Claire set up the rocket launcher.45Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQJwU6KZCSM
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.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHMMq7xreu2
She had never fired one of these before.45Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSn3sUSu6Ia
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.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKxrdE1XA3p
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.ＰＥＮＡＮＡST2bClLd09
Dry. Temperature stable. Good.45Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZvWHPxvDBi
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.ＰＥＮＡＮＡf8dH8Yyik4
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.ＰＥＮＡＮＡN4abP1bABl
Too many fractured timelines had worn holes in her memory.45Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRLaivIkZ84
The truth was, she’d outlived herself.
The pages were torn. The bookmarks gone.45Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLF0gtG4iMA
Only her body remembered.
Blood dripped from her left eye.45Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwWPn1AIlJp
One drop. Two. Each hitting the concrete with a soundless rhythm, forming tiny red circles.45Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7cfHKefKIJ
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.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnZO4IIQ28U
But she wasn’t lying. This entire journey had always been about this one moment.
She looked up.45Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUbGyeCv4DJ
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.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtyxYf9Xzsc
She could tell which strands were new and which had been lingering for cycles.
That knowing didn’t come from sight.45Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJlEopYKfby
It was something else—deeper.45Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLXoRsQnrTJ
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.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5tUT0RBrFE
She hooked beneath the eye, traced the optic nerves, and lifted.45Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrUDqiaeLRI
There was no resistance.
It wasn’t a real eye.
It was a container.45Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmewjPEX1Uh
A seal.45Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuhNEWo5bLx
A stolen fragment of time she had smuggled out from somewhere else.
The thing in her hand trembled.45Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfh6Rjkgjun
But it did not fight her.
Claire smiled at it—barely a twitch, a flicker of something tender.45Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsZtV3NdNme
Then, gently, she placed it into the canister.
No words.45Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuBXCdjxo21
Just the sound of a click as the lid closed and the capsule was sealed.45Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡorigOungGk
She lifted the entire mechanism and slotted it back into the launcher.45Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVUzChl3SKF
One final lock.45Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKSHJkETNSy
Everything ready.
The slime moved faster.
It wasn’t just falling now.45Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzx1e6vQIP4
The air changed.
Some invisible chemical pressure filled the atmosphere—she couldn’t smell it, but she felt it.45Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGE60xjAsTR
A rising tension in the bones.45Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ03FnXRVkOB
Like whatever was up there had noticed.45Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJ7aVRjH4nY
And now it was coming.45Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡebve99Cb1o
All of it.
The world went quiet.
Not “soundless.”45Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIAPPV2NXS7
Compressed.45Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcm3R3oJUVN
Like the frequency of the Earth had paused.45Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHORSRstl5S
The usual noise—wind, distant metal creaks, the rhythms of manmade life—gone.45Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqzX3bi82uB
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.ＰＥＮＡＮＡT7IpF7gdLJ
She wouldn’t remember the details.45Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWhxINmmcmM
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.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiVGi7hqprB
The roar of engines.
A spear of fire split the sky.
The rocket didn’t explode.45Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCtwPqSS5KA
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.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRMoIRU1O53
Through Claire’s own personal gravity well.45Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJJSJ3abMqC
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.ＰＥＮＡＮＡS4FKv8orsL
It was a hook made of memory.
It dug into what never belonged here.45Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkUctlofOUv
And yanked.
No blast.45Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmKOpaN9u2Y
No flame.45Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡirsaAz9os1
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.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFNEZrFdOkx
