Previously on Watcher of the Infinite...
My name is Pendo, the fastest woman to ever live. I followed my father back through the currents of time to stop him from changing the history of the world, but I never came alone. Something dark, something hungry, followed me into the silence of the past.
I arrived in the year 2012. Nairobi back then was different—the roads were narrower, the skyscrapers were fewer, and the air didn't taste of tachyon ash. I found the path that led to my childhood home, hiding in the shadows to avoid a fracture in time. I knew I shouldn't mess with the past, but the pull of the home I lost was a gravity I couldn't resist.
I reached the house and watched from the darkness of the garden. I saw my father, Carel, coming out of the bedroom—he was already a speedster then, but he had no idea his daughter was standing in his shadow. I saw a younger version of myself, a five-year-old girl full of laughter, and then I saw my mother. She was alive. I wanted her hug, a warmth I had never known in my own timeline. Driven by a hunger for her presence and the ghosts of my teenage years, I broke into the kitchen. I found a sufuria on the gas cylinder, filled with my dad's favorite meal: Ugali and Managu. But as I reached for a taste of the life I was denied, I knocked the lid. It hit the floor with a deafening clang. My mother walked in, and the world stood still.
The sound of the heavy metal lid hitting the tiled floor felt like a grenade going off in the dead silence of the Nairobi night. I froze, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. In 2026, I could move so fast that sound couldn't even catch me, but here, depowered and human, I was a prisoner of the present moment. The kitchen smelled of home—not the sterile, metallic home of the future, but the rich, bitter scent of Managu sautéed in onions and cream, and the heavy, comforting steam of fresh Ugali.
The kitchen door swung open.
There she was. My mother, Beatrice. She didn't have the haunted, pale look from the few faded photos I possessed in the future. Her skin was glowing like polished bronze under the warm yellow light of the kitchen bulb, and her eyes were bright with the simple, everyday peace of 2012. She was wearing a floral apron over her dress, her hands dusted with a bit of flour from earlier in the evening. To her, I wasn't the Protector of the 254; I was just a stranger standing in her kitchen in the middle of the night.
"Nani huyo?" she asked, her voice sharp with the caution of a Nairobi woman who knew the world wasn't always kind, but she wasn't yet afraid. "Who is there? Na umeingia aje huku ndani?"
I couldn't move. I couldn't even breathe. Every instinct I had as a Watcher told me to vanish, to vibrate through the brickwork, to run until the horizon swallowed me. But my legs felt like lead. I was staring at a miracle. I was staring at the woman whose death had fueled the destruction of the multiverse.
"Ati?" she stepped closer, squinting against the dim light. "Wewe ni nani? Are you okay?"
[ADVANCED RAW SYSTEM: TEMPORAL ANCHOR DETECTED]
LOCATION:Carel's Residence, Nairobi (March 2012).
SITUATION:Direct Contact with Primary Ancestor (Maternal).
PARADOX RISK:EXTREME (Redline Status).
VITAL SIGNS:Pulse 180 BPM / Adrenaline Surge.
SYSTEM ADVISORY:Pendo, your presence is like a short-circuit in the wiring of time. If you reveal your identity now, the shockwave could ripple back and erase your father's memory. This is Beatrice—the woman whose heartbeat is the timer for the entire war. Every word you speak is a butterfly flapping its wings in a hurricane. Be careful, maze!
SENG NOTE:Aki! Pendo, maze, toka hapo haraka! This is the most dangerous mission of your life. If she calls your dad, and the 2012 Carel sees a woman who looks exactly like his wife but from the future, the 'Double-Self' paradox will fry the local reality. Plus, that Managu smells too sweet to be a distraction. Move, daughter! Get out of the light!
"I... I'm sorry," I stammered, my voice cracking, sounding thin and strange to my own ears. I lowered my head, letting my tangled hair fall over my face to hide the features that were a mirror of hers. "I was hungry. I saw the door... I haven't eaten in days."
It was a weak lie, a beggar's excuse, but in 2012 Nairobi, the sight of a disheveled young woman looking for a meal wasn't unheard of. Beatrice's expression softened instantly, the sharp edges of her suspicion melting into that legendary Kenyan hospitality that defined her.
"Pole sana," she whispered, her voice dropping to a gentle hum as she stepped toward the stove. "Hujambo? You don't have to break in for a plate of food, mwanangu. We don't turn away people who are hungry in this house. This is a home of blessings."
She picked up the lid from the floor, wiped it with her apron with a practiced flick of the wrist, and placed it back on the steaming pot. The smell of the Managu hit me again—the traditional greens cooked to perfection, rich in nutrients and history. It was the smell of a life I was never allowed to have, a childhood stolen by a cosmic war.
"Keti," she commanded gently, pointing to a small wooden stool by the kitchen counter. "Let me give you a plate. But you must leave quickly before my husband comes back from the bedroom. He is a good man, a very good man, but he is very protective of our little girl. He doesn't like strangers in the house at night."
I sat down, my hands trembling on my lap. I watched her move—the way she reached for a plastic plate, the way she skillfully cut a mountain of Ugali with a piece of thread. She was real. She wasn't a ghost or a digital reconstruction.
"Your husband..." I started, the words tasting like copper in my mouth. "Is he... is he a runner?"
