Claire set up the rocket launcher.9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLrolAT2DcJ
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.9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVtI8FIAqNN
She had never fired one of these before.9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡG3tG0zJDQS
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.9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡh0JP9fihc6
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.9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZC7MZGSFXo
Dry. Temperature stable. Good.9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeT5XNWqFV2
That meant the containment had held.
No room for hesitation. Not for what came next.
This capsule wasn’t just a payload.9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpJQvWKMhzh
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.9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbPPVRvgKyj
Too many fractured timelines had worn holes in her memory.9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡohpTtg9VBa
The truth was, she’d outlived herself.
The pages were torn. The bookmarks gone.9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsuLFDxY1Gg
Only her body remembered.
Blood dripped from her left eye.9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6NIp7kzYuo
One drop. Two. Each hitting the concrete with a soundless rhythm, forming tiny red circles.9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuRKrfRHrHI
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.9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuSn4Jbck5g
But she wasn’t lying. This entire journey had always been about this one moment.
She looked up.9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXfscLpoiH0
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.9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmbX0QSLo5a
She could tell which strands were new and which had been lingering for cycles.
That knowing didn’t come from sight.9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpW4y3dPqhs
It was something else—deeper.9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbJxnsirpsd
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.9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8cbzg1WbV4
She hooked beneath the eye, traced the optic nerves, and lifted.9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡD9Px086yBa
There was no resistance.
It wasn’t a real eye.
It was a container.9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1Zl1KOfeug
A seal.9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQyDCYccLsT
A stolen fragment of time she had smuggled out from somewhere else.
The thing in her hand trembled.9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSWpy25KD0p
But it did not fight her.
Claire smiled at it—barely a twitch, a flicker of something tender.9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTtP48r3Ulz
Then, gently, she placed it into the canister.
No words.9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡL8rxvlVBY7
Just the sound of a click as the lid closed and the capsule was sealed.9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWSyy3veQNZ
She lifted the entire mechanism and slotted it back into the launcher.9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4RYqmQ7xKj
One final lock.9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4xjNyhna6U
Everything ready.
The slime moved faster.
It wasn’t just falling now.9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQmv5Vlt4rp
The air changed.
Some invisible chemical pressure filled the atmosphere—she couldn’t smell it, but she felt it.9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeah6i8Vmsm
A rising tension in the bones.9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfyURytjKM0
Like whatever was up there had noticed.9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIcvHDIHIDv
And now it was coming.9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLcNYKU43KD
All of it.
The world went quiet.
Not “soundless.”9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLVMHyYsAtX
Compressed.9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxy8bUtdNww
Like the frequency of the Earth had paused.9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡL6JKrkO2Nu
The usual noise—wind, distant metal creaks, the rhythms of manmade life—gone.9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhgAOFiAKRm
Because real rhythm was in her hands now.
And it was ready to be returned.
Claire looked up.
Every motion was clean.9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXRNhdIQzqy
She wouldn’t remember the details.9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNX2rvFJTLm
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.9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWYhI9FyPa0
The roar of engines.
A spear of fire split the sky.
The rocket didn’t explode.9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlo5IWEJRPQ
It traveled.
Like a pair of wings, it carried Claire’s treasure back to where it belonged.
It passed through the creature’s edge.9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtRsKJDtKGZ
Through Claire’s own personal gravity well.9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡi2bzigBqvS
Through the membrane of time she had torn.
And somewhere along that trajectory—
—everything unlatched.
That trailing streak behind the rocket wasn’t smoke.9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrgznko4Duy
It was a hook made of memory.
It dug into what never belonged here.9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡU6jrKkiLxh
And yanked.
No blast.9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNJb53HKZct
No flame.9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6KmRmSyBSb
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.9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUaDucxQpaw
