A Shot Unfired

Kael had ended empires with a single shot. Presidents, warlords, revolutionaries—men who might have carved their names into history if history had been left alone. He was the council’s scalpel, precise and merciless, a weapon honed to excise futures before they festered.

But never a child.

The briefing echoed in his mind as he crouched in the cramped attic of a quiet suburban house. The rifle rested heavy in his hands, the metal cold and strangely comforting. Outside, under the weak glow of a flickering porch light, a boy dribbled a basketball across cracked pavement. The rhythm of bouncing rubber punctuated the night air, mingling with the high-pitched whine of cicadas and the occasional hum of a distant car. Shadows stretched long across lawns, broken only by the dim, swaying light of a streetlamp.

Target: Eli Rivers, age fifteen.

The file had been mercilessly clear: Born 2010. Catalyst of the Hundred-Year War. Directly responsible for seventy-eight million deaths. Terminate.

Kael exhaled slowly, feeling the weight of inevitability pressing against his chest.

The rifle barked.

Eli stumbled, tripping over the basketball at his feet. The bullet tore into wood, splintering the fence instead of flesh.

Kael’s jaw tightened. The wrist beacon sputtered, sparks curling and dying into darkness. The portal collapsed with a brittle crack, leaving only the night and the hum of insects.

He was stranded.

Days stretched like a taut wire. Kael shadowed Eli through the ordinary streets of 2025. The boy’s pale, wiry frame hunched under a backpack too large for him, his movements tentative, almost apologetic. Suburban homes stood in tired lines, paint peeling, lawns dotted with dandelions, sprinkler hoses curled like snakes. Neighbors moved through their quiet routines, unaware of the predator in their midst.

Eli was invisible, unnoticed, and that invisibility gnawed at Kael.

He watched Eli shoved into lockers, mocked for his stutter, mocked for his quietness. He saw the boy retreat to his bedroom at night, hunched over sketchpads filled with drones, circuits, and mechanical designs. Genius bloomed in silence, fragile yet undeniable.

Kael’s mind churned with unease. The mission demanded a monster; the reality offered only a lonely child. Could this boy truly bring about a century of war? Or was history bending toward something else entirely?

It happened in an alley behind the school. Three older boys cornered Eli, fists swinging. Kael should have remained hidden; assassins avoid exposure. Yet when Eli hit the ground and the kicks began, Kael moved before thought could slow him.

“Enough.”

The voice was low, iron-edged, carrying weight beyond ordinary threat. The bullies froze. Kael stepped into the alley, his movements fluid and precise, muscles taut like drawn wire. They scattered, leaving him alone with Eli.

Kael helped him to his feet.

“You shouldn’t have—” Eli’s words faltered, fear and awe mingled. “Who are you?”

Kael hesitated. “A friend.”

It was a lie. Yet, for the first time, he wondered if it might not be.

Days became weeks. Eli sought him out, trailing behind like a shadow. Kael taught him to fight, to stand taller, to focus. Drills, survival tactics, and precision exercises became daily rituals. He was shaping more than muscles—Kael was shaping resolve, inadvertently nurturing a force he had been sent to destroy.

“You carry yourself differently,” Eli said one night, staring into Kael’s dark eyes. “Like… like a soldier.”

Kael grunted. “Something like that.”

The boy’s eyes held hope, fragile and bright, and Kael felt an unfamiliar tug in his chest. Small victories accumulated—Eli standing up to bullies, building drones, mentoring younger students—and Kael could not ignore the quiet pride swelling within him. Each gesture, each lesson, was a seed. And seeds grew.

At night, Kael’s broken device crackled faintly, whispers drifting through static: Timeline integrity compromised. Eli Rivers must be terminated.

He ignored it.

Until the day he hacked the archives of the future and saw it. Eli’s mother and younger sister would die in a car crash within a year. That tragedy, history insisted, would harden Eli into the architect of a global war. Kael faced a choice: preserve history or defy it entirely.

Rain streaked the highway the day it happened. Tires screamed on wet asphalt. Kael moved like a shadow, leaping from darkness, yanking the family from metal twisted and glass shattered. Seconds later, the car exploded in a fireball that painted the night red, flames licking at the sky.

“You saved my family,” Eli whispered, tears streaking his face. “Why? You don’t even know us.”

Kael said nothing. He could not.

History rippled in subtle ways. Names appeared in newsfeeds he did not recognize. Digital archives blinked with unfamiliar projections. One name stood out: Jonas Revik, rising in the vacuum Eli had been destined to fill. His projected reign promised devastation bloodier than anything history had previously forecast.

By saving Eli, Kael had altered the trajectory in ways he could not control. Yet when he looked at the boy—laughing freely, carrying ice cream home for his sister, asking questions about courage—he could not see a monster. Not yet.

The other assassin arrived at dawn. Kael sensed the air warp before the figure emerged, black-clad, lethal, rifle in hand. Their eyes locked across rooftops, and Kael felt the tension coil like a steel spring.

That night, Eli sat sketching drones, confusion and fear etched into his face.

“You have to trust me,” Kael said. “Someone’s coming for you.”

“Why?” Eli’s voice trembled.

“Because… someday, you’ll be important. Too important.”

Eli’s gaze held fear and understanding. “And you? Were you here to kill me too?”

Kael said nothing. Silence sufficed.

The rival moved with predatory precision at first light, gunfire tearing through the suburban quiet. Kael shoved Eli and his family behind overturned furniture, calculating trajectories, movements, odds. Each breath and heartbeat measured. Every instinct screamed survival.

On the lawn, the two assassins faced one another, mirrored reflections of lethal intent.

“Step aside,” hissed the rival. “The boy dies.”

Kael’s hand shook on the weapon. His oath screamed: protect the timeline. Kill Eli. Save millions.

Eli’s hand gripped his sleeve, trust and fear mingled. Kael could not betray that.

He fired. The rival collapsed. Silence, rain, and distant sirens filled the world.

Eli stared, chest heaving. “You were supposed to kill me.”

Kael lowered the weapon. “I thought I knew what you’d become. I don’t anymore.”

Eli stepped closer. “Then maybe you’ll be the reason I become it.”

Kael felt the weight of those words like a bullet lodged in his chest. He slipped away, shadows swallowing him, knowing he could not linger. Every glance, every word, every minor influence risked tipping the scales of an uncertain future.

Years later, Kael sat in a crowded hall, blending in. Onstage, Eli Rivers now stood grown, twenty or twenty-one, speaking to an enthralled audience.

His voice carried authority, warmth, and charisma potent enough to move nations.

“We stand on the edge of a new era,” Eli declared. “No more oppression, no more silent wars. Together, we will rise.”

Applause thundered. Kael’s hands clenched. The cadence, the fire—it was inspiring, terrifying. Savior or tyrant? He could not know.

He slipped into the shadows, haunted by a truth he would never escape:

He hadn’t missed the shot. He had made the choice.

And the world would live—or burn—because of it.