Julia and I were both awake bright and early the next morning, and ready to leave only a few minutes after getting up. I felt sufficiently rested, which was a relief after the last few tumultuous days.

Our trek continued for several hours, drawing nearer and nearer to this dimension's version of Beacontown. Or Dreiton, as it was apparently called here.

I was more than a little worried about what we would find there. Were we in the past? The future? What would the Prime be like? Would the Prime even be there?

Julia was uncharacteristically quiet as we hiked, giving me the idea she was thinking similar things. We chatted idly now and then, but not consistently.

I wondered what was going on back at home. I was sure Radar would be worried out of his mind, and I knew Lukas was going to give me hell for acting so impulsively again.

I hoped Aiden was alright. I didn't know what Essa or her sidekick had done to him, but from the brief look I'd gotten at his injury, it hadn't been pretty. I hoped Radar had gotten him a Healing Potion in time.

We passed by a few other towns like Taswell during our journey. We didn't go through them, just nearby, but we could see they were all just little settlements. This struck me as being very strange, since I was certain none of them existed in my world.

When I asked Julia what she thought about it, all I got in reply was an uncomfortable shrug. Either she didn't have a clue, or her theories were alarming enough that she didn't want to say them aloud.

I couldn't think of a reason why these little towns would be in this timeline but not in my own. What could possibly be so different?

Finally, around midday, I got the beginnings of an answer.

I checked the map again, confirming that yes, this was indeed the town we were looking for. The familiar silhouette of the mountains loomed behind it, further cinching it.

But this place didn't seem anything like Beacontown. Not even close.

There was no protective wall, for one. No wall, no colourful gate. And no floating tower, so we weren't in some convoluted future.

There were no hot-air balloons, no jungle-tree-supported bridge that hung over the main street. There were no extravagant builds, layered with dyed wool or glazed terracotta for no reason other than aesthetic effect. There were no multicoloured beacons shining up to the sky. There was no glass, quartz, and gold Order Hall.

There was nothing that made this place stand out in the slightest.

I couldn't believe what I was seeing. This was where Beacontown was supposed to be, I was sure of it.

But this was not Beacontown.

Cautiously, hesitantly, Julia and I made our way into the strange town. It was all so…plain. It reminded me of what the place had looked like a few months after the Witherstorm, but even more unadorned.

Most of the houses were fairly small and uninspired, made primarily of different kinds of stone. Businesses looked very similar, though they at least usually had stained-glass windows and other small attempts to stand out. The streets were of polished andesite, lined with the most basic lamps you could imagine. Just carved stone brick and torches- not even glowstone, for gods' sake.

The town was, at least, quite a bit larger than the smaller hamlets we'd passed by earlier. But it was nothing- absolutely nothing -like the Beacontown I knew and loved, not like it was now or had ever been.

Julia and I were both silent, trying to keep the horror out of our faces as we surveyed the town. This didn't feel real.

We wandered, completely bewildered, until we found a small stretch of grass with a few trees, apparently intended to be a park or something. Julia leaned back against the dark-oak tree, still staring around at the town.

"What the hell is this place?" she whispered, folding her arms against her chest.

I just shook my head. I had nothing that even began to resemble an answer.

People paid us no mind as they roamed the streets. In my Beacontown, everyone seemed content and happy to be there. Here, most people I saw seemed vaguely dissatisfied, walking along with eyes cast down. Of course, not everyone seemed inherently upset, just…different.

"Seriously, what in the Overworld is this timeline? It can't be in the future, and I doubt it's in the past. As far as I know, there was never a different town directly where Beacontown is now. There was one near it, that was destroyed in the Witherstorm…but this isn't it. I don't know what's going on." Julia said.

"Me neither. This is too weird for words." I replied.

She reached up and tugged on the bit of braided hair in front of her ear. "Well, we've got to figure it out if we're going to get out of here. This can't be the newest timeline, right? The one that stems from Jacek's?"

From the way she said it, I could tell she didn't believe her own suggestion. I glanced around again as I said, "No, it can't. As far as I know, this isn't any time in our past. Plus, we don't even know if it's possible to travel to that one."

Sighing aggrievedly, Julia repeated, "Then what the hell is this?! This place is not Beacontown! There's literally no explanation!"

"Not to mention…have you noticed how strange the people are?" I asked.

She cast her eyes around again. "They don't seem strange to me. Just…I dunno, kinda vaguely hopeless."

Hopeless. That was it. That was another thing about my hometown- there wasn't much room for despondency. It was a lively, beautiful place, full of possibilities. If I was being honest, I think that was at least partially because it had for so long been the home of the Order. There was something about living in the same town as legendary heroes that seemed to inspire people.

An uneasy feeling trickled down my spine, making me shudder ever so slightly. Was that what this place was missing? Heroes?

