Kai’s Thursday morning exorcism
Date: 2025-07-24 09:58
(Kai’s Thursday morning exorcism)
[Thu Jul 24 2025]
A Sprawling Urban Park with Winding Paths/span>/spanSprawling lawns of well-maintained grass stretch across the grounds,
interrupted by winding asphalt paths that curve between mature oaks, maples,
and elms whose branches form natural canopies overhead. The paths are lined
with wrought iron benches and vintage-style lampposts that cast pools of
amber light after dusk. Small hills and gentle valleys create natural
divisions within the space, with occasional rock outcroppings providing
informal seating areas. Stone bridges arch over narrow streams that meander
through the lower areas, their water trickling softly over smooth pebbles.
The eastern sections catch salt-tinged breezes from the nearby Atlantic,
rustling through the leaves and carrying the faint scent of the sea.
Scattered throughout are small copses of trees that create shaded groves,
their undergrowth cleared but for patches of ferns and hostas. The grass
shows signs of regular use – worn patches where informal paths have formed
and areas compressed by picnic blankets and recreational activities./span>/spanIt is morning/span>/span78F(25C) degrees, and there are clear skies. The mist is heaviest At Carnation and Washington/span>/spanThe morning sun filters through the canopy of ancient oaks as Kai walks along one of Arcadia Park’s winding paths, the familiar crunch of gravel beneath his feet. A jogger passes by, earbuds in, checking her smartwatch – 9:57 AM. The salt breeze carries the distant sound of children playing on the swings near the eastern edge of the park.
Then the world stutters.
For just a moment, the jogger flickers – suddenly she’s wearing a long Victorian dress, parasol in hand, before snapping back to her modern athletic wear. The children’s laughter echoes strangely, overlapping with what sounds like drumming and chanting in an unfamiliar language. Near the central gazebo, a translucent figure in a hard hat appears to be surveying the ground with equipment that phases in and out of visibility.
The jogger stops abruptly, looking around in confusion. “Did you… did you see that?” she calls to Kai, pulling out one earbud. Her smartwatch now reads 9:58 AM, though it was 9:57 just seconds ago.
A low hum emanates from somewhere deeper in the park, almost subsonic, making the air itself feel thick and charged. The morning mist that should have burned off by now swirls in unnatural patterns around the gazebo, and through it, more ghostly figures move – some in buckskin and feathers, others in clothes that seem almost futuristic, all occupying the same space but clearly from different times.
The jogger’s watch beeps. 9:58 AM exactly. The humming grows stronger.
“Yeah, I saw it,” Kai tells the jogger and frowns, he cocks his head to the side, his acute hearing and his magical senses reaching out to locate the more precise location of where that subsonic hum is originating from. He begins to pad along in the park, searching for where it is, his eyes slitted as he lets his mystical sense slither out as well.
confusion and wonder from the Victorian-era figures, reverence and spiritual power from the Native American ceremony, industrial determination from the 1950s construction crew, and something else – a cold, calculating presence from the futuristic figures who seem to be taking measurements with crystalline devices.
The jogger follows a few steps behind, her face pale. “This isn’t normal, is it? I mean, I’ve lived here for three years and never…” She trails off as a translucent Native American woman in traditional dress walks directly through a park bench, her lips moving in silent prayer.
Near the maples, the ground shows a subtle depression – barely visible unless you’re looking for it. The grass there grows in a perfect circle, slightly different in color from the surrounding lawn. The subsonic hum intensifies as Kai approaches, and his mystical senses detect something metallic buried beneath the earth, humming with technological energy that feels wrong against the natural temporal currents of this place.
A flash of movement catches his eye – one of the futuristic figures, tall and wearing what appears to be form-fitting silver clothing, turns to look directly at him. Their eyes meet across the centuries, and the figure raises a crystalline device, pointing it in Kai’s direction.
“Uhhh no, not normal… it’s like there’s a convergence in time or something here, a few points of time all rubbing against each other where reality is thin or something like that. Not sure,” Kai tells the jogger, grinning, his eyes bright with excitement, “Whatever it is, it’s fucking badass,” he steps a few feet to the side to see if the futuristic figure follows his movement and starts toward the depression, narrowing his gaze at it.
the faint clicking of keyboards and electronic beeps, as if someone is working frantically at computer equipment. But the gazebo appears empty to normal sight, save for the swirling mist that refuses to dissipate despite the morning sun.
The futuristic figure begins walking toward Kai, their form becoming slightly more solid with each step, as if the temporal barriers are weakening.
Kai grunts when the figure seems to be coming straight for him, he takes off for the depression, trying to reach it while he brings up his magic shield, he pats himself down for something to dig with and comes up empty, but he’ll figure that out when he reaches the depression, his bright hazel eyes fixed on the futuristic figure.
