Shadow Rift (A Hat in Time)

Oh Peck Oh No

Listen. I said I would be doing art for all the chapters, not that it would be good.

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Hopes sinking, eyes widening, Hat Kid stared at the purple glowing time anomaly before her. She blinked hard. Maybe it was just a spot in her vision, and she was imagining the rift!

Hat Kid opened her eyes again. The rift was still there.

"No," she whispered. She pushed herself to her feet, stumbling on her first attempt to balance. "No..."

The buzzing heat and energy of the rift washed over Hat Kid as she staggered over less-than-gracefully. "NO!" she yelled.

There's no way this is real! There's no way that Snatcher got stuck in a time rift! She thought angrily. Yet as she stared and reality sank in, everything was more and more and too clear.

As far as the timeline was concerned right now, Snatcher straight-up didn't exist. He was nothing more than a time anomaly.

And that very time anomaly had possession of her soul.

Did her soul disappear with him? Hat Kid turned the thought over in her mind. Would I even know if my soul no longer existed? She wondered. She felt if her soul didn't exist at all, then there would be some sort of reaction. "Let's see..." she tapped her lip, making sense of the situation aloud. "Time anomalies affect the entire timeline, meaning that Snatcher's past, present, and future are nonexistent." The main reason why they're so unstable and need to be fixed immediately, actually. "If my soul disappeared with him, that means my soul never existed."

Hat Kid dug her feet into the ground, turning her face to the ceiling. That was the part she was sure about. What came next was merely educated guesswork. "So..." she continued. "Would that mean if my soul never existed, the watch never would've started its countdown?"

No, no, she corrected herself. If your soul never existed in the first place, then you never would've had the opportunity to connect it to the watch.

Either way, the answer to this resided with the watch. Hat Kid lowered her head, finally coming to a conclusion. If my watch exists and the countdown is still going, then my soul didn't disappear with Snatcher, she thought decisively.

Slowly, she slid her hand against her pants, feeling for the edge of her pocket. Finding the opening, she slid her fingers inside and was met with the resistance of cool metal. Hat Kid breathed a sigh of relief. At least it was still here.

Wait, but I'm not done yet... Hattie hooked her fingers around the watch's chain and checked its face.

2:22:29:57, the timer read. Hat Kid watched for a moment.

2:22:29:56, then 2:22:29:55.

Both relief and disappointment filled her heart. The watch was still operating as usual. Maybe it was a good thing in this situation, but in the grand scheme of things, it was rather upsetting.

She put the watch away and glared back at the time rift. It hummed and flickered rhythmically, looking peaceful despite its existence.

Snatcher deserves this, she thought grumpily. He deserves to be corrupted and stuck in a fractured rift for what he did. Hat Kid stuck her tongue out at the rift.

Even as she thought that and mocked the anomaly, she knew she had to fix things. The entire timeline would be destroyed if she didn't, and it was much too soon for that.

Besides, she couldn't help but wonder what a time rift formed from Snatcher's memories would be like. She already knew part of Snatcher's backstory from the storybook, but what else would she see in there...?