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This is my entry in the Fortnightly Flash Fiction Contest: Broken Mask. It is 724 words long. Hope you like it Fractured Time By Pikiru A lone being stood amidst the ruined shell of a universe, the fabric of reality being torn apart around him. Not that this being actually stood, it was hard to stand in a world where time was fractured, or was truly alone. There were millions of other beings out there, but he could not reach them. He could only hope that by some chance he might run across someone in the vast infinite reaches of time. The being closed his eyes as a wave of temporal energy washed over him, sending him spiraling through the past, present and future all at once, for there was no longer any difference between them. He clenched his fists and shut his eyes even tighter as the force of time overwhelmed him, every part of his body both aging and growing younger. His entire being was ravaged by the complexities of time. This was what he lived in now. Almost every moment of his life was spent being buffeted by waves of energy, hurling him through the fabric of existence. For him to stay in one place, and more importantly one time, for more then a few seconds was a miracle. He was not sure he would ever get used to the sensation. The universe was being broken and smashed to bits, then reformed anew and then once again shattered. The universe was completely destroyed, and yet was still whole in a way. And this being was the cause of it all. His name is Vakama, and he and the rest of the universe are forever more trapped in time. It hadn’t always been like this. Time was once whole and flowed in a simple straight line. Vakama had once been a red armoured wielder of fire. He had lived in an island city, but that city was threatened and he, along with his five teammates, had been called upon to defend its population. As he drifted through every second of existence Vakama often thought about his five teammates, whether they had made it to the island above, and whether they had escaped this fate. What if time was only broken inside the domes, and outside of them time still flowed normally. Vakama had no way of ever knowing the answer to this question, now that all of eternity existed at once. For a split second Vakama stopped spinning through time and as he opened his eyes he saw his home city, both incredibly old and incredibly new at the same time, and he hoped beyond hope that its population and his friends were safe. As another wave engulfed him he shut his eyes again. He had learned that keeping your eyes open while time enveloped you was tempting madness. After many victories and defeats Vakama and his team of Toa had succeeded in saving the cities population and taking them away from danger. But Vakama had gone back in search of a mask that held all the power of time with in it. He had found it, but Makuta tried to take it for himself. Vakama had confronted The Master of Shadows and threatened to destroy the mask and release the force of time within to save the universe from his tyranny. Makuta had tried to kill him then, but Vakama was faster. He smashed the mask to pieces, and time exploded. At that point the fabric of reality was drastically shifted. Every moment of time existed both at once and separately. Time was broken, the mask was broken, and the universe would never be the same, or completely whole, ever again. This is the world where Vakama now lives, adrift in time like a boat without a rudder caught in a storm. It is impossible to tell how long it has been since the mask was fractured, for every moment has an equal chance of happening at any point. To save the universe from the rule of Makuta, Vakama ended everything. It is unlikely that the universe will ever go back to the way it was, because the shattered pieces of the mask are lost in the vast reaches of time and cannot be found again. So Vakama can only fly through time, and hope that this is a better alternative than living under the rule of The Master of Shadows.
