Run Toward Ruin – Chapter 8
At breakfast, the questions pile up fast — why didn’t the old man see this coming? — but the answers are stranger than anyone expected. Some of them are vanishing. Not for long. Just long enough to land in their parents’ pasts, walk through moments they were never meant to see, and come back changed.
One kiss that shouldn’t have happened. One warning nobody wants to hear. And a boy who has to decide how much to tell his grandfather — before the meeting starts without him, and before someone gets stuck somewhere they can’t come back from.
8. About Kissing
Darius sat at the far table in the dining room shovelling scrambled eggs into his mouth. He had only a few minutes to eat.
Sabina walked over with her own breakfast plate.
“I’m here to eat my breakfast calmly, like a human,” she said when she sat down. “Not like an animal.”
The fork hovered mid-air. Darius looked around for Kaarle. He wasn’t there, or any of the others. Which is the only reason she would join him.
“Have you lost something?” he asked, pointing to the empty chair beside her. “That thing… where is he?”
“Kaarle? Don’t call him that.”
“Why not?”
Sabina just shook her head. “He is with his father. He has to be in the meeting this morning.”
Darius won’t get to be in the meeting for a very long time. Not officially. But he had to get his grandfather Oswin there on time.
Sabina buttered her toast and then sat holding the knife. “I have something to tell.”
“Grandfather was in a foul mood this morning,” Darius said. “I took him his toast and coffee and he had papers all over his bed.”
The knife came down with a clatter on the plate. “Did you ask? Are they going to discuss the comet this morning?”
Darius shook his head while he swallowed. “I don’t think it’s about last night. He doesn’t know.”
“It’s just the meeting then.”
“But he should know,” said Darius and gulped down half a glass of orange juice. “It is strange that he does not know. He didn’t predict anything.”
Bernat joined them with a question. “Did you ask your grandfather, about the star, comet, whatever?”
Darius glared at him. “Don’t be daft. You don’t just ask the old man something. Not if his mind is elsewhere and not if you don’t want to be scolded for nothing.”
“Scared to ask him?”
Darius clutched his fork in his fist. “Of course I am.” He looked around the table. Sabina was not listening, pouring tea. Bernat looking at him pointedly.
“Only half yourself and still chatty this morning?” asked Darius.
“What?”
Darius pointed with his chin. “Where’s Flawia?”
“Probably sleeping in.”
“Excitement from last night too much for her?”
Cora and Piers appeared in the dining room and walked over.
“Those two didn’t lose each other,” mumbled Darius.
“I haven’t told my parents,” started Cora with a whisper. “Have any of you told yours anything?”
Nobody said anything. Sabina shook her head with lips pressed together.
“My mother would have made me stay in bed,” said Cora. “As a precaution.”
“Have you—?” started Piers.
“Asked the old man? No, he does not know anything.”
Bernat leaned across. “Are you guessing, or did you ask?”
Piers shrugged. “Maybe it’s not so important.”
“He didn’t predict it,” said Darius. He dropped his fork and sat back in his chair, gripping the edge of the table. “Grandfather. Something like that would… He doesn’t listen to anyone on anything, but he’ll change everything because of a star. If last night’s event wasn’t in his calendar… then, then…”
Sabina placed a hand on his forearm, stilling the tremor. “The adults might not know about anything. If they did, there would have been a change to the conclave proceedings. Nothing changed.”
Flawia appeared in the doorway. She scanned the room and then rushed over. Some of her hair plastered in wet curls to her temples and neck.
Darius pushed his plate away. “I must go and get Oswin ready for the meeting.”
“Wait,” said Sabina. “I have not yet told you about Kaarle and what happened last night.”
“Who cares about you two kissing in the dark, except Mother,” said Darius. He stood up and brushed crumbs from his lap.
Flawia slipped into his chair. “I did it.”
“Kissing?” asked Bernat.
