Claire set up the rocket launcher.18Please respect copyright.PENANAGhwxApGmpX
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.18Please respect copyright.PENANAvUqYDGB8Ik
She had never fired one of these before.18Please respect copyright.PENANADLwDp9LF07
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.18Please respect copyright.PENANAyiMOLjvRYi
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.18Please respect copyright.PENANAt63HTShiDB
Dry. Temperature stable. Good.18Please respect copyright.PENANAoYWseG5tG8
That meant the containment had held.
No room for hesitation. Not for what came next.
This capsule wasn’t just a payload.18Please respect copyright.PENANAoaeOBA7kO6
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.18Please respect copyright.PENANALSenq4a6Sv
Too many fractured timelines had worn holes in her memory.18Please respect copyright.PENANASfj1ZrC4Jq
The truth was, she’d outlived herself.
The pages were torn. The bookmarks gone.18Please respect copyright.PENANA115Yn2vbrL
Only her body remembered.
Blood dripped from her left eye.18Please respect copyright.PENANAmKlIpLbWm1
One drop. Two. Each hitting the concrete with a soundless rhythm, forming tiny red circles.18Please respect copyright.PENANAxTlwYHbj5B
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.18Please respect copyright.PENANA1hbfavowUJ
But she wasn’t lying. This entire journey had always been about this one moment.
She looked up.18Please respect copyright.PENANApUYH40oVyF
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.18Please respect copyright.PENANAgykvPtrWRt
She could tell which strands were new and which had been lingering for cycles.
That knowing didn’t come from sight.18Please respect copyright.PENANAUBw5wLvust
It was something else—deeper.18Please respect copyright.PENANAfutgmFdZ11
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.18Please respect copyright.PENANAUrLhxJcDhC
She hooked beneath the eye, traced the optic nerves, and lifted.18Please respect copyright.PENANA3ehs6oOrqI
There was no resistance.
It wasn’t a real eye.
It was a container.18Please respect copyright.PENANArceYsVJuRR
A seal.18Please respect copyright.PENANAVqJhzkKL17
A stolen fragment of time she had smuggled out from somewhere else.
The thing in her hand trembled.18Please respect copyright.PENANAWa5S4laNxF
But it did not fight her.
Claire smiled at it—barely a twitch, a flicker of something tender.18Please respect copyright.PENANAQWgLqGFEG9
Then, gently, she placed it into the canister.
No words.18Please respect copyright.PENANAmhFfpIV0CB
Just the sound of a click as the lid closed and the capsule was sealed.18Please respect copyright.PENANAf7nq0uGogz
She lifted the entire mechanism and slotted it back into the launcher.18Please respect copyright.PENANA8WEY6RpUMZ
One final lock.18Please respect copyright.PENANA2WDPwynZqr
Everything ready.
The slime moved faster.
It wasn’t just falling now.18Please respect copyright.PENANAneDwuvQ3FA
The air changed.
Some invisible chemical pressure filled the atmosphere—she couldn’t smell it, but she felt it.18Please respect copyright.PENANAzaAoMUGh7F
A rising tension in the bones.18Please respect copyright.PENANAethNh9gB1Z
Like whatever was up there had noticed.18Please respect copyright.PENANAKS3eGDflF8
And now it was coming.18Please respect copyright.PENANA9pBRWabi2Z
All of it.
The world went quiet.
Not “soundless.”18Please respect copyright.PENANAuxp1YTj67s
Compressed.18Please respect copyright.PENANAvljkIQJnCv
Like the frequency of the Earth had paused.18Please respect copyright.PENANAmIZWwNxNvB
The usual noise—wind, distant metal creaks, the rhythms of manmade life—gone.18Please respect copyright.PENANABHjC0Pvaeq
Because real rhythm was in her hands now.
And it was ready to be returned.
Claire looked up.
Every motion was clean.18Please respect copyright.PENANApM1dmM5Npw
She wouldn’t remember the details.18Please respect copyright.PENANAitnYPOWLCB
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.18Please respect copyright.PENANADaM4rYXtxc
The roar of engines.
A spear of fire split the sky.
The rocket didn’t explode.18Please respect copyright.PENANANhsvoSAOWq
It traveled.
Like a pair of wings, it carried Claire’s treasure back to where it belonged.
It passed through the creature’s edge.18Please respect copyright.PENANA8MudO3e3je
Through Claire’s own personal gravity well.18Please respect copyright.PENANAQLrAx8yOJC
Through the membrane of time she had torn.
And somewhere along that trajectory—
—everything unlatched.
That trailing streak behind the rocket wasn’t smoke.18Please respect copyright.PENANAjo12Qb0jJc
It was a hook made of memory.
It dug into what never belonged here.18Please respect copyright.PENANAdYODtdJF2R
And yanked.
No blast.18Please respect copyright.PENANALTs4VuWGtw
No flame.18Please respect copyright.PENANAWcUWY8NCdU
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.18Please respect copyright.PENANAH5Y7NBL77Y