（One month later…)

It should have been a quiet day.

Life was normal, despite that it’d never been normal, for Anna.

But,

Anna could feel a strong surge of panic and anxiety in her body.

The countdown was tinkering, more and more dangerous with every passing second, as Anna’s heart thumped hard in her chest. It seemed that even breathing was becoming harder and harder.

It was on the break of the summer holiday. The exams had passed, and the afternoon classrooms were mostly deserted.

The school was open all day, and Anna had found a spare room to wait for her parents, where she could watch the glorious sunset.

Time passed by.

Clouds swayed, drifting about and around the sun.

Tinted red and glowing.

Like globes of flames, swaying.

As the sun dimmed, and lights were lit, Anna began to feel a strong pulse in her heart.

She stood up, and strode into the walkway. She was aware that the countdown was drawing nearer to one month.

Five seconds.

A gust of wind brushed across her face.

Four.

The light shimmered in the windows.

Three.

Leaves rustled, swaying in the dimming light.

Two.

A flock of birds marched across the rays of sunlight.

One.

A sudden bolt of lightning sharp pain shot though Anna’s brain, spreading through every vein of her body. She collapsed forward with a cry of agony, convulsing as another wave hit her. The world swirled, and faded to darkness, and Anna remembered no more.

Anna was standing on an island.

It was the scene, from all the nightmares. The burning city, the stormy sea.

But there was no sound, so movement. It was as if the world itself had been frozen, in the midst of darkness and doom.

A final lightning slashed across the sky, unmoving, radiating a final, eerie blast of white-blue fury.

In that light, standing against the tides, was a shadow.

There were no features, nothing, except for the outline of a person, tom into thin air, and as black as the darkness surrounding the world, fathomless, and calculating.

＇Who are you?’ Anna shouted.

Her voice was strange, vibrating off the cliffs of tides, cold, and clear. It was as if the world itself had been repeating it over and over again, shattering across the still air.

The shadow seemed to stir, and it turned around.

It had no face, just an empty, dark abyss where the face should had been.

Anna felt a cold breeze seize her neck, though she knew there couldn’t have been one. It was only a fraction of a second, but Anna was sure.

This shadow, held the same power as the eye.

And then the shadow spoke.

＇I’m the bearer of the Arthur Stone.’

It walked closer, slowly, toward Anna.

It held out a hand.

Anna was suddenly aware that she was holding something.

She had been too disorientated to notice, but now as she looked, she found that she had a stone in her palm.

It was as pure as ever, and square in shape. The edges curved inward, folding against each other in sophisticated patterns, melding and separating in one million joints, as if it was concealed by every world, and concealing every world. The surface was smoother than anything. Anna had ever felt and all the folds were inside the stone itself, extending outwards, toward a whole new dimension. Even as she watched, she noticed the subtule shifts in the rock, as all of a sudden, the turns and patterns vanished, and it became fully opasque, and all Anna could see was the green light. The stone was the cdor of emeralds and jade, and it pulsed such light and power that Anna was aware that merely holding it would submerge her in daze.

Thus she realized what it was,

The Arthur Stone.

She gingery placed the stone on the hand of the shadow, and drew back.

It blazed like a trapped star.

The shadow took another step toward her, and in the light of the stone, Anna saw a field of stars.

And the shadow passed into her.

She found herself falling, into the abyss and the stars.

Light streaked by, and Anna saw glimps among them.

An army of bionic monsters.

t building collapsing.

A mother holding her child, desperately escaping from the flames, The child crying in fear and despair.

And suddenly, in the dark, the eye loomed, bigger than ever, its depth radiating pure, metallic, malice.

And everything disappeared, the lights, the images, the eyes, and Anna was left in total darkness.

A soft wind brushed Anna’s hair.

Slowly, painfully, Anna opened her eyes

She was lying on the cold, marble floor.

The headache still hadn’t quite worn off.

Anna pushed herself up, wincing as her head screamed in protest, and got to her feet.

The countdown continued from one month.

Anna looked outside the window.

The flock of birds were still in the sky, flying toward the setting sun.

Not a second had passed since the vision struck.

‘You might want to take a look at Legends or Fictions series,’ the librarian told Anna, tapping his chin thoughtfully, ‘I think it’d been featured in a lot of books there.’

‘Thanks,’ Anna said. It was on day after the shock, and she’d gone to the library to check what she could find about ‘the Arthur Stone’. It turned out that it was sort of a legend about multi-world travelling and quantum entanglement. She mas pretty sure that there was no way she could find anything useful about how it worked and all that, but she’d decided to take a look anyway.

‘Anyway,’ the librarian asked curiously, ‘Why are you looking for info about some ancient legend?’

‘Nothing,’ Anna replied, a bit too fast, ‘Just curious. I’ve heard about it elsewhere.

＇Alright, then it’s two floors up from here, across from the back windows and the reading area,’ the librarian pointed.

‘Thank you,’ Anna replied. She slipped up the stairs, keeping her headbowed and inconspecious.

It turned out, that the Arthur Stone, had been a legendary myth. It was rumored that, the Stone had been the same one that King Arthor pulled the sword out of, thus also known as the Urthor Stone, named after Arthor’s father (who, according to the story, was cursed to become the stone). Legend has it, that the sword had been able to cut open even the smallest elementory particles, breaking the force that holds apart the parallel worlds. The strength then was brought upon the tip of the sword, trapping it in place. However, when Arthor managed to pull the sword from it, the strength vanished, and the balance broke. The stone was shattered, but only physically, and only in this world. The fragments were scattered in every world, drifting through time, and space. Eventually, they drifted into one special world, and met once again. Nobody knew how, but once they met, the particale once again unitied. After union, the Stone collapsed into two separate looped zones, one green and one blue. The sudden intensity of energy repelled them, accelerating and forwarding into separate worlds. It was said that whoever had the stone could travel among worlds, and regardless of passing time. There had also been a rumor that the one that processed would also destroy it.

Anna closed the book, her hunt thumping.

She closed her eyes, as a sound whispered in her ears.

‘I’m the bearer of the Arthur Stone.’

作者：张瑞航
责任编辑：刘若彤