The large door closed behind them, leaving the room in complete darkness. The bang bounced off the walls for an entire minute before subsiding. Now they would be transported deep below the ground, Angel presumed.

And sure enough, a light flickered on behind them, revealing a tunnel in place of the door they had just gone through. A pungent stench of mud and old water filled the air. Angel paid no attention to it, as she could only think about was what she had gotten herself into.

She had tried looping back once she had realized the place was the most heavily guarded prison, but just like with any other prison world, this place had a temporal lock as well. She wouldn’t be able to escape this world any time soon. Worse, she might never be leaving this prison.

But all Angel could really do now was to follow her captors through the complicated labyrinth and listen to Ben explain how this prison was protected. That didn’t matter, though. Even if she managed to find her way out of this living maze, she wouldn’t be able to escape this planet of dead trees and giant bugs.

At the end of the labyrinth was a large lobby where a prison warden sat behind a hole in the wall. After a short exchange, Xiang received a lantern and prison key, and we continued through another darker maze.

Now, though, the walls were lined with countless prison cells. Occasionally, a prisoner would be in one of the cells, but even with how empty the prison looked, Angel knew there were hundreds of millions of murderers, terrorists, and time loopers like herself here.

Angel counted over two thousand prison cells before reaching the cell they would be to be put in. Xiang unlocked the cage, and we were pushed in. Damien just dropped to the ground and hugged his knees. After Angel walked in, Arthur was thrown in last by Wayne.

“Hey, guys, I can explain,” Arthur made one last attempt to claim his innocence. “You saw me trying to interrogate the boy, didn’t you? I’m on your side!”

“I will give you thirty minutes to say your final words to each other before we come back to take you away,” Xiang said, ignoring Arthur. “Don’t waste your time trying to escape.”

The door shut with a clang, and Xiang locked it again. Arthur went up to the bars and looked hopelessly as the only light source left them in the dark.

It took ten minutes of silence before Angel spoke up. “So, shall we plan an escape, or should we just wait?”

Nobody said anything, so Angel continued. “I doubt we would ever be allowed to leave this place, so if you two want to escape, then now is the time.”

There was silence again, and Arthur sat down and spoke. “How are we gonna escape, anyway?”

Angel sighed. She had been trying to escape those shooters since the beginning, but now their options had gone to virtually zero. However, that didn’t mean there really were zero options.

“Damien,” Angel said, turning to where she thought Damien was sitting on the ground, “you’re probably our only means of escape now.”

“Me? What could I do?” They were in a prison at who-knows-where, so how could someone as weak as him help them escape?

Once again, Angel explained the same time traveling techniques she had explained to him hundreds of times. This prison seemed to prevent any jumping through timelines, but the teleportation capsule worked, so there must be a way. As long as someone puts enough strength, then there could be a chance.

The clock ticked as Angel gave Damien the same push she had given many times. “It’s a small feeling, but with the silence, you should be able to concentrate on it,” she told him, trying to remain calm. There was no telling how much longer she would have to endure staying in this prison if she failed now.

The silence, though, was unbearable. As Angel counted the seconds quietly in her head, tension built steadily, and her heart beat faster. After ten minutes, she could feel that Damien had somewhat grasped where his muscles were as he started to shift just slightly. This was the fastest he had been able to do this, and all that was left was to get a bit more used to it and then jump out of this place!

Footsteps.

Suddenly everything broke down, and Damien’s concentration was disrupted. Their captors had come back. Thirty minutes had passed, and their time was up.

“Quickly,” Angel urged Damien, “if we miss the chance now, then we won’t get a second one. It’s only one final push.”

Damien closed his eyes once again in concentration, but that was when there was the sound of a key inserted into a lock, and the gates to the cell were opened.

“Okay. Time’s up. Boy. Come with us.”

Damien opened his eyes and reluctantly but obediently walked out, following Diane and Wayne away into the distance. Arthur and Angel were left in the pitch black again.

Arthur sighed. “Well, I guess we’re done for good now.”

Angel didn’t say anything back. She was thinking about what they should do next to escape.

“It was worth the try, though,” Arthur tried comforting Angel after seeing that she wasn’t responding.

“There has to be another way. Do you have any ideas?” Angel couldn’t think of anything, so she was turning to Arthur for help. She hadn’t gone through this timeline before, so his ideas could be useful now, unlike before, where she had already heard his ideas a million times.

“I’ve already tried time-jumping out of here. That didn’t work, as expected. Say, why do you believe Damien could be able to escape?”

“It is mostly a presumption—an educated guess. But you know who he is, don’t you?”

There was silence, but in the darkness, Arthur wore a surprised and suspicious expression. “What do I know…exactly?” He had never told Angel about his job, let alone any information about the boy being a wanted criminal. Could she really be Damien’s accomplice as he had expected? Or was she like himself, chasing after the boy?

Angel responded quickly, all in one breath. “I know you are serving as observer, overseer, and supervisor of chronal sector 78434 world A002, also known as the United States on Earth, in the 1840s. You started your job in the 1810s, and now you are 72 years in age, though your physical age is 40 years.”

Angel took a deep breath, giving time for what she said to sink in, then continued. “Shortly after you received your position, you received the order for Damien’s head, or at least the head of the person who matches his biometrics. After finding him and seeing me in a severe condition lying beside him, you rewound my injuries and planned to torture information out of Damien. I saved him from that because, yes, he did nothing wrong, and he is not the person you are looking for.”

There was a long pause before Arthur broke the silence. “You…you’re…” He stopped, trying to think. “It’s coming together, slowly, but… it can’t be. I don’t want to accept this… but… you’ve been looping?”