“Overslept and be late for breakfast?” grumbled Darius.
Flawia pushed Darius away. “I did the same as Cora. I also slipped to some time else.”
“You lie,” said Bernat.
“I won’t. Not about this.”
“When?” asked Sabina.
“Right now, just before I came downstairs.”
“No that, to when in time?” corrected Darius, getting Sabina’s intention.
“Maybe twenty or more years ago. They were all so young. Your mother, my mother, all of them. The same age as we are now.”
Sabina turned her toast around on her plate. “How do you know when you went?”
“That’s the kiss, my mother has told me about her first kiss and I wanted to…”
“Why you?” asked Bernat. “Why don’t I know?”
Flawia only looked at Bernat and rolled her eyes.
Darius still stood awkwardly behind her. He turned to leave when Sabina caught his arm and held him back. “Kaarle also went back in time. Last night already.”
Darius went round and perched on the empty chair on her other side. “Why didn’t you say anything? When?”
“He went back to when the south wing was being rebuilt. After the big fire.” She scratched her ear. “That was twenty years ago?”
“No, when last night?” said Darius.
“After everybody went to bed,” said Sabina. “He went when he was on the stairs to the roof. I was meeting him up there.”
Darius smirked. “Mother would be livid.”
Sabina gripped his hand and squeezed. “Mother does not need to know. You won’t tell her.”
Darius looked across at Flawia. “How did you make it happen?”
“Mama scratched a mark in her room,” Flawia said. “My room now. She said she made it after her first kiss.”
“And so what?”
“I touched the mark and closed my eyes and… there was this snap of cold.”
Cora reached across the table and touched Flawia’s arm. “Same, freezing cold, but only for a moment. And the twist in your stomach?”
Flawia nodded vigorously. “Yes, like missing a step.”
“That’s three now,” said Sabina softly. “And there were eight of us who saw the falling star.”
“Not a falling star,” said Darius as he stood up again.
“Jamais comet or whatever,” said Bernat. “Do you think any of us five can also slip back in time?”
Darius was still thinking when Sabina answered. “We should be. There is no reason why it will only work for some and not for others.”
“What is working?” asked Darius.
Flawia rolled her eyes again with an exaggerated sigh. “The time slip thing.”
“Yes, but what is it?”
“We don’t know,” said Flawia and looked at the others.
“Precisely,” said Darius, stabbing a finger at the tabletop. “It can be dangerous. What if somebody gets stuck?”
“Nobody has yet.”
“We have three tries. That is not enough to draw a conclusion from.”
“Stop hovering,” said Sabina and pulled on Darius’ arm to make him sit down again.
He shrugged her off. “I have to go, but…”
“Then go. You are like a fly.”
Darius sat down again and leaned his elbows on the table. “You have to look at the relationships, tangents and…”
Flawia crinkled her brow. “What?”
“That is how you predict things.” Darius moved his hands over the table cloth as if he had instruments. “You draw a chart… what we know, and what connects, and… We have to know more.”
Flawia waved her hand as if she was chasing a fly. “I can tell you more. It is not what you expect. Not what I expected.”
Cora edged closer. “Did you see your mother, her first kiss?”
“Kind of. It was pretty dark in the room and…”
“Spit it out,” said Bernat.
Flawia clasped her hands together and bit a knuckle. “I got kissed.”
“By your father?” asked Cora.
“No, by yours.”
Cora’s mouth fell open. Flawia shrugged and Bernat cleared his throat.
Sabina was the first to find words again. “You are saying your uncle Tomis gave your mother a kiss?”
Flawia nodded. “Seems the adults don’t tell us everything when they tell us stories about the past. Keeping secrets.”
“Everybody keeps secrets,” said Darius.
Flawia snorted loudly. “Not the way you Pochrons do.”
“What do you mean to say?”
“I don’t mean to say, I’m saying it. Your grandfather Oswin keeps secrets that hurts everybody, and you are part of that.”
