Nightrise

of all and I'll probably make a mess of it — but I'll do my best."

    Matt paused for breath. There was nobody else around. The water was rushing past, sparkling in the early morning light.
    "I've talked about the past and the future," he began. "And when we think of time, we usually think of a straight line. A week is just seven days in a row. A century is a long line of years…one hundred of them.
    Your life, also, only seems to go one way. You're born, you grow up, you get old, and then you die.
    "But suppose time wasn't like that. Suppose time was actually circular. Think what that would mean."
    "There would be no beginning," Jamie said. "And no end."
    "Well…the end and the beginning would be the same." Matt raised a hand. "It would be a bit like a clock. Most clocks are circular, and when you get to midnight you've reached the end of one day but you've also come to the start of the next. In other words, just for a fraction of a second, the beginning and the end of the day both exist at the same time.
    "The same is true about us. The beginning and the end. They've sort of met in the middle and that is exactly where we were born."
    He shook his head and sighed, annoyed with himself.
    "This isn't going right," he said. "Let me start again."
    He thought for a moment, then continued.
    "Yesterday, four boys and a girl finished a long war against the Old Ones."
    "That was us."
    'Yes. We beat them and managed to send them into another dimension. And that's where we are now. If you like, you could say that we're at twelve o'clock and a new day is about to begin. We've trapped the Old Ones on the other side of a gate and right now it seems there's no way that they'll ever be able to return."
    "So what will happen next?"
    "The world will change. There's not very much of humanity left, Jamie. It came very close to total annihilation. There are a few thousand people, scattered across the planet, but what happened here — the battle and the five of us — will soon be almost completely forgotten. And as the years go by, the world will change. The ice hasn't finished melting in the north and new lands are forming. We are entering a dark period…a time — if you like — for civilization to catch its breath. But then, slowly, the wheel of time will turn and new cities will arise, new cultures will flourish. It will all begin again.
    "And then, one day, you and your brother will be born. Ten thousand years from now! Your world will look very different from ours and although a few names and places may echo faintly across the centuries, very few people will know what they really signified. The Old Ones. The Five. The building of the first gate.
    'You'll think that you live in a safe and comfortable place, but I'm afraid you'll be wrong. Because the whole thing will begin again. The Old Ones will somehow break out of the prison we've made for them and what will follow will be exactly the same as what happened here. They will grow in strength and power and they will finish off what they began."
    "They'll destroy our world," Jamie said.
    'Yes."
    "Nightrise. They're part of it."
    "The Old Ones don't actually show themselves for as long as they can help it. They find people who are greedy or mean or full of hate and give them power. These people think they're going to get rich. They think they'll be rewarded with anything they want. And it's only at the very end that they realize that the Old Ones have lied to them and they're doomed too. There will be no survivors. The entire planet has to die.
    "So what is happening in your world is exactly the same as what happened in mine. Yesterday, the cycle ended and the last battle was won. For you, the same cycle is about to begin. The Old Ones will grow in strength. The world will be torn apart. And you will have to face them a second time."
    "On my own?"
    "No, Jamie. In your world, there are also four boys and one girl who have to come together. Five Gatekeepers. There's a Matt and an Inti and a Scar, just as there is in mine."
    "But are we the same or are we different?"
    "We're the same but we're living in a different time."
    "I don't understand!"
    Matt sighed. "Don't try to unravel it. Just think about how it actually works. That's all that matters.

    "Five Gatekeepers in the past. The same five, born again, and fighting in the future. Sometimes, we meet…"
    "In the dream world."
    'Yes. Otherwise we're separated."
    "Then how did I get here? What am I doing here now?" Jamie didn't