“Please… someone… the resonators… I can’t reach them from here…“
Kai bends down near the depression and begins to feel around the grass, it’s growing in a perfect circle, which doesn’t seem natural. It’s possible the grass is fake and it’s some kind of hatch, or so his reasoning goes. He feels around, his brows pressed together tightly as he murmurs, “Resonators… uhh I dunno what that means.”
“The emergency shutdown – red button on the central console! But I need… I need biometric authorization… my hand, but I’m scattered across…” The voice fragments, overlapping with itself from different time periods.
The jogger gasps behind Kai. “Oh my god, there’s someone trapped in there, isn’t there? In the gazebo?“
The 1950s construction worker suddenly becomes more solid, dropping his surveying equipment and pointing urgently at the futuristic figure. “Hey! You can’t be here! This is a restricted area!” But his voice echoes strangely, as if coming from decades away.
“Biometrics… that could be a problem. Fuck it, let’s see what’s under here. Maybe it’ll help,” Kai says. He lacks any proper digging tools so he just cups his hands and starts to dig, ripping out clods of grass and dirt as he tries to get at whatever is in that depression in the earth.
“You must not interfere. The convergence must be preserved. Our timeline depends on it.“
The jogger backs away as the Victorian woman in the parasol dress suddenly becomes solid enough to cast a shadow. She looks directly at Kai with desperate eyes: “Young man, you must help Dr. Vasquez! She’s been calling for help for months, but we can only hear her during the convergence!“
From the gazebo, Dr. Vasquez’s voice becomes clearer: “The handprint scanner – it needs my biometric data, but I exist in fragments! You have to find me in one of the stable timeline echoes!“
The LED display on the buried panel flickers, showing “TEMPORAL LOOP DETECTED – 00:43:12 REMAINING.“
“Hmmm…” Kai debates internally for a few seconds and then shrugs, he starts off toward the construction worker, they seem most solid at this point, “I don’t really understand, but… I’ll try!” he tells the jogger, or perhaps Vasquez as he tries to get to the construction worker.
“00:41:45 REMAINING.“
Kai pauses to think, he closes his eyes and presses the heels of his hands to his eyes, going through his relatively broad knowledge of the arcane and the occult to try to think of something that could help in this situation. Something temporal, perhaps. Or perhaps a magical way to spoof a biometric device.
“The temporal resonance… if you can synchronize the echoes… but be careful – the future ones are trying to make this permanent!“
The futuristic figure raises their crystalline device higher, and the air around it begins to shimmer with dangerous energy. The construction worker shouts a warning that echoes across decades: “Whatever you’re gonna do, kid, do it fast! That thing’s building up to something big!“
The countdown continues: “00:39:22 REMAINING.“
“Okay you! Come here!” Kai tells the construction worker and turns to jog for the gazebo, “Maybe, I just need to get you all in the same place across time and the convergence thing will do the rest,” he guesses, grinning from ear to ear in excitement. Once he reaches where he wants the construction worker to be, he beckons to him, “Here, please, come quick!”
“Yes! The temporal anchoring is working! But I need all the echoes – the Native ceremony, they’re the strongest temporal anchor here!“
The Victorian woman with the parasol glides closer, her dress rustling. “The indigenous woman – she’s been trying to cleanse this space! She knows something is wrong!“
Near the eastern edge, the Native American woman in traditional dress looks up from her silent prayers, as if sensing the convergence. She begins walking toward the gazebo, her movements deliberate and purposeful.
The futuristic figure’s device pulses brighter, and their voice carries an edge of desperation: “The timeline cascade is accelerating. We cannot allow the loop to break!“
“00:36:51 REMAINING.“
Kai makes a beckoning gesture to the Native, “Please, come this way?” he calls to her, “Oof, I don’t know… any languages,” he shakes his head, “It’s fine. Gestures are multi-…languaged,” he keeps beckoning to the Native American while h calls to the parasol-wielding woman, “Please, come closer, it’s important. It’ll be fine.”
34:17 REMAINING.”“
Kai is in the midst of standing within a gazebo, he’s currently beckoning to a flickering Native American woman to join him, while calling out to a Victorian era woman, “Come here, please. We all need to get together in this spot.”
He’s so preoccupied he doesn’t seem to notice Vivian at first.
Vivian tips her hat as she made through the sprawling area, humming to herself softly. “Kai? Kai? That you?” She called out, waving to Kai once she reached the area. “Good to see a familiar face.”
