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