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
