Claire set up the rocket launcher.54Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOweIScGD9L
Thank God she'd actually read the manual.
Her fingers moved along it from memory—every latch, every safety, every angular adjustment played like second nature.54Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdKKiUFgKsx
She had never fired one of these before.54Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5PdPxS6guo
But this wasn’t the kind of thing you practice. This was a “get it right once or die” kind of tool.
She reached for the payload—a small cylindrical canister—and gently placed it on the rooftop.54Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkR4L5FbnsN
The sound of metal against concrete echoed sharply in the still air, like the only heartbeat left in the world.
With cautious precision, she twisted the seal.54Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡF8pHrov2ku
Dry. Temperature stable. Good.54Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpgfxwWD2P8
That meant the containment had held.
No room for hesitation. Not for what came next.
This capsule wasn’t just a payload.54Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRWhxalCFUN
It was a vessel. A seed.
Claire stood, eyes sweeping over the city.
She hadn't lived just 296 repeated days—no, it had been far longer. She just couldn’t remember anymore.54Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAxcEdTdDQa
Too many fractured timelines had worn holes in her memory.54Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNxt6vNXelg
The truth was, she’d outlived herself.
The pages were torn. The bookmarks gone.54Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCYbDPznMl4
Only her body remembered.
Blood dripped from her left eye.54Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzaGGxk1TxF
One drop. Two. Each hitting the concrete with a soundless rhythm, forming tiny red circles.54Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJbI5UT7tBw
She didn’t wipe them away. She just let it bleed.
Claire crouched down and pressed a palm gently over her left eye.
“Don’t be scared,” she whispered. “You’re going home now.”
Her voice was soft—like someone soothing a child.54Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJPO18zmLG1
But she wasn’t lying. This entire journey had always been about this one moment.
She looked up.54Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyMT0YueLGb
The slime hadn’t fully entered the city yet.
Purple strings of it hung from the sky like intestinal tendrils, squirming in midair with an almost biological pulse.54Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1M5WfANMxW
She could tell which strands were new and which had been lingering for cycles.
That knowing didn’t come from sight.54Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdWNc3U8Kqg
It was something else—deeper.54Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeX8dZmshNK
A non-human perception now hardwired into her.
Then Claire reached with her left hand—
—and into her eye socket.
Her fingers moved with calm familiarity.54Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1OgafE0iul
She hooked beneath the eye, traced the optic nerves, and lifted.54Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzSKAMObApd
There was no resistance.
It wasn’t a real eye.
It was a container.54Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsa0KAPJWRI
A seal.54Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡolDAd0r60k
A stolen fragment of time she had smuggled out from somewhere else.
The thing in her hand trembled.54Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaF5HERopme
But it did not fight her.
Claire smiled at it—barely a twitch, a flicker of something tender.54Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcu5Lzcwr4Z
Then, gently, she placed it into the canister.
No words.54Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMZPsFTRNUs
Just the sound of a click as the lid closed and the capsule was sealed.54Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡF5pqFYeRX3
She lifted the entire mechanism and slotted it back into the launcher.54Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoUJaXeJggR
One final lock.54Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLuSDRngRFt
Everything ready.
The slime moved faster.
It wasn’t just falling now.54Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmyVbCybz90
The air changed.
Some invisible chemical pressure filled the atmosphere—she couldn’t smell it, but she felt it.54Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1HtJeKeP50
A rising tension in the bones.54Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuuPShRU37I
Like whatever was up there had noticed.54Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvu3q3d3yeu
And now it was coming.54Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡh2yfrssrBs
All of it.
The world went quiet.
Not “soundless.”54Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpjYFBX2S6C
Compressed.54Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡB6rac9SE9t
Like the frequency of the Earth had paused.54Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJpms2Xozf2
The usual noise—wind, distant metal creaks, the rhythms of manmade life—gone.54Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOcJImTAEfO
Because real rhythm was in her hands now.
And it was ready to be returned.
Claire looked up.
Every motion was clean.54Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeAeIJoNKzS
She wouldn’t remember the details.54Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0X36D2udfe
But she would see them.
And when the last strand of slime breached the sky, she launched the rocket.
Her finger didn’t tremble.
A perfect strike.
Immediate ignition.54Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡj5ZfUBvyY6
The roar of engines.
A spear of fire split the sky.
The rocket didn’t explode.54Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEtMUVwEK1R
It traveled.
Like a pair of wings, it carried Claire’s treasure back to where it belonged.
It passed through the creature’s edge.54Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZZEvGpwV9g
Through Claire’s own personal gravity well.54Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡk1zCJeBuOu
Through the membrane of time she had torn.
And somewhere along that trajectory—
—everything unlatched.
That trailing streak behind the rocket wasn’t smoke.54Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNyrtINed7N
It was a hook made of memory.
It dug into what never belonged here.54Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoY2hMqZK1h
And yanked.
No blast.54Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQXMEb4nKdw
No flame.54Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡn4KJl3Uw07
Just a straight line, cutting through the monster’s silhouette, through the city’s fractured clockwork, through the fate Claire had been carrying alone.
And then—
Disconnection.
The cycle broke.
The burden lifted.
Claire would stay in the past.
And give the future back to everyone else.54Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgbdaYIu4lH
