Claire set up the rocket launcher.45Please respect copyright.PENANAugTMy6JeGE
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.45Please respect copyright.PENANAUFMFN1GOXa
She had never fired one of these before.45Please respect copyright.PENANAbX4k0mKFeu
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.45Please respect copyright.PENANAsg45Yru0T7
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.45Please respect copyright.PENANAH5Kv4ex8Rk
Dry. Temperature stable. Good.45Please respect copyright.PENANANjTt0vOukJ
That meant the containment had held.
No room for hesitation. Not for what came next.
This capsule wasn’t just a payload.45Please respect copyright.PENANACnG9uzU8sy
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.45Please respect copyright.PENANAkEJAXZGCH8
Too many fractured timelines had worn holes in her memory.45Please respect copyright.PENANAjLH8vVtkdm
The truth was, she’d outlived herself.
The pages were torn. The bookmarks gone.45Please respect copyright.PENANANKBFzRXROi
Only her body remembered.
Blood dripped from her left eye.45Please respect copyright.PENANAB92dwqm6QR
One drop. Two. Each hitting the concrete with a soundless rhythm, forming tiny red circles.45Please respect copyright.PENANAce9FoAvvel
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.45Please respect copyright.PENANAIlcvTNW9mW
But she wasn’t lying. This entire journey had always been about this one moment.
She looked up.45Please respect copyright.PENANATqqULqtRb1
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.45Please respect copyright.PENANAHuMe0cdIPY
She could tell which strands were new and which had been lingering for cycles.
That knowing didn’t come from sight.45Please respect copyright.PENANAK3QbNOsXdY
It was something else—deeper.45Please respect copyright.PENANAvDoSfcr8Uk
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.45Please respect copyright.PENANATardf474sV
She hooked beneath the eye, traced the optic nerves, and lifted.45Please respect copyright.PENANAYCZMpVwLGj
There was no resistance.
It wasn’t a real eye.
It was a container.45Please respect copyright.PENANAT77cRkumUp
A seal.45Please respect copyright.PENANAHBhTKRVvwS
A stolen fragment of time she had smuggled out from somewhere else.
The thing in her hand trembled.45Please respect copyright.PENANAod3IwrEq4t
But it did not fight her.
Claire smiled at it—barely a twitch, a flicker of something tender.45Please respect copyright.PENANA6YWoZvRMLM
Then, gently, she placed it into the canister.
No words.45Please respect copyright.PENANAZe7OMcptGb
Just the sound of a click as the lid closed and the capsule was sealed.45Please respect copyright.PENANAYoBltAI9xk
She lifted the entire mechanism and slotted it back into the launcher.45Please respect copyright.PENANAt2PIqTbOfL
One final lock.45Please respect copyright.PENANAWjjV0E6V4U
Everything ready.
The slime moved faster.
It wasn’t just falling now.45Please respect copyright.PENANA2VRnDtdH4I
The air changed.
Some invisible chemical pressure filled the atmosphere—she couldn’t smell it, but she felt it.45Please respect copyright.PENANAbGCrtkeKW0
A rising tension in the bones.45Please respect copyright.PENANAZQuujBZPrd
Like whatever was up there had noticed.45Please respect copyright.PENANAg3eD30h7gL
And now it was coming.45Please respect copyright.PENANA24bkPsKh5x
All of it.
The world went quiet.
Not “soundless.”45Please respect copyright.PENANAJfgPvPO1My
Compressed.45Please respect copyright.PENANAL3Og8gI445
Like the frequency of the Earth had paused.45Please respect copyright.PENANAEcfq9FrIqr
The usual noise—wind, distant metal creaks, the rhythms of manmade life—gone.45Please respect copyright.PENANARQykD9UrM7
Because real rhythm was in her hands now.
And it was ready to be returned.
Claire looked up.
Every motion was clean.45Please respect copyright.PENANAFwovYgIIo1
She wouldn’t remember the details.45Please respect copyright.PENANA3QJ3SRQIir
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.45Please respect copyright.PENANAe5L4djIWyH
The roar of engines.
A spear of fire split the sky.
The rocket didn’t explode.45Please respect copyright.PENANAiszA3dqwc1
It traveled.
Like a pair of wings, it carried Claire’s treasure back to where it belonged.
It passed through the creature’s edge.45Please respect copyright.PENANAeznY0555wb
Through Claire’s own personal gravity well.45Please respect copyright.PENANAMR925naNK4
Through the membrane of time she had torn.
And somewhere along that trajectory—
—everything unlatched.
That trailing streak behind the rocket wasn’t smoke.45Please respect copyright.PENANAPTsBwjJFtG
It was a hook made of memory.
It dug into what never belonged here.45Please respect copyright.PENANA3sD47hChJl
And yanked.
No blast.45Please respect copyright.PENANAIuxrrRIUq8
No flame.45Please respect copyright.PENANAr8cUtqkH2S
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.45Please respect copyright.PENANAXLkXuMSgFZ