4.6 | Dark Ages ✓

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"TELL ME ABOUT the Dark Ages."

At his question, Hoseok looks up from the Cypher that he's been tinkering with. Taehyung hadn't exactly wanted to relinquish the watch to the other man, but only Hoseok—with his proficiency in the girl's field of study—will understand how a time-travelling device works. Meanwhile, Taehyung has taken it upon himself to recall everything he can remember from his time-jumps. But now, he needs to know the details of the time that he's living in.

With a sigh, Hoseok sets the watch down on the table. That false cheer he'd displayed before is now long gone, leaving behind a shell of a man who can no longer keep up with pretences. "What do you want to know?" he asks.

He doesn't seem fazed by Taehyung's lack of knowledge, nor does Taehyung have any wish to elaborate. Let the other man believe that time-travel has scrambled his grasp on current events. It's far better than revealing the alternative—that he'd woken up without any memory of his past.

"How many years are we in now?" he asks instead.

"Three. By my estimation, we—as a race—have only a few more years before we're obliterated."

Three years.

Taehyung does a quick calculation in his head, comparing each jump with the next. In his present, he'd been the only one left in this part of town. When he'd met Jungkook, there was no one but military tanks and personnel passing through. When he'd met Yoongi, there were still survivors, judging by the fresher tang of blood and the occasional scream. But now, in Hoseok's time, the fight's still aflame, even if it's a losing battle that the humans are fighting. If the Cypher's plan is to keep him going back in time, will he inevitably land at a point in time prior to the Dark Ages?

Will I, somehow, be able to stop it all from happening?

His mind reels; struck by the magnitude of the idea. "How did it start?" he asks, looking at Hoseok. "The Dark Ages, I mean. I know fragments—Strand F, a scientist, an experiment gone wrong. But how did it really happen? Do you know?"

There's a short pause. Hoseok slowly nods, but his gaze grows unfocused and when he finally speaks, his voice is quiet and controlled, unlike his usual upbeat manner.

"It started with a good intention. There were two scientists—two brilliant, formidable, top experts of their field. They were searching for a way to save the human race. The earth's environment had been deteriorating, natural resources were low and disasters so rampant. Many scientists, myself included, were looking for a solution, but only they succeeded. Strand F—they called it, which when injected in small doses into our bodies, would enable us to adapt to the world's harshest conditions."

Taehyung blinks, taken aback by the explanation. "But that doesn't...that doesn't seem so bad."

"It's not. All it ever was was a good intention, the brainchild of two well-meaning men. But, you see, that's how it always starts. Trinitrotoluene, nuclear fusion, Zyklon B. All these men never meant for their inventions to become the ultimate sources of evil, but then they do. Somehow, somewhere along the line, these two scientists's experiment went wrong. Instead of creating superior humans, they created un-killable monsters instead."

Taehyung has to suppress a shudder at that. How terrifying to know that you were responsible for the destruction of an entire race, even if you did so unwittingly. He lets out a lengthy sigh before reaching for his coffee. "Did you know them?"

"The two scientists?" Hoseok shakes his head, his voice now a fraction lighter. "No. The scientific field knows more than the rest of the world does, of course, but I'm guessing that anyone who was ever associated with Strand F ended up dead anyway."

Taehyung falls silent, thinking over the ramifications of his time-travel. If, in his time-travels, he happens to meet them, what should he do? Dissuade them? Destroy Strand F? Or worse—kill them, before they kill the rest of the world?

"So what should I do?" he asks quietly, at last. "How should I—how should I save the world?"

Hoseok shrugs, his shoulders hunching over in a clear sign of resignation. "I don't know," he admits. Reaching for the watch, he picks it up again and smooths a finger over the pristine glass. "I do know one thing, though," he adds, holding it up against the florescent light overhead. The light glints off the glass, refracting directly into Taehyung's line of vision, and he has to fight the involuntary flinch.

"What is it?"

"She's already planned all your jumps. You've jumped five times before. You're now in your sixth jump. And you'll jump six more times, the last of which will bring you back to where you came from."

Taehyung bolts up, almost lunging for the watch in his surprise. "How did you—"

"It's right here."

Hoseok holds down both the buttons along the side of the watch. A good three seconds tick by before Taehyung finally sees something he'd never noticed before. Along the metal strap, etched into the plates of each segment, are numbers glowing in a light but incandescent blue. Each plate, he realizes, contains two sets of numbers.

One is an ongoing countdown.

The other a static date from the past.

"You've obviously missed her in this jump. But your next jump will be in seventeen hours, one minute and three seconds," says Hoseok, pointing to one of the metal plates. "And you'll jump back fifteen years, three months and seven days—where you'll probably meet her."