Claire set up the rocket launcher.41Please respect copyright.PENANA42Tvz3jLBW
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.41Please respect copyright.PENANA6H0gOGjvbv
She had never fired one of these before.41Please respect copyright.PENANAGZBjP6wUMM
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.41Please respect copyright.PENANAWC5HzMWJxM
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.41Please respect copyright.PENANA9vJmolS7MR
Dry. Temperature stable. Good.41Please respect copyright.PENANASFVPGBsElv
That meant the containment had held.
No room for hesitation. Not for what came next.
This capsule wasn’t just a payload.41Please respect copyright.PENANAiP1GGCNjfm
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.41Please respect copyright.PENANAa03ZDaeHwW
Too many fractured timelines had worn holes in her memory.41Please respect copyright.PENANATEF0DHmGs8
The truth was, she’d outlived herself.
The pages were torn. The bookmarks gone.41Please respect copyright.PENANAuENfEOxNTH
Only her body remembered.
Blood dripped from her left eye.41Please respect copyright.PENANAZDqN3dAbEh
One drop. Two. Each hitting the concrete with a soundless rhythm, forming tiny red circles.41Please respect copyright.PENANAF2S46n3XZp
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.41Please respect copyright.PENANAMErFWbQAgP
But she wasn’t lying. This entire journey had always been about this one moment.
She looked up.41Please respect copyright.PENANAQQ7VWTAFMQ
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.41Please respect copyright.PENANAXpEbQqS3Ym
She could tell which strands were new and which had been lingering for cycles.
That knowing didn’t come from sight.41Please respect copyright.PENANAJg0z2cslzU
It was something else—deeper.41Please respect copyright.PENANA31LME3DSMR
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.41Please respect copyright.PENANACNqrxsF3HQ
She hooked beneath the eye, traced the optic nerves, and lifted.41Please respect copyright.PENANAGnpUklTnHv
There was no resistance.
It wasn’t a real eye.
It was a container.41Please respect copyright.PENANAKLvwddgacq
A seal.41Please respect copyright.PENANAARzLKEbiim
A stolen fragment of time she had smuggled out from somewhere else.
The thing in her hand trembled.41Please respect copyright.PENANAyGiYZNXf3Z
But it did not fight her.
Claire smiled at it—barely a twitch, a flicker of something tender.41Please respect copyright.PENANA2VIWQZI7Ay
Then, gently, she placed it into the canister.
No words.41Please respect copyright.PENANA45gUmc0wzT
Just the sound of a click as the lid closed and the capsule was sealed.41Please respect copyright.PENANAtYJBop2KOA
She lifted the entire mechanism and slotted it back into the launcher.41Please respect copyright.PENANAup9WpSAJmS
One final lock.41Please respect copyright.PENANArKcEEurTjk
Everything ready.
The slime moved faster.
It wasn’t just falling now.41Please respect copyright.PENANAT5OKME3sQ9
The air changed.
Some invisible chemical pressure filled the atmosphere—she couldn’t smell it, but she felt it.41Please respect copyright.PENANAnLjXqM5zOj
A rising tension in the bones.41Please respect copyright.PENANAvrD8m8l0f0
Like whatever was up there had noticed.41Please respect copyright.PENANAsKAqmNF6RR
And now it was coming.41Please respect copyright.PENANAXLxhgmJ3PF
All of it.
The world went quiet.
Not “soundless.”41Please respect copyright.PENANAStxvRBUzrk
Compressed.41Please respect copyright.PENANAmgVgFtrcJX
Like the frequency of the Earth had paused.41Please respect copyright.PENANAOaeEJJUZ5w
The usual noise—wind, distant metal creaks, the rhythms of manmade life—gone.41Please respect copyright.PENANAafh7rRDKfW
Because real rhythm was in her hands now.
And it was ready to be returned.
Claire looked up.
Every motion was clean.41Please respect copyright.PENANAxL1UHHll0V
She wouldn’t remember the details.41Please respect copyright.PENANADlyci9s4Ix
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.41Please respect copyright.PENANADna2jUy6As
The roar of engines.
A spear of fire split the sky.
The rocket didn’t explode.41Please respect copyright.PENANA6dG98AAW3u
It traveled.
Like a pair of wings, it carried Claire’s treasure back to where it belonged.
It passed through the creature’s edge.41Please respect copyright.PENANAegxVdyehqF
Through Claire’s own personal gravity well.41Please respect copyright.PENANA6hFA67v49Q
Through the membrane of time she had torn.
And somewhere along that trajectory—
—everything unlatched.
That trailing streak behind the rocket wasn’t smoke.41Please respect copyright.PENANA0oqMYqLHxU
It was a hook made of memory.
It dug into what never belonged here.41Please respect copyright.PENANAs98w8raOsE
And yanked.
No blast.41Please respect copyright.PENANAKx6iMvoq7w
No flame.41Please respect copyright.PENANApVZibzpJt8
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.41Please respect copyright.PENANAOCYifiGOsT