Claire set up the rocket launcher.40Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1BA9dX7f2W
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.40Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGG4MUlLFj1
She had never fired one of these before.40Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvWOj7FvA1V
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.40Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoxTBf4nQlX
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.40Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKRNy8pzpET
Dry. Temperature stable. Good.40Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKyp2a4AhMQ
That meant the containment had held.
No room for hesitation. Not for what came next.
This capsule wasn’t just a payload.40Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlbH5DRC0fR
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.40Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDZVxOwso7V
Too many fractured timelines had worn holes in her memory.40Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIbHKZf7SzZ
The truth was, she’d outlived herself.
The pages were torn. The bookmarks gone.40Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2GieQfo6ZF
Only her body remembered.
Blood dripped from her left eye.40Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYPNgkGoYBK
One drop. Two. Each hitting the concrete with a soundless rhythm, forming tiny red circles.40Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡomQIeG2y2S
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.40Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9tiJQ5l88L
But she wasn’t lying. This entire journey had always been about this one moment.
She looked up.40Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRY66ONmoMZ
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.40Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuJfJTLiIpo
She could tell which strands were new and which had been lingering for cycles.
That knowing didn’t come from sight.40Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡl4EQZuNFFn
It was something else—deeper.40Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFHjRDn5Z0z
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.40Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhPI3Ev1j2o
She hooked beneath the eye, traced the optic nerves, and lifted.40Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1KmKedVxsF
There was no resistance.
It wasn’t a real eye.
It was a container.40Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡymP5EbxmeR
A seal.40Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaabKeTj1zD
A stolen fragment of time she had smuggled out from somewhere else.
The thing in her hand trembled.40Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHu8qN6nUFa
But it did not fight her.
Claire smiled at it—barely a twitch, a flicker of something tender.40Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNlZSi7MEeO
Then, gently, she placed it into the canister.
No words.40Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbRQEXP32Gl
Just the sound of a click as the lid closed and the capsule was sealed.40Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXSXuV23Tfn
She lifted the entire mechanism and slotted it back into the launcher.40Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8JPU7yVISf
One final lock.40Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ19rNwADaIW
Everything ready.
The slime moved faster.
It wasn’t just falling now.40Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfG5n0Ayjbn
The air changed.
Some invisible chemical pressure filled the atmosphere—she couldn’t smell it, but she felt it.40Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡO8zgHMjlei
A rising tension in the bones.40Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBLXhvTlyxT
Like whatever was up there had noticed.40Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5efkwsUrJ9
And now it was coming.40Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpdOQxeR1QA
All of it.
The world went quiet.
Not “soundless.”40Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkZHxrWxyAA
Compressed.40Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7EIN0o2AS0
Like the frequency of the Earth had paused.40Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZN9LF9zHzJ
The usual noise—wind, distant metal creaks, the rhythms of manmade life—gone.40Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡe9zbTVhZ31
Because real rhythm was in her hands now.
And it was ready to be returned.
Claire looked up.
Every motion was clean.40Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcjHyqdcKJ4
She wouldn’t remember the details.40Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvJ1OCJQgQ0
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.40Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbQUADNy5ql
The roar of engines.
A spear of fire split the sky.
The rocket didn’t explode.40Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡE5ykbdDUl4
It traveled.
Like a pair of wings, it carried Claire’s treasure back to where it belonged.
It passed through the creature’s edge.40Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYFouAUfk94
Through Claire’s own personal gravity well.40Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuYd2lrDoDV
Through the membrane of time she had torn.
And somewhere along that trajectory—
—everything unlatched.
That trailing streak behind the rocket wasn’t smoke.40Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡU6ZAmESfFB
It was a hook made of memory.
It dug into what never belonged here.40Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8mUsHpMlbz
And yanked.
No blast.40Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡawW2ZRdvqj
No flame.40Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdIe8kmBRuD
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.40Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlLW1f0h2sN
