Rain fell steadily, tapping against the pavement like impatient fingers.
For a few seconds, I just stared at the man standing under the streetlamp.
He had to be joking.
“2080?” I said slowly. “You expect me to believe that?”
The man—Elias—didn’t smile.
He didn’t look like someone telling a joke.
Instead, he watched me with the kind of calm patience you might use with a child who didn’t yet understand something important.
“I don’t expect you to believe it,” he said.
“Good,” I replied. “Because I don’t.”
I stepped around him and started walking again.
“Your mother’s name is Nyasha.”
My feet stopped.
The rain seemed louder suddenly.
I turned slowly.
Elias hadn’t moved.
He was still standing beneath the streetlight, hands in his jacket pockets.
“How do you know that?” I asked.
“Because I know your life,” he said quietly.
“That doesn’t answer the question.”
“You were born on August 14th,” he continued. “At exactly 2:32 in the morning. Harare Central Hospital.”
My stomach tightened.
Very few people knew that.
“You work maintenance for the city infrastructure department,” he added. “You prefer fixing machines to dealing with people. And every Sunday morning you visit your father’s grave.”
I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the rain.
“Who are you?” I asked again.
Elias looked toward the distant skyline, where the research facility stood somewhere beyond the dark clouds.
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“The man trying to stop the future,” he said.
I folded my arms.
“Let’s say for a moment I pretend to believe you. Why me?”
“Because of what happened today.”
“The lab experiment?”
He nodded.
“The Resonance Core.”
I frowned.
“You know about that?”
“I know everything about it.”
Lightning flashed across the sky, briefly illuminating the street.
For a moment his face looked older—tired in a way that suggested he had seen things most people never would.
“That machine will change the world,” Elias continued.
“People say that about every invention.”
“This one is different.”
“How?”
“Because it doesn’t just create energy.”
The rain grew heavier.
Cars passed on the distant road, their headlights streaking through the darkness.
Elias stepped closer.
“It bends time.”
I laughed.
I couldn’t help it.
“You’re serious?”
“Completely.”
“That’s impossible.”
“So was electricity once,” he replied calmly.
I rubbed my forehead.
This conversation had become ridiculous.
“Even if what you’re saying were true, how does that explain you showing up here claiming to be from the future?”
Elias studied me for a moment.
Then he said something that made the world feel suddenly smaller.
“Because in my timeline,” he said quietly, “you helped create it.”
I blinked.
“That’s not possible.”
“You were there today.”
“Fixing a sensor.”
“You stabilized the machine.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“It is when history remembers it differently.”
I shook my head.
“You’re insane.”
“Am I?”
He gestured toward the dark sky.
“Something happened in that laboratory today.”
I didn’t answer.
Because he was right.
I had felt it too.
That strange moment when everything seemed… out of place.
“You felt it, didn’t you?” Elias asked.
I hesitated.
“…Maybe.”
“That was the first fracture.”
“Fracture?”
“In time.”
I stared at him.
“You’re serious.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re saying that leads to the future ending?”
“Yes.”
“How exactly does the world end?”
Elias didn’t answer immediately.
Instead, he looked past me, as if remembering something far away.
“When the Resonance Core becomes public,” he said slowly, “every government wants it.”
“Of course they would.”
“It produces unlimited energy.”
“That sounds like a good thing.”
“It starts as a good thing.”
“And then?”
“And then people realize it can do more.”
My stomach tightened again.
“What more?”
“It can open temporal corridors.”
I frowned.
“Time travel?”
“Yes.”
“That’s impossible.”
“That’s what everyone said.”
Lightning flashed again.
Elias’s expression hardened.
“In the future,” he said quietly, “cities fall apart trying to control that power.”
I swallowed.
“Wars?”
“Worse.”
“How could it get that bad?”
He looked directly at me.
“Because the first mistake has already happened.”
“The experiment today?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re here to stop it?”
“I’m here to fix it.”
Before I could ask another question, a new voice spoke behind us.
“You’re lying.”
Both of us turned.
An older man stood at the edge of the street.
He wore a long coat and a wide-brimmed hat that shielded his face from the rain.
But even from a distance I could feel something about him.
Something steady.
Something dangerous.
Elias’s expression changed instantly.
For the first time since meeting him, he looked surprised.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Elias said.
The old man stepped closer.
His eyes moved from Elias to me.
Then he said calmly,
“My name is Moyo.”
He paused.
“And if you care about the future…”
He pointed at Elias.
“…you should not trust that man.”
