The Weight of Time
The hum of Alfea was ever-present, a constant undercurrent of excitement and new beginnings. Students rushed by, chatting, laughing, nervously adjusting their clothes for their first day. Stella stood still, her hands clenched at her sides, trying to steady the overwhelming sense of displacement that washed over her.
She felt detached; there was a dizzying sense that she didn’t belong here, that her body had become a cage for too much power. That she had too much experience, too much knowledge. Her eyes flickered to the students rushing past, their bright faces full of hopes and dreams that she could never have again.
“Stella?” Bloom’s voice broke through her thoughts. Stella turned to find her friend looking at her, concern etched in her features. “Are you okay?”
Stella nodded sharply, though it felt like a lie. “I’m fine.”
But she wasn’t. The universe felt too big and her body too small. Her star, the one she was so deeply connected to, felt distant now, flickering in and out of her reach. She could still feel it, just barely, but it was weak. It was as if time itself was stretching thin, and her power was being pulled out of sync.
“We need to figure out what’s going on,” Tecna said, looking at her tablet, trying to bring some order to the chaos. “The technology here is almost familiar, but it’s not quite. It’s like we’re in some sort of. . .echo of the past.”
Aisha crossed her arms, clearly uncomfortable. “This feels wrong. Too many things are. . .off. I don’t understand why we’re here. I don’t get how we ended up in these bodies.”
“It doesn’t make sense,” Flora added softly, looking around at the bustling students. “It’s like everything’s been reset, but we’ve been left with the weight of everything we’ve gone through.”
“Exactly.” Stella breathed out shakily, feeling a twinge of panic in her chest. “We’re here, but we’re not here. Our bodies are younger, but we’re. . .too much for them. Our powers, our minds. It doesn’t fit.”
Bloom glanced at her, her brow furrowed with concern. “What do you mean by ‘too much’? You’re not losing control, are you?”
Stella shook her head quickly, though the truth was much more complicated than she could put into words. “I’m not. . .exactly losing control. But everything feels wrong. My magic is. . .” She paused, trying to articulate the impossible. “It’s like I can’t access it all. It’s too big for this body.”
“I can feel it, too,” Aisha admitted. “I can feel my water powers, but it’s like I don’t know how to use them the way I used to. It’s like I’m too far away from them.”
“You’re not the only one,” Musa muttered, the faintest tremor in her voice. “I can’t even control my voice. I can feel it trying to come out, like it wants to slip free, but I can’t. . .it’s not the same. My siren powers aren’t the same as they were.”
Flora was the next to speak, voice tense. “The plants around here — they’re. . .they’re different. Almost as if I can’t sense them properly. Like there’s a veil between us. I don’t understand what’s happening, but it feels wrong.”
There was a long silence between them as they tried to make sense of their situation. Each of them was grappling with the same overwhelming reality: they were here in their younger forms, but they were not the same. The gap between their present selves and the version of them stuck in time was yawning wider by the minute.
“I think we’re going to have to adapt,” Bloom said, her voice steadier than the others. “We can’t change what’s happened, but we can change how we move forward.”
Stella turned to look at Bloom, seeing the resolve in her eyes. Of course Bloom would want to move forward. Bloom had always been the one to look for the silver lining, even in the most impossible situations. But Stella couldn’t help feeling that moving forward wasn’t going to be enough this time. There was too much at stake.
“Moving forward sounds great,” she said, her voice cool despite the storm swirling in her chest. “But what if we’re already too late?”
The group froze. Aisha’s lips parted as if she were about to say something, but no words came. Stella’s words had hit the nerve they’d all been trying to avoid.
“What if we’re already too late?” Stella repeated, more to herself than anyone else. “We don’t know how far back we’ve gone. We don’t know how much the timeline has been messed with. What if everything we’ve fought for — everything we’ve sacrificed — has already been lost?”
Her voice faltered, a crack of emotion threatening to break through the mask she’d carefully constructed. She hated that she couldn’t control the tremble in her hands. It felt too much like a betrayal of her past self.
“We’ll fix it,” Bloom said, stepping closer to Stella and resting a hand on her shoulder. “We’ll fix this together. We have to.”
Stella swallowed, blinking away the sudden rush of tears that had formed at the back of her eyes. Bloom was right. They would fix it, somehow. But how? That was the question that haunted her.
They stood in silence for a moment, the weight of their situation hanging heavily in the air.
“So, we’re back at square one,” Aisha finally said, letting out a sigh. “First day at Alfea. Again.”
“Seems like it,” Flora said softly. “But this time, we’re not alone.”
Stella nodded, her thoughts racing. They were not alone. Not this time. They had each other. And if they were going to survive this, they would need every bit of the bond they shared to make it through.
“You know what?” Tecna said, after a pause. “Maybe it’s a blessing in disguise. If we’re here, in the past, we have a chance to change things. To make sure we’re ready for whatever’s coming.”
Stella gave her a sharp glance. “Change things? Tecna, how are we supposed to change anything? We don’t even know what’s going on.”
“I don’t know,” Tecna admitted. “But we can start by learning what we can. Together. We’ve got the knowledge. We’ve got the power.”
Stella exhaled slowly, forcing herself to calm down. She wasn’t sure if she could believe that, but she had no choice. The future — the real future — was no longer in their hands.
It was in the past. And somehow, they had to fix it.