
Ashes of the Future
Description
Years after the collapse of time, Evryn lives in a world where clocks are useless, cause and effect no longer align, and people drift through the remnants of chronology without certainty. Her father, Darian, vanished the day everything cracked — the day he activated a machine meant to manipulate time itself. Most believe he died. Evryn isn't so sure. Darian, in truth, survived — trapped within the remains of his ruined home, inside a temporal distortion chamber of his own making. While five years passed in the outside world, thirty years unfolded for him inside. In that accelerated exile, he refined the chronosphere: a device that now allows him to move through time’s chaos with a single direction — backward. Evryn, still in the present's ragged edge, tries to make sense of a world no longer bound by time’s laws — and begins leaving traces for the father she hopes is still out there. Their timelines move in opposite directions, but their goal is shared: to prevent the moment everything fell apart. As Darian draws closer to the day of the machine’s first activation, and Evryn learns more about what truly caused the collapse, the possibility of undoing the disaster comes into view — at a cost neither may be willing to pay. This is a story about memory, consequence, and the fragile lines that tether us to each other when everything else has come undone. Comparable works include The Time Traveler's Wife – Audrey Niffenegger; Sea of Tranquility – Emily St. John Mandel; Interstellar – Christopher Nolan (2014)