Maybe we were in the past, after all. Very, very far in the past, but the past nonetheless.

Julia suddenly stiffened, her arms falling to her sides and her brown eyes going wide. She tilted her head to the side slightly, looking at something beyond me.

"Jess…" she said slowly. "I want you to look behind you, as casually as you can, and tell me what you see. I think I'm going crazy."

I was slightly tempted to remark that she was already crazy, but I did as she asked. Tucking my hands into my pockets, I glanced easily over my shoulder.

Across the street from us was a row of businesses. People were standing in front of or going in and out of some of them, preventing me from seeing what they were. "What am I looking at?" I asked.

"In front of that wooden building that looks like a map shop. There's a blond-ish guy talking to two women. Do you see them?"

It took me a moment to figure out who she was talking about, but I found them. The man was decently tall, with golden-brown hair pulled back into a ponytail. My eyes widened of their own accord as I realized who it was.

"That's…is that Jack?" I asked. Julia's expression was frozen somewhere between confusion and alarm.

"Keep looking."

I glanced back over at the trio, trying to identify either of the strange women. They were both standing with their backs to me, so it was hard to tell. They both seemed fairly young, around my age if I had to guess.

One of them was a tall redhead, with a long braid that spilled over her shoulder. She wore a simple green shirt and grey pants, though I didn't catch any other details that jumped out at me.
The other was a bit shorter and wearing a patterned red skirt. She had rich umber skin, and very long black hair that rippled down her back in shiny curls. Though I was too far away to hear what she was saying, I noticed her motioning with her hands as she spoke.

I was about to look back at Julia again when a child's voice caught my attention. Both the women turned to smile at a little boy as he came running up to them, and I swear my heart stopped for a second when I saw their faces.

Because they weren't strangers. Far from it.

It was Olivia and Petra.

I stared in astonishment for a moment, then turned back to Julia. "How…what…what?!"

She shook her head, apparently just as surprised as I was. "I don't know. This somehow makes even less sense than before."

"But-but they…but if this is…what the hell?" I stammered, turning back to look at them again. Petra had lifted the little boy into her arms and was grinning as Olivia said something to him.

The boy was obviously a young spawn. He had wavy dark brown hair that contrasted starkly with his pale skin, and his roundish face was dotted with freckles. The grey hoodie he wore seemed ever so slightly too small for him, the sleeves rolling all the way up to his elbows as he made wild gestures to match his exuberant words I couldn't hear.

That was when I noticed the sunlight glinting off something on Petra's right hand.

A ring. A wedding ring.

My eyes darted between her, to Olivia, to the boy, back to Petra again. I finally noticed the way the two women were looking at each other, as the boy prattled on.

They were married? And not only that, but they'd adopted a son?

I met Julia's eyes again, her look of shock mirroring mine.

"I know there's really no point in saying it again, because we're both thinking it," she said. "but what the actual hell."

"I don't know. This obviously completely throws out our past idea." I muttered.

"But then what is it?!" she objected. "If it's not sometime in the past, and it's not the future…what else does that leave us with?"

I hesitated, rubbing my thumb against the stubble on my chin as I thought. "Maybe…maybe this doesn't match up with our timeline at all. For all we know, we could be somewhere completely outside our known realities."

The expression of shock gave way to one of alarm, and I continued before Julia had a chance to say anything. "Think about it. This is basically the perfect place for Essa to trap us, if she wants us out of the way of her plans. And if you're going to drop someone into a confusing dimension that you don't want them to get out of, why not go the whole hog?"

I paused for a second, glancing back at the couple again, then to the west where the Order Hall should've been. "Julia…I think we might be in a world without heroes."

She gave me a wary look. "What exactly does that mean?"

I gestured to the plain town surrounding us. "Look around. This is the present. Olivia and Petra are the same age they are in my time, but they're not 'Petra the Warrior' and 'Olivia the Redstone Engineer'. They're just people. And…and the Order Hall is gone. There's no beacon amulet, or anything that shows any signs of the Order of the Stone. It means exactly what it sounds like- there aren't any heroes in this world."

"What if it's not just that there's no heroes?" Julia asked. Her voice had dropped almost to a whisper, and she sounded downright horrified. "What if there's just no Prime?"

I stared. She grabbed at my hand, looking somewhat faint. "Jess, that's it, I know that's it. There's no us. There's no Order in this timeline because here, we don't exist." Julia said, gesturing between her and I. "That's…that's why this isn't Beacontown. There was no Prime, no you or I or Jacek or Jo to make it into what it's supposed to be. We. Don't. Exist."

My other hand flew up to cover my gasp as my thoughts started spiraling through possibilities as puzzle pieces clicked in my mind. "Oh…my god. Oh my god. You're right. That's why Taswell is still there, too. There was no Witherstorm…no anything."

