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Description
The grit of the sand wore across Hitomi's aching feet as she walked along the shore, the ocean waves, once a calming roar, now frozen in space and time. She gasped for air, her lungs struggling to suck anything in as the wind was non-existent and everything was growing colder. The stars, glittering jewels in the night sky, fading into an obscene parody as they no longer shimmered but were as paint drops on a black cloth, stale and static. The moon hung in orbit with the sun gone, forever. She looked back at the wreckage she had left, her time machine destroyed beyond repair, with terrible consequence. Time was running out, not only for her but reality itself.

Every step felt as if she were wading through an increasing mass of snow and ice, taffy and tar, sticky and resistant, cutting into her shoes at first when she had crashed and then through them into the soles of her feet, which now bled but each drop that fell remained in place, making it even more difficult to walk. Her head grew hazy and she felt the need to rest, but fought against it, knowing that the time machine was too damage to let her travel through the ages, but its power source, now cradled in her hands and growing fainter despite the radiation it pumped into her body, was needed. She didn't have the tools necessary to open its fractured casing enough for what she needed, but she had a plan. She kept walking, through the pain and cold, onward to the billowing smoke frozen above the island.

Hitomi panted, wiping frost from her brow, her hair stiff and making her feel even heavier, clenching her eyes shut to keep them from freezing as well, only opening them occasionally to make sure she hadn't passed something needed up ahead. The sand had given way to rock, more solid than the sand but not any more difficult to stand upon with her blood leaking out slowly. There was, however, warmth coming up from it, faint, but growing hotter the further she pressed on toward the smoke.

She would have snorted at the sight if not for what it had meant, sixteen time machines, all in shambles, all different, all with pilots that had died in the crash or shortly outside it. The smoke, however came from beyond them. She didn't even have the time to gather tools from the pilots clutched in their frozen hands or try to find parts for her own machine, she merely grabbed the few power cores that were visible, bashing them loose with the one she held. Stone hands cracked and shattered under the effort and she cradled four in total as she kept going toward the smoke, no feeling in her frostbitten hands and arms, though her feet still felt the growing heat.

Finally at the source of the heat, Hitomi stared into the mouth of the volcano, knowing what she had to do, even though all it meant. She walked up to the edge and took in a deep breath and released it, whispering a single word before letting herself fall with the power cores,
"Geronimo."

The explosion that resulted raced across the island, rippling outward along space and time, then sucked itself back in, Hitomi rising from the volcano, walking backward, putting the cores back, time racing back further and further to the incident that had stranded her and the others between the seconds, arriving moments before in her time machine.

She yelped as a spark of static came from the temporal readout and she fell out of the vortex, blinking, swearing she had seen something in it before her vessel returned to normal space-time. She tried to punch in the same coordinates as before, but the machine's readout altered before she could activate the vortex. Hitomi stared at it, entering the coordinates again, thinking she had made a mistake. No, the machine had indeed moved a second back from the time she had aimed for, and a mile away. She tried again, and it was a second after and a mile in a different direction. She had wanted to see the volcanic explosion that had destroyed the place she was born first hand from the air, to finally solve the mystery of why it had happened when all tectonic data was absent of tremors beforehand. Instead, it seemed, she would have to try to find out by going further back in time and trying to fly toward the island after. As she started punching in the coordinates for a new jump she paused, looking at it for a moment before shrugging and entering a completely new set of coordinates.

Maybe Hitomi's time machine was just on the fritz. She didn't want to waste the fuel when she didn't know for certain. She would put in for repairs and log the data, let someone else solve that mystery perhaps if her machine was unreliable. After all, she had been eying the latest model and the possibility of intergalactic travel as well. To travel the sea of stars, as well as the oceans of time.

Description
The grit of the sand wore across Hitomi's aching feet as she walked along the shore, the ocean waves, once a calming roar, now frozen in space and time. She gasped for air, her lungs struggling to suck anything in as the wind was non-existent and everything was growing colder. The stars, glittering jewels in the night sky, fading into an obscene parody as they no longer shimmered but were as paint drops on a black cloth, stale and static. The moon hung in orbit with the sun gone, forever. She looked back at the wreckage she had left, her time machine destroyed beyond repair, with terrible consequence. Time was running out, not only for her but reality itself.

Every step felt as if she were wading through an increasing mass of snow and ice, taffy and tar, sticky and resistant, cutting into her shoes at first when she had crashed and then through them into the soles of her feet, which now bled but each drop that fell remained in place, making it even more difficult to walk. Her head grew hazy and she felt the need to rest, but fought against it, knowing that the time machine was too damage to let her travel through the ages, but its power source, now cradled in her hands and growing fainter despite the radiation it pumped into her body, was needed. She didn't have the tools necessary to open its fractured casing enough for what she needed, but she had a plan. She kept walking, through the pain and cold, onward to the billowing smoke frozen above the island.

Hitomi panted, wiping frost from her brow, her hair stiff and making her feel even heavier, clenching her eyes shut to keep them from freezing as well, only opening them occasionally to make sure she hadn't passed something needed up ahead. The sand had given way to rock, more solid than the sand but not any more difficult to stand upon with her blood leaking out slowly. There was, however, warmth coming up from it, faint, but growing hotter the further she pressed on toward the smoke.

She would have snorted at the sight if not for what it had meant, sixteen time machines, all in shambles, all different, all with pilots that had died in the crash or shortly outside it. The smoke, however came from beyond them. She didn't even have the time to gather tools from the pilots clutched in their frozen hands or try to find parts for her own machine, she merely grabbed the few power cores that were visible, bashing them loose with the one she held. Stone hands cracked and shattered under the effort and she cradled four in total as she kept going toward the smoke, no feeling in her frostbitten hands and arms, though her feet still felt the growing heat.

Finally at the source of the heat, Hitomi stared into the mouth of the volcano, knowing what she had to do, even though all it meant. She walked up to the edge and took in a deep breath and released it, whispering a single word before letting herself fall with the power cores,
"Geronimo."

The explosion that resulted raced across the island, rippling outward along space and time, then sucked itself back in, Hitomi rising from the volcano, walking backward, putting the cores back, time racing back further and further to the incident that had stranded her and the others between the seconds, arriving moments before in her time machine.

She yelped as a spark of static came from the temporal readout and she fell out of the vortex, blinking, swearing she had seen something in it before her vessel returned to normal space-time. She tried to punch in the same coordinates as before, but the machine's readout altered before she could activate the vortex. Hitomi stared at it, entering the coordinates again, thinking she had made a mistake. No, the machine had indeed moved a second back from the time she had aimed for, and a mile away. She tried again, and it was a second after and a mile in a different direction. She had wanted to see the volcanic explosion that had destroyed the place she was born first hand from the air, to finally solve the mystery of why it had happened when all tectonic data was absent of tremors beforehand. Instead, it seemed, she would have to try to find out by going further back in time and trying to fly toward the island after. As she started punching in the coordinates for a new jump she paused, looking at it for a moment before shrugging and entering a completely new set of coordinates.

Maybe Hitomi's time machine was just on the fritz. She didn't want to waste the fuel when she didn't know for certain. She would put in for repairs and log the data, let someone else solve that mystery perhaps if her machine was unreliable. After all, she had been eying the latest model and the possibility of intergalactic travel as well. To travel the sea of stars, as well as the oceans of time.