Angel nodded in the darkness, but even though Arthur couldn’t see, he didn’t need confirmation to know he was right. Angel was cherrypicking timelines—one of the most unforgivable crimes.

“And… now don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to side with you, okay? I just want to see if you know anything about those people who captured us. You’ve got to have something useful about that, right?”

It was apparent from his tone that Arthur didn’t want to associate with Angel anymore. It was a rough choice revealing all that information, but either way, they had to work together to get out of this prison.

“I am not too sure who they are myself,” Angel replied. “All I know is that they are after Damien and anybody who’s affiliated with him, and they would do anything to achieve their goals, even if it means timeline cherrypicking.”

Arthur folded his arms. “Oh, so they’re doing the same thing now? You know, I hate—”

“Yes, you hate hypocrites. I know.”

That was the last straw. Arthur stood up and stormed to where Angel sat. “You’re just trying to provoke me now, aren’t you!? You really think you’re safe and sound just because you can go back, you damn witch!? Hey, how about this. Why don’t you just rewind back, huh? Just leave me here and try this over again!”

Angel stood up. She could feel the heat radiating from Arthur’s body. “Calm down. I am not your enemy here.”

Arthur turned around in frustration, sending a cool breeze at Angel. “Once we get out of here, I’ll make sure to get you somewhere you deserve to be, got that!?”

Angel sighed in relief. They were on the same track again, although tensions were quite high. “Listen, you know what I did while teaching Damien earlier, right?” She waited for Arthur to respond.

“Yeah. Go on.”

“I just need you to do the same if you ever get to meet Damien again.”

“Okay, sounds simple enough. Meet him, push him a bit, and we’re out of here.”

“Yes.”

Arthur hesitated for a moment, but continued. “Then… what if I meet him alone… without you?”

“Same plan.”

“Hold on, doesn’t that mean we’ll be leaving without you? Are you sure you’re okay with that? I mean, I do think you deserve punishment, but staying here forever is too much. If we escape together, I can find you a better prison to stay at.”

She didn’t want to think of that possibility—the possibility that Arthur and Damien would have to leave without her. Still, she knew that was better than nobody escaping at all. “You do have quite a soft heart. Damien’s safety is more important than mine. He isn’t a bad guy like you think he is. Just get him out of here when you get the chance.”

Their dialogue stopped again, and the sound of footsteps came in from the distance. This time it was Ben, along with Wayne, who unlocked the cell.

“Hello again,” Ben greeted us, “My nice strong friend here will be taking this fine man this time.” He turned to Angel and clasped his hands together. “So sorry… you’ll have to wait just a while longer on your own here.”

They took Arthur away, and Angel sat back down to wait. It seemed now it was more than likely that Arthur and Damien would have to leave without her. And just as Angel thought, that was the last time she saw either of the two.

It took much longer for Angel’s captors to return. She waited for almost an hour before Wayne came back by himself. If the wait was so long, does that mean Arthur had succeeded in escaping with Damien? Did he really have some sort of special ability, to be able to escape from a place like this?

Angel smiled at Wayne as he unlocked the door. “So, you had some trouble, didn’t you?” He flinched at that question, but ignored her. As the short man led her through the maze of prison cells, she still couldn’t tell what he was feeling.

They arrived at a small cylindrical chamber with strips of vertical green lights lining the walls. And instance search machine. Angel had never seen one, but she had read about them. These machines could scan someone’s chronal anatomy to find which timelines and time periods they had been in. Still, these machines were costly, and nobody has ever, or will ever, be able to make an instance searcher that can look beyond a few hours. That’s why they aren’t very practical in tracing someone’s past.

After the machine finished its processing, Angel was led back out, where Diane was waiting along with Wayne. Diane watched Angel with an unusual intensity. Maybe she had decided to be more careful after Arthur and Damien managed to escape while she wasn’t paying attention. Hopefully, that was the case.

The three walked again through the long, dark halls lined with prison cells. Either she would be locked in one of these cells for the rest of eternity, or they were sending her to her death sentence. Angel preferred the latter.

After a long while of navigation, the group arrived at the large doorway at the end of the halls. They had stopped passing by prison cells a while ago, and now the walls were back to the pattern of stone bricks.

“Death sentence,” Angel thought to herself in relief.

Diane gave the door a knock, and the sound bounced off the walls and into the distance. Shortly after, the heavy door opened, letting warmer air out. For a second, Angel relished the new cozy atmosphere before her body quickly adjusted to the new temperature.

Ben held the door open as the three walked in. He had on a cold and expressionless face, and after looking at Diane and Wayne, she noticed the same emotionless expression on them as well.

This new room was still made of the same stone bricks as the halls, but now there were weak, flickering lights lining the walls, similar to the first labyrinth they had been through. At the center of the room was a long table, also carved from stone. Xiang sat at the farthest seat to the right, with his chin resting on his folded hands and a grave expression as well.

Was this the execution room? Were they going to kill her right here and now? It certainly didn’t look like it. This seemed more like a conference room than a place to decapitate someone.

Then she noticed the figure in the chair at the farthest end of the table. He was wearing a dark robe in the low lighting, which made it even more difficult to discern his figure. Still, with her adjusted eyes, she could tell it was a middle-aged man, with a face that emitted every sense of royalty.

Cautiously, the girl took a step backward. She didn’t dare to speak.

Then came a voice. The voice came from nowhere in particular, just from all around her, as if it were spoken directly to her mind. But when the girl heard it, she knew exactly who it was.

“Welcome home, my niece.”