Claire set up the rocket launcher.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFH7UL6juv4
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.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKAwJnfwy8H
She had never fired one of these before.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYjJxJi4HFw
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.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkF5B82KVr5
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.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxJGPLzXohf
Dry. Temperature stable. Good.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmPkQWqvsMh
That meant the containment had held.
No room for hesitation. Not for what came next.
This capsule wasn’t just a payload.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVRP1VHWytt
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.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡafVgnK3kHm
Too many fractured timelines had worn holes in her memory.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDlEhnPYz67
The truth was, she’d outlived herself.
The pages were torn. The bookmarks gone.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8VJlIPIYMq
Only her body remembered.
Blood dripped from her left eye.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4ZVMGNPGHr
One drop. Two. Each hitting the concrete with a soundless rhythm, forming tiny red circles.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaNS841cz8f
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.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5Ea4HJX0Af
But she wasn’t lying. This entire journey had always been about this one moment.
She looked up.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡghgtSQBgTq
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.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcy1naGR5ew
She could tell which strands were new and which had been lingering for cycles.
That knowing didn’t come from sight.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7IGr1ewC42
It was something else—deeper.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡS3qHbwtKpn
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.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbu7O2kt2DP
She hooked beneath the eye, traced the optic nerves, and lifted.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡV31mCPFXkc
There was no resistance.
It wasn’t a real eye.
It was a container.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwW3tQm3qTu
A seal.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxjzlBREtol
A stolen fragment of time she had smuggled out from somewhere else.
The thing in her hand trembled.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKn1cNkUM5r
But it did not fight her.
Claire smiled at it—barely a twitch, a flicker of something tender.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCCjGnG55wS
Then, gently, she placed it into the canister.
No words.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXqY367YQeV
Just the sound of a click as the lid closed and the capsule was sealed.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVH4IrlKapZ
She lifted the entire mechanism and slotted it back into the launcher.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsJwGWfubsw
One final lock.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡk4QPY4FBKc
Everything ready.
The slime moved faster.
It wasn’t just falling now.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsuiGdyPZmV
The air changed.
Some invisible chemical pressure filled the atmosphere—she couldn’t smell it, but she felt it.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGTyZ96jTEc
A rising tension in the bones.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡck4Q8YJNte
Like whatever was up there had noticed.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXZ4mWABxEF
And now it was coming.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYDC3wgFVUc
All of it.
The world went quiet.
Not “soundless.”10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcRLWXnT8lA
Compressed.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtCKeTIsRtz
Like the frequency of the Earth had paused.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzbiYU35bUS
The usual noise—wind, distant metal creaks, the rhythms of manmade life—gone.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlULuUxsZOk
Because real rhythm was in her hands now.
And it was ready to be returned.
Claire looked up.
Every motion was clean.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7W8XgGP6Jw
She wouldn’t remember the details.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrTtsaiPUoW
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.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡk4WKXXdRX2
The roar of engines.
A spear of fire split the sky.
The rocket didn’t explode.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIryKCXQN6K
It traveled.
Like a pair of wings, it carried Claire’s treasure back to where it belonged.
It passed through the creature’s edge.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSGIvT2sF1n
Through Claire’s own personal gravity well.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡboQs519Wyv
Through the membrane of time she had torn.
And somewhere along that trajectory—
—everything unlatched.
That trailing streak behind the rocket wasn’t smoke.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2pSU5YvP3O
It was a hook made of memory.
It dug into what never belonged here.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYW4cCyiLFK
And yanked.
No blast.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqKCwUvYlOc
No flame.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlPWIDxVaas
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.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2vDGX5VlqC