“Come now, Flawia,” said Sabina, keeping her voice even. “You know how much we can change what the adults do.”
“Do we?” said Flawia, but she wasn’t looking at Sabina. She glared at Darius. “Because you are with him all the time. You can surely do something. At least warn us.”
Darius jerked, his chin falling from his hand. “You want me to spy on my grandfather?”
“Something like that. Or at least tell him what others think of his scheming.”
His leg started trembling. “What do they think then?”
“Flawia,” interrupted Bernat. “You can’t say.”
“Who is keeping secrets now?” asked Darius.
“We should stop,” said Sabina.
“I want him to know,” said Flawia but Bernat silenced her with a touch.
Cora leaned forward, placing herself between Flawia and Darius, laying her palms flat on the tabletop. “We are talking about the time slips. That’s what we can do. The adults will talk their talks.”
Darius looked at her. She was making sense.
Bernat thought so too. “If we want to know anything more, to see if everybody can travel, we need to test it,” he said.
“We should not be testing anything,” said Sabina. “What if you don’t come back? What if you get hurt there?”
Bernat spoke at a measured pace. Laying it out. “It happened three times by accident. It can happen again. Testing means trying to figure out how to make it happen on purpose. Then we know we can stop it too.”
“Can we stop it? It’s happened three times without trying.”
“We don’t know if it’s possible to stop, if we don’t know what starts it. Or what keeps it from starting when it doesn’t.”
Darius pushed in. “But nobody should talk to people… do dumb things in the past. If you change—”
“It was an accident,” interrupted Flawia. “I didn’t mean to. But I came back.”
“That’s just luck,” said Darius and folded his arms. “One small star on the horizon can alter the meaning of a whole constellation.”
Sabina poked him with a finger. “That sounds exactly like grandfather.”
“Does not make it less true.”
Sabina finally started eating her toast. Bernat and Piers also seemed to remember they were at a breakfast table and looked for what was left to eat. Cora and Flawia sat with their heads together whispering furiously.
“If we try, we start carefully,” said Darius. “One person. Someone stays watching in case—”
“In case what?” asked Bernat.
“I don’t know. In case.”
There was a pause. In case what. Sabina had said it before. What if somebody got hurt, or stuck? How would they even know? Darius looked at the others, Piers, Bernat, Sabina next to him and—
Cora and Flawia flicked away. Were gone. Went somewhere in the past—
Darius looked over his shoulder at who else was in the dining room. “Did anybody else see that?”
Bernat held tightly to Flawia’s chair back. “We almost didn’t.”
They didn’t. It was like a blink and then they weren’t there. Things changed right before their eyes and they didn’t see a thing.
“They will be back right now,” said Piers. He sounded calm about it.
“How do you know?” snapped Bernat.
“That’s what happened before. Cora was gone for a couple of minutes.”
“So was Kaarle, last night,” added Sabina.
“We wait then…”
They would go to some time in the past that they know about. That both of them knew about. Seems girls knew things that people like Bernat and Darius didn’t. Darius again pictured that chart, adding another bit to it.
“What do you think those two will get up to?” asked Sabina.
Bernat shook his head. “Probably nothing good.”
Piers said nothing, but he nodded vigorously.
The chart in Darius’ head got a label and a big question mark.
“Paradox!” he said. “That’s the thing. If they change something and then come back here and things are different and wrong, that’ll be a paradox.”
A clock struck the hour in the hallway, like a flat palm against a tabletop. Darius’ chair scraped back on the floor. The meeting would start and he had forgotten about Oswin. And they would start without him and this time it honestly would be his fault.
“Go,” Sabina said.
He met Steward Komassa coming down the stairs.
“You’ll want to be moving, young Pochron. Your grandfather’s been ringing since the quarter-hour.”
Darius was already past him. He took the stairs in twos.
© 2026 Gerhi Janse van Vuuren