Beatrice paused, a small, knowing smile playing on her lips, a secret look that made my heart ache. "He is fast, that one. Always in a hurry to save the world, even when the world hasn't asked him to. He has a restless spirit, like the wind over the Rift. But tonight, he is just a father. He is putting our daughter to sleep."
[SYSTEM INTERFACE: BIOMETRIC SCAN & LORE SYNC]
TARGET:Beatrice (2012).
STATUS:Healthy / Zero Void Trace.
TEMPORAL COUNTDOWN:14 Hours until the 'Origin' Incident.
TRIVIA:In 2026 history, this is the last time Beatrice ever cooked this meal. The 'Last Supper' of the 254.
SENG NOTE:Pendo, look at the wall clock! It's almost midnight. In less than 14 hours, the Dark Avatar of Lucifer is scheduled to hit this exact house. This Managu isn't just food, it's a farewell. You have to tell her to leave. You have to save her from what's coming! But how do you tell a mother that her death is the only thing that saves the future? Wueh, this is heavy!
I took the plate she handed me. The Ugali was hot, burning my fingertips, and the Managu was bitter, rich, and cream-soaked, just the way Dad always tried to describe it when we were starving in the ash-lands. I took a bite, and for a moment, the 6th Phase, the Void, and the God of Wisdom didn't matter. I was just a girl having dinner with her mother.
"Why are you crying, child?" Beatrice asked, her hand hovering near my shoulder, wanting to comfort me but hesitant to touch a stranger.
"It's just... it's been a long time since I felt safe," I lied, the hot tears blurring my vision and dripping into the greens.
Suddenly, footsteps echoed from the hallway. Heavy, rhythmic footsteps that vibrated with a hidden power. I knew that stride. Even in 2012, before he became the Supreme Watcher, his footsteps had the underlying frequency of a thunderbolt.
"Beatrice? Who are you talking to in there?"
My father walked into the kitchen.
He was younger, his hair was jet black with no silver at the temples, and his face was full of a warmth that I had never seen in my era. He didn't have the golden, detached aura of the Watcher. He was wearing a simple 'I Love Nairobi' t-shirt and grey sweatpants. He stopped dead when he saw me sitting at his table, his eyes instantly sharpening.
"Carel, she was just hungry, don't be harsh," Beatrice said quickly, stepping between us like a shield. "I was just giving her some of your Managu. She's harmless."
Carel's eyes narrowed into slits. He was a speedster, even then, his senses tuned to a different vibration of reality. He could sense the energy coming off me—the faint, dying hum of the 6th Phase tachyons that still clung to my skin like radioactive dust. He didn't see a beggar; he saw a ghost from a future he hadn't built yet.
"Who are you?" he asked, his voice low, vibrating with a danger that made the water in the glasses on the counter ripple. "And why do you smell like ozone and high-altitude lightning?"
[SYSTEM STATUS: PARADOX IMMINENT]
WARNING:Carel (2012) is sensing the Velocity Force signature.
DANGER:Temporal feedback loop initiating—The 'Watcher' inside him is waking up too early.
SENG NOTE:Buda! The 2012 Carel is sharp like a razor! He knows you aren't a regular girl from the estate. If he uses his speed now to investigate you, the friction will ignite the timeline and attract the Void Speedster you dragged through! Pendo, don't look him in the eye! If he sees his own reflection in your pupils, the memory will fracture and he'll lose his mind! Get out! Run!
"I'm nobody," I said, standing up so fast the stool scraped across the floor with a screech. "Thank you for the food, Mama. I have to go. Now."
"Wait!" Carel moved.
He didn't use his full speed, but to a normal person, he would have been a blur of motion. He blocked the kitchen exit, his arms crossed over his chest, his presence filling the small room. "You aren't going anywhere until you tell me how you got past the electric fence, how you entered my house without a sound, and why you're wearing silver armor under that old coat."
I looked at him—the man I had run across centuries and shattered timelines to save. And then I looked at Beatrice, who was watching us with confused, worried eyes, holding her hands to her chest. I realized then that I couldn't just hide. The Void Speedster I dragged through wasn't the only threat. The threat was the choice he was about to make tomorrow—the choice to become a god and lose his soul.
"Dad..." the word slipped out, a broken whisper that carried the weight of fourteen years of loneliness.
The kitchen went deathly silent. The only sound was the low hum of the refrigerator. Carel's face went pale, his jaw dropping as he recoiled as if I had struck him. Beatrice dropped the kitchen cloth she was holding, her eyes wide with a sudden, terrifying realization.
"What did you just call me?" Carel whispered, his voice trembling.
Outside, the wind began to howl through the trees of the estate, and the sky over Nairobi turned a strange, bruised purple—the same color as the Void Speedster I had fought in the clouds. The air in the kitchen grew cold, and the lights flickered. The war hadn't waited for tomorrow. The war had followed me into the heart of my home.
[SYSTEM INTERFACE: VOID PROXIMITY ALERT]
DETECTION:Negative Tachyons at the Gate.
THREAT:The Void Speedster (Stalker Protocol).
SENG NOTE:Aki! He's here! The shadow you dragged from 2026 is at the front door! He's followed your scent to the house! Pendo, you have no speed! Carel (2012) isn't strong enough yet! This is a massacre waiting to happen! You have to move the family! Nairobi 2012 is about to burn!