I wasn't in the girl's bathroom when Chloe Price died.
That wasn't luck.
That wasn't coincidence.
That was placement.
Nathan Prescott was already there when the scene began to play out—exactly where he always was in this version of the story. His voice was raised, too loud, too defensive, trying to drown out the panic crawling up his spine. Chloe was being Chloe: confrontational, careless, convinced that sheer audacity alone would keep her safe.
She was wrong.
Max Caulfield was hiding. Her positioning right now mattered more than anything else.
She was wedged into the corner of the stall, heart hammering, eyes locked on a moment she wouldn't survive the same way twice. I knew where she was crouched. I knew how she was breathing. I knew the precise second when terror would eclipse disbelief and force her to act.
I'd seen this scene before.
Not lived it.
Not remembered it.
Known it.
The gunshot came when it always did—sharp, ugly, and completely undeserving of the weight it carried.
Chloe fell.
Max screamed.
And reality folded in on itself like a mistake being erased.
The rewind wasn't gentle. It never is. Sound collapsed first, sucked backward into silence. Motion followed, snapping into reverse without regard for continuity or comfort. Time didn't ask permission—it corrected itself.
I let it wash over me.
I remembered everything.
The blood pooling on the tile.
The way Chloe's body hit the floor.
The raw, broken sound Max made when she realized she was too late.
When the hallway snapped back into place, I was standing exactly where I'd planned to be. Students moved past me, unaware they'd just walked across a discarded timeline. Lockers slammed. Laughter returned.
The world pretended nothing had happened.
Canon reasserted itself, and that was good.
Nathan Prescott came out first, of course.
His hands shook, his breathing shallow and uneven, eyes flicking around like the walls themselves were witnesses. He looked like someone who'd nearly crossed a line and only barely realized how far gone he already was.
Chloe followed, alive, annoyed, and completely unaware she'd just been a corpse in a world that no longer mattered.
Then Max stepped out.
She didn't look relieved.
She looked wrong.
Her posture was too tight, her gaze unfocused, body braced as if she expected the world to betray her again at any moment. She wasn't processing survival—she was processing contradiction.
I crossed her path casually.
No urgency, no concern, and definitely no reason for her to remember me as important.
"Rough morning?" I asked.
She startled hard enough that it almost made me laugh.
"…Yeah," she said, after a beat too long. "I guess."
A lie. Thin. Necessary.
I let the heat rise for less than a second. No flame. No visible manifestation. Just warmth, uncontrolled and imperfect.
She noticed instantly.
Her brow furrowed. "Is it… hot?"
I shrugged. "Probably stress."
Behind my eyes, the System acknowledged what I'd already catalogued.
[Temporal Phenomenon Detected]
Type: Rewind
Scope: Localized
Source: Max Caulfield
Awareness: Incomplete
Resistance: Partial (External Variable)
External variable.
That designation wasn't accidental. It wasn't flattering either. It simply meant I wasn't supposed to remember—and yet I did.
Not because I resisted the rewind.
Because I expected it.
She didn't confide in me. She wasn't supposed to. Max Caulfield doesn't trust strangers—she watches them, measures them, files them away for later.
And that was enough.
She walked away.
I watched her go, already adjusting the next steps.
- Later -
Max didn't rewind again that day.
Not because she couldn't.
Because she was afraid of what it meant that she could.
Fear has always been the most reliable leash in existence.
We crossed paths again near the bay. The timing was intentional, but it didn't feel that way—not to her. I spoke when it was natural. I listened when silence would do more damage.
She talked about the view. The water. The weather. Anything but the dead girl she remembered and the world that insisted it had never happened.
I listened.
At the right moment, I let the heat flicker again—just enough to be seen, gone almost immediately.
Her breath caught.
I extinguished it at once.
Control mattered. But the illusion of shared struggle mattered more.
She needed to believe I didn't understand my own power either.
When she left, the System surfaced once more.
[World Quest Updated]
[ANCHOR]
Objectives:
— Establish repeated presence
— Encourage reliance through coincidence
— Reinforce perceived connection
Restrictions:
— Do NOT reveal the System
— Do NOT explain abilities
— Do NOT force interaction
My status followed, unchanged and precise.
|Vincent West|
{Health: 100%}
{Stamina: 74%}
{Rank: Mortal}
{Class: Cultist — Level 2}
{Strength: D+}
{Constitution: C}
{Dexterity: C+}
{Intelligence: B}
{Wisdom: C}
{Charisma: S}
{Luck: A-}
Skill logs appeared.
[Honeyed Words] — Practitioner
[Gentle Fist Taijutsu] — Practitioner
[Pyrokinesis] — Beginner*
Then:
[Faith Detected]
Source: Max Caulfield
State: Unconscious
Depth: Minimal
I smiled.
She didn't trust me.
She hadn't confided in me.
She hadn't chosen me.
But she'd noticed the heat, the timing. She'd noticed that the world felt different around me.
Soon, my flames will react only when she rewinds.
Later, I'll "learn" control—with her help.
Eventually, she'll believe that our powers resonate.
Training will come, dependency will follow, and faith will deepen.
And when the story reaches the choice that everyone remembers—
She won't choose me over Chloe because I asked.
She'll choose me because the world without me feels incomplete.