“Yes! The anchoring is working! I can feel myself becoming whole again! But the biometric scanner – I need to touch it while all echoes are synchronized!“
The construction worker points urgently at the buried panel. “The handprint thing – she needs to get to it!“
The futuristic figure’s device now pulses with dangerous intensity, casting prismatic light that makes the air itself seem to crack. “Temporal cascade at critical threshold. Initiating preservation protocol.“
From the buried panel, an alarm begins beeping rapidly. “00:32:45 REMAINING – WARNING: TEMPORAL FEEDBACK DETECTED.“
Kai turns his head and nods at Vivian, “Uh, yeah! Who are you? Come help!” he calls and looks to the various people scattered across time and beckons to them. His steps carry him in the direction of a depression with a perfect circle of grass grown on it, though the grass has been torn up and partially dug up, “Over here!” he calls and kneels down to dig in the earth, trying to find the handprint thing.
Vivian tilts her head, and then comes over to Kai, carefully approaching the man as he called to ehr. “I’m Vivian- what the hell is happening here?” She asked of Kai, poor girl likely does not realize the sheer madness she’s getting herself into. Following Kai into the depression.
“Now! While I’m synchronized! But someone needs to stop the future device – it’s trying to lock the loop permanently!“
The Native American woman reaches the gazebo and places her hands on the structure, beginning to chant in her native language. The Victorian woman with the parasol steps forward, her form becoming more solid. The construction worker stands ready.
But the futuristic figure raises their crystalline device high, and reality begins to fracture around it. Cracks of prismatic light spread through the air like broken glass. “Preservation protocol activated. Timeline lock in 3… 2…“
The jogger, still nearby, shouts over the growing temporal storm: “Someone has to stop that thing!“
“00:30:12 REMAINING – CRITICAL: TEMPORAL LOCK IMMINENT.“
Dr. Vasquez, now visible as a shimmering figure composed of all her temporal echoes, reaches toward the scanner: “I can touch it now, but if that device completes its sequence, we’ll all be trapped forever!“
“Gah!” Kai throws up a hand at the futuristic figure, “Stop!” he calls, even as he launches a gust of wind at the figure – who knows if it’ll have any impact on figure, with time and space being so fucky in this particular locale at the moment. He’s grinning and his eyes are shining with excitement despite it all and Vivian’s question is met with a, “Not really sure! But I’m trying to get all these people across time in one space so Dr. Vasquez can press her hand to the scanner thing.”
“What the fuck?!” Vivian blurts out to Kai, and things that are happening on front of her- yet confusion naturally wanes as her expression becoems more focused, a loose rock found on the ground is then thrown at the Timelock device, attempting to stop the device from locking the loop.
“Then get to it!” She shouts at top of her lungs, not anyone of value nor importance, a normal person coming to save the day, perhaps? Or… Hours? Or… Whatever the time and space this particular area was in.
“Dr. Vasquez, what do we need to do?“
The construction worker points at the damaged crystalline device: “That thing’s still building energy! It’s gonna blow!“
“00:27:33 REMAINING – SHUTDOWN SEQUENCE ACTIVE – WARNING: TEMPORAL DISCHARGE IMMINENT.“
The air around the gazebo begins to swirl with visible temporal energy, creating a vortex of past, present, and future.
Kai draws and throws a knife from the sleeve of his hoodie in an attempt to strike at the crystalline device. Surely this will disable it and not cause it to explode. He brings up his magic shield once the knife is thrown, as if anticipating an unfortunate reaction, “Ooof I dunno it’s a lot!” he replies to Vivian as he crouches down.
Vivian was ultimately not anybody special, it was her first time being meeting anything of the sort, it was not unlike a dream. She wished to run forward and pick up the thing, perhaps throw it as far as she could before it imploded, but with Kai throwing the knife, she had no other choice but to duck, an explosion was likely to occur.
“TAKE COVER!” She shouts to people, both real and of the past.
26:01.”
Then the device shatters like glass, releasing a brilliant cascade of prismatic light that washes over the entire park. The futuristic figure screams – not in pain, but in anguish – as their form begins to fade: “Our timeline… our refuge… what have you done?”
But instead of an explosion, something beautiful happens. The temporal energies, no longer constrained by the device, flow naturally back into balance. The ghostly figures from different eras don’t disappear – they nod to each other across time in a moment of perfect understanding before gently fading.
Dr. Vasquez, now fully materialized, completes the shutdown sequence. The buried panel’s lights go dark. The countdown stops.
The Native American woman offers a blessing in her language before dissolving into morning mist. The Victorian woman tips her parasol in thanks. The construction worker gives a thumbs up before vanishing.
The jogger blinks, looking around in confusion as normal time reasserts itself. Her watch reads 10:01 AM – only three minutes have passed in the outside world.
Dr. Vasquez turns to Kai and Vivian, solid and real now. “Thank you. I’ve been trapped in that loop for subjective months. The temporal confluence is stable now – no more loops, just… natural echoes of the past.”
She pauses, looking sadly at where the futuristic figure disappeared. “I hope their timeline finds another way.”
The park settles into peaceful normalcy, though the air still carries a faint shimmer – a reminder that some places are thin between worlds, and that’s not always a bad thing.“