She released my wrist to run her own fingers through her short brown hair. "Of course. Without the Prime, Axel and Olivia and Lukas may not have found out about Petra's deal. They wouldn't have found the Wither…wouldn't have confronted Ivor…Axel wouldn't have stolen the potion…nothing would've happened. I-Ivor's original plan would've worked, and he would've exposed the Order…but there wouldn't have been us, the New Order, to take their place."

"So people stopped believing in heroes at all." I added. "And that's why everything here feels so different, so hopeless."

Julia shook her head, though she seemed to be reacting more to the disbelief than to my statement. She slumped back against the tree again, and I whispered, "Julia…what did we get ourselves into?"

"Even more than that. How do we get ourselves out?" she added. "Without the Prime, there's no one else who would know about the timelines, at least no one we could talk to. If we can't find out the exit code…we're stuck here."

"Which was no doubt Essa's intention." I muttered bitterly. Her plan must be very fragile for her to go to such lengths to keep us out of the way.

Julia pressed her hands against her face, hiding her eyes. "Okay. Let's think about this. I'm not jumping into complete hopelessness yet. We can think this through."

I crossed my arms lightly. "There's gotta be some way to get out of here. Even if there's no Prime, someone could've found out about the timelines, right? What about Ivor?" I asked. My tone and words were far more optimistic than I was really feeling.

"No…he wouldn't know. I still don't know how he found out, but it was after he'd left Beacontown to try to find the rest of the old Order. And he wouldn't have done that if me and the rest of the New Order hadn't separated after the Admin. So…no, he doesn't have any of the motivation." Julia argued.

She made an exampling motion with her hand, gesturing to the town around us. "And besides, we don't know what happened to him in this timeline. He could be anywhere. So even if he did know, we wouldn't be able to find him."

"And we don't exactly have time for a long search." I said with a frustrated sigh.

We were both silent for a few moments, thinking. I briefly wondered about the auburn-haired woman from Essa's timeline- Giselle. I still didn't know her connection to the whole mess. Was it possible that this timeline's version of her would know?

But…again, even if she did, we had no way to find her. And I doubted she was the most trustworthy source of information, in any case.

Julia was gnawing on her thumbnail, frowning at the ground with a contemplative expression. "What if…this might be totally crazy, but what if Soren knows?"

"Soren?" I echoed.

She nodded thoughtfully. "I was just thinking back to that creepy room back in the old Order's temple. We never figured out who was doing all that research, but it seemed like him, right? And he's already weird enough that knowing about the timelines wouldn't be too far off track."

"But how do we find him?" I asked. "We still have no idea how everything played out when the Order was exposed in this timeline. Where would he have gone?"

"Who says he went anywhere? If Ivor revealed the Order's lies on his own, there would've been no reason for Soren to leave his End fortress. I bet he's still there, with all his Endermen and insanity!"

I hesitated just a moment too long, and Julia gave me a questioning look. "Okay, yeah. He probably is still there…but are we sure we want to go all the way there? If he doesn't actually know about the timelines, we're screwed. I'm just wondering if we have enough proof. It would really suck if we got all the way there and then he can't help us."

Julia made a dismissive noise, waving her hand flippantly. "We don't have any other leads. Plus, I just have this feeling it's him, and my instincts haven't been wrong yet."

I sighed. "True."

"Great. So let's go." Julia prompted. She seemed a bit cheerier now that we had a plan, or the beginnings of one, at least.

I took another long look at the town as we headed out, memorizing the plain people and uninspired buildings. It made me sad, and a little frightened, to see how different it was from my hometown. All because it didn't have someone like me or Julia? That thought was more than a little intimidating. Had I really changed things that much?

Part of me wished we could stay a little longer in this twisted place. Find out who led it. How people like Jack still managed to have come here. Anything.

But we had a goal now, and another part of me wanted to get as far away from the strange town as possible.

The journey to Soren's fortress didn't take as long as I would've thought.

It gave me major chills to be walking through areas of wilderness that I knew had been destroyed in the Witherstorm and grown back completely differently. The storm had changed our world so much, for the worse, but for the better as well. While the Witherstorm itself had been horrible, the changes that had sprung up in its wake had been surprisingly positive.

I wondered what else had changed, or, rather, not changed.

Julia and I ended up discussing this for a while during our journey, trying to piece together how everything had gone down without us. Without the Prime, no one else would have found out about Petra's deal with Ivor. Even if she'd gone down to his creepy hideout to look for the skull on her own, she may not have found the hidden lever, without Axel there to steal the potion that revealed it. Alternatively, maybe she had found the skull, and taken it.

