Once upon a time, the time stopped for a moment. The clocks of the world stood still. Beings, all around the universe, were put on pause, and that’s when it transpired. This is a tale that occurred in a space that exists outside of Time’s realm.

They say that the world began when a Big Bang disturbed the peace of the absolute void. It is true. It happened thirteen billion years ago, but the importance of time, as we perceive it, is insignificant in this affair. Time is a being; an unforgiving, atrocious entity. It doesn’t have a creator, and, unequivocally, It can’t forge anything. It just appeared in the center of the void when a minuscule speck of nothing exploded. As the eons went past, Its power multiplied. The vacuum filled with stars and planets. Worlds incubated life and as life’s complexity increased, Time’s authority expanded beyond imagination. Its clout was so enormous that It lost control.

Time moved forward and backward. Dead creatures lived again, and living beings died. Stars that were, suddenly weren’t. The circle of life broke down. Heat and cold took turns, and the worlds froze and went up in flames. Order was replaced by disorder. The incident lasted for just a minute, but everything seemed to be lost forever. The universe crashed. Everything in existence disappeared. Time was no more. In its place, a hollow pseudo-universe came to be; a universe of no time, space, or life.

A feeble glow lit the darkness. Out of nothing, another explosion occurred. Time reappeared, and life followed its known path. The pseudo-universe survived outside of Time’s realm. It grew and grew until it could expand no more. In this blank world, something resembling life came into existence. Just like the Big Bang and Time, it had no creator. Its architect was the vacuum. The unknown entity replicated itself, initiating a reproductive process that happened instantaneously, but lasted forever. A new race was born; the Unborn.

Time stood on the edge of the universe, watching it expand, and feeling Its power grow with it. It controlled the advancement as well as It could, protecting Its domain from another destruction.

The Unborn were beings of infinite strength. They’d never experienced anything but the void. They were the offspring of Time’s mistake; nothing dipped into nothing and forever imprisoned, away from the real universe. Their numbers flourished, but the void limited their growth. They had to expand in pursuit of their survival. They banged on the walls of Time’s kingdom. As the Unborn crashed on reality’s fences, they felt the power of the physical world. Every impact made them hungrier. Each glimpse of reality, Time, and Space fed their need for power. The first who attacked were evaporated, but the rest kept coming, pushing the barricades back, and breaking their universe apart. There was no going back; not for them, not for our plane of existence.

Shadows shot past Time and dissolved into nothing. More spawns of darkness flew in the universe and immediately disappeared, taking a colorful nebula with them. Time experienced the pain of its world when the Unborn broke the barriers. Each time an army passed the walls, a part of Time’s realm went extinct. Shortly, Time understood. It gazed at the immaterial entities, and It knew. Its mistake had come back to haunt Its realm. A swarm of Unborn opened a hole on the fences and swallowed a whole galaxy before they were destroyed. Time fought hard, but the Unborns’ numbers seemed overwhelming. A river of blackness had filled great parts of the world. Time realized that Its powers were diminishing, along with the size of Its Kingdom.

In a moment of despair, Time decided to act against Its own nature. As the screams of the whole world were overloading It with pain, Time walked into the void, leaving the universe behind. Everything stopped. The actual world stood still. The screams of the galaxies were finished. Life’s advancement was over. The Unborn looked around and felt nothing but emptiness. The physical world had no Time.

Suddenly, a glow appeared in the pseudo-universe. Enormous energy overflowed the darkness, attracting the Unborn. The unbelievable intensity started closing the barriers, separating the two worlds. Unborn flew into the void faster than they left it. The blackness disappeared, leaving the universe on halt. There was still no Time, no movement, and no progress; a still picture of an old world.

The hollow universe, on the other hand, was starting its journey into existence. Time unleashed Its force, and the empty space felt alive. Glowing lights existed for a second. The Unborn attacked the glows, feeding their hunger, and growing in strength. Time kept accelerating, using Its reduced force to feed Its gluttonous sons. Time helped the pseudo-universe to thrive, but every atom that was formulated met its demise in an instant. The Unborn devoured them all until Time’s powers burnt out. Their endless longing drove them to the barriers of their universe once again. Time stood there staring at Its undesired creation. It saw pure greed in them. It saw Itself.

An enormous explosion hit the Unborn. A small source of light formed in the center of the void. The armies of darkness attacked immediately. The tiny glare imploded, giving birth to huge cracks that sucked everything inside them. The vacuum was stripped of its children, its darkness and its existence. The hollow universe was over in a single moment. The Unborn were truly never born.

The actual world started moving again. Clocks skipped a bit but kept working. Life continued, and the universe was back to normal. At the edge of the realm, a new Time was born. It was nothing like the original. Its force was minute compared to Its former power. It was a new-born Time, who surpassed the laws of nature; a child of Father Time, brought to existence to hold the universe together; to take on Its father’s duty.

The real Time was left alone, powerless and drained, in a tiny hollow point outside Its realm. The once unforgiving, atrocious entity had made a sacrifice to protect Its kingdom; our universe. Time was out of time.