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
