically vanished while my time sense is even partially working again. It's not perfectly precise, but I know that it's just before noon, and I can place past events by the hour again. The other plus side is that I have health regen again. It's only at three-quarters effectiveness, but that's a pretty significant uptick from zero.

While there are only a few memories left to untangle, each one is a memory that I need to brace myself for. I've grown comfortable with reliving some of my memories since it happens every time I fix one, but the idea of reliving those particular memories ties my gut in a knot.

Finally allowing my attention to return to the real world, I'm faced with a difficult decision. Do I continue the repairs, or do I accept that it's good enough?

Deciding I'm not ready to handle more memories, I turn to my notifications.

"Skill increased: Mana Manipulation (14 to 15)."

"Skill increased: Temporal Manipulation (3 to 5)."

"Quest - Repair Temporal Dissonance updated: restored memories and timeframes. Reward: 3 iron rank integration points. Condition reduced to Temporal Inconsistency. Updated quest. Requirement: restore remaining memories and timeframes. Reward: variable. Remove condition. Time remaining: no limit."

I'm about to open my status when I hear a rustling from outside the clearing. Glancing over to Josh, I see he also heard the noise, as he's got both hands out in front of him, dagger-thorns at the ready.

The noise gets louder and louder as whatever it is thrashes its way through Josh's rose hedge walls. There's a moment of tension when they're right at the edge, before a familiar face steps forward, seeming none too pleased.

Oh, it's the bunny. But why is it on fire?