Either way, that was where the story ended for us. We didn't know how exactly Ivor had revealed the rest of the Order, or what had happened after. It was obvious that the people who should've become the New Order hadn't stayed friends, at least not most of them. Without the Prime, they'd have had no motivation to.

This also presented a new question that neither of us knew how to answer, and maybe didn't even want to. How had this timeline even come into being? How could something like this even exist?

Julia commented that it seemed almost like a 'control' sample in a science experiment, which deeply unnerved us both. I didn't like the idea that my entire existence had the potential to be nothing more than a part of some bizarre multidimensional test.

"It kinda really puts things into perspective, doesn't it?" Julia asked. The entrance to Soren's mountain fortress had just come into view in the distance, refueling our motivation.

"What do you mean?"

"Well…it just kinda reminds you why we're here. This is why us being heroes is so important. The world needs people like us to show what's possible, to test the limits of reality and provide hope. Otherwise things never change."

I decided not to tell her how bigheaded that sounded, because she did have a point. Even if saying it aloud made it seem a little arrogant, I knew it was true. We did test the limits of reality, and we kept people guessing as to what could be done. We helped keep things moving forward.

Maybe that's why I had given up on my future. Because I'd forgotten how important it was to have heroes in our world, and how much better my own life had been when I was still out there changing the world.

I was beginning to feel as though I'd made a mistake.

Staying in Beacontown hadn't been an impulsive choice. I'd had a feeling Petra was going to leave town ever since that awkward conversation on the way to the 'icy palace of despair', and I'd known right from the start that I wasn't going with her. But now I was wondering if that had really been the right decision.

But what was the other alternative? I've already made my choice, and I was stuck in it. With the Order scattered, it was already too late to go back to the way things could've been.

I didn't say any of this to Julia, since she seemed to be in such high spirits as we climbed the uneven rocks that led up to the entrance to the fortress. The blue and gold doors opened automatically in front of us, and a shiver ran down my spine as memories from being here seven years prior came flooding back.

Julia seemed to be thinking the same thing as we gazed out over the high pillars we needed to parkour across. She was motionless, and seemed to be contemplating something.

I took a few steps back, then leapt onto the first pillar, then the next. They really weren't that far apart, but the gravel lining the tops of the columns made it a little difficult to land securely.

When I was almost halfway across, I finally glanced back at Julia. To my surprise, she wasn't bothering to jump from pillar to pillar like I was- she was simply using her Admin powers to fly over the gap.

"Cheater!" I exclaimed as she caught up to me. "You could've done that for me, too!"

She gave me a slightly condescending smile. "Maybe if you'd waited for me, I would've."

With that, she took off again, and I followed, trying to keep up while still retaining my balance.

Before long, we found ourselves in the impossibly tall room that housed the four enormous statues of the Order members. I briefly wondered why there was only four- had they been built after Ivor had already left, or had Soren destroyed his?

Julia was already heading towards the passageway beside Ellegaard's statue. "We're gonna have to go all the way through the grinder to get to that End portal, right? It's been so long since I've been here…I can't fully remember."

I nodded. "Yeah. This passageway takes us to the library, and below there is the tunnels that feed into the grinder."

More and more worries started bubbling up as we walked cautiously through the passage. What if Soren didn't know about the timelines? What if he couldn't help? What if he wasn't even here? For all we knew, he could be dead in this timeline!

Eventually, the tunnel gave way to a set of downward stairs, which led into the massive library. It was exactly how I remembered it- the nearly endless towers of bookshelves, all lit by the golden light of glowstone lamps. The room was impossibly tall, reaching up to what had to be at least fifty blocks, maybe even as much as a hundred.

Standing near the center of the room, I glanced around, trying to remember where the hidden room had been. I heard a faint noise that sounded like muttering, but I brushed it off, thinking that it was just Julia.

My guess was proved wrong when Julia suddenly grabbed my arm, looking wildly around. "There's someone here." she murmured.

"What? Who?" I whispered back. She shook her head.

"I don't know. Should we confront them?"

I hesitated. If it was someone else who wasn't supposed to be there, we probably should. But if it was Soren, we should try to be polite, since we fell into the category of 'not supposed to be there'.

I waited too long, though, because Julia shouted, "HEY! Who's there?!" before I had a chance to say anything.

I heard the sound of a heavy book hitting the floor, and a male voice called out in surprise. Julia took off running towards the shout, with me trailing nervously behind.

A man was standing near one of the tall bookshelf towers, staring at us in shock as we approached. He was horribly familiar, though I hadn't seen him in several years.

"Soren?!" Julia exclaimed. "Oh, thank god. We've been looking for you, we need-"

"You?!" he shouted, pointing at us. "How…how are you…what are you doing here?!"

I froze. "Wait. You know us?"

"Of course I do!" he cried. "You're Primes, and you're not supposed to be in this timeline!"