Time…
That straight line humans believe is fixed,neutral, subject to no one's desires.
But the truth Jim Smith was only learning now is that time is not fixed.Time is fragile… it bends under the weight of a single decision.
When no one saved Em's mother…she died.
His family's life shattered like glass fragments trampled underfoot,and everything moved in one direction… a merciless, straight arrow.
But what happened last night… was a deviation from that arrow.
A distortion of the river's course.
A new outcome written over an old one,without Time leaving any trace of the previous version.
The mother's death had been erased from everyone's memory—Em himself,her husband, the neighbors, even the police who once held the file on the fire.
In Em's memory now…were full years lived with his mother.
Complete memories born just minutes ago.
And so Jim realized that when time bends…it leaves behind only its new version.
At that moment… Jim sat behind his desk, cluttered with old papers.
He asked Em a question that no one in the world could know except Em himself;a question he had asked him twenty years ago on that night he saved the mother.
A simple question,but it was like a dagger piercing the heart of the truth.
On the other end of the radio, Em's voice was hesitant… trying to recall a memory that had just been rewritten.
Jim, who seemed composed on the outside, was holding his breath.
He held a wine glass in his hand,but didn't drink from it.
He kept turning the glass between his fingers as if trying to squeeze the secret from the glass.
After a long silence… Em said in a faint voice:
"I remember everything…I remember how you looked… and even your question."
Jim's chest shuddered.
He leaned closer to the radio as if the voice could be lost at any moment.
"What was the question?"
Jim said it,his tension beginning to clearly show on his features.
Em breathed, then said:
"You said to me…What does a person say to someone who helped them?"
Crack!
The glass shattered in Jim's hands.
The shards embedded in his skin,blood flowed, but he felt nothing.
His eyes remained fixed in space…
The sound…the memory… the sentence…
It was all like a slap waking him from a nightmare he thought was an illusion.
Em said coldly:
"Is that right? Honestly… my memory isn't the best, but that day… is different."
Jim smiled a smile that didn't resemble joy.
"So…"
"So what? Did I get it wrong?"
Em said it as if he feared the truth.
Jim:
"No… you said everything just as I said it to you. 'What does a person say to someone who helped them?'"
Em laughed a short laugh, like a child trying to lighten the tension:
"Thank you… I think I've said it before… twenty years ago but I am the one who asked for it so.... thanks."
Jim raised his head.
He closed his eyes.
Breathed slowly.
The shock wasn't just that the future had changed…
But that his death in prison had become merely a matter of time.
But there was a chance.
Jim said quietly:
"We need to change the future regarding the murders now… just like we did with the fire."
But suddenly… the sound cut out.
Heavy static filled the room.
Jim hit the device with his fist:
"Hey… can you hear me? Em?"
But no answer.
He looked at the clock…
Exactly 01:00.
The end of the daily hour when he could communicate with the future.
He whispered to himself:
"So… we only have one hour each day… that's enough. If we focus on what's important."
He looked at his bloodied hand and said with a strange coldness:
"Strange… I don't feel any pain. Just a slight headache… in my mind."
He washed his hand in the bathroom, then returned to the desk.
He turned on the light above the whiteboard,took a marker, and wrote quickly:
"'Hell's Angel Murders'
Nine crimes.
One completed.
Eight to come."
He wrote:
"The stabbings.
The removed fingernail.
The location."
He took a step back, put his hands behind his back as he does before uncovering the details of any case.
He looked confident…
But his chest tightened every time he remembered what Em had said about his death in prison.
He loosened his tie.
Took a deep breath.
And said:
"I'll sleep now. And tomorrow… everything begins."
In the morning…
Jim entered the police station as usual,before everyone else.
He arranged the desks with an exaggerated strictness—a habit that had stayed with him since he was a rookie.
Then he sat at his desk and waited.
At eight o'clock… the detectives began entering one after another.
Tired faces,bags under their eyes, heavy footsteps.
"Good morning, Jim."
"Didn't I tell you to tidy your desk before you leave?"
Another replies,throwing his coat down:
"I got a call suddenly."
Another detective wipes dust off his desk and says:
"I think ghosts are messing with my papers. There's no way I organized them yesterday."
Jim laughs and throws a small book at him titled:
"'Justice is Hope.'"
The cases were piling up:
Five missing persons…adults… with no connection between them.
And Jim hadn't paid them much attention because he was busy with his own cases,but today…
There was nothing except the National Park case,but he decided to work on those missing persons cases alone. Not out of arrogance, but because no one would believe him, and it could ruin his standing. So he left that other case to solve with Em.
But after feeling bored,he requested those files related to the missing persons. And shockingly, everything started to seem connected.
He opened the files.
Lined them up in front of him.
The names…the ages… families screaming without a single lead.
Until he reached the last file:
Victim: Olivia Fantem
Age:26
Status:Murdered
Jim froze.
His grip tightened on the cracked table beneath.
He whispered:
—"Impossible… Olivia was one of the missing. This means… the rest of the missing are victims of the Hell's Angel murders?"
Another detective entered, reading from a new file:
—"We have more missing persons… adults too… and no evidence. No traces. No witnesses. Two more."
Jim looked around the desks…
The detectives moved with a strange spontaneity;one kept rearranging something in his pocket, another shook his leg nervously, a third reviewed the same page five times.
The pressures of work made their movements like invisible rhythms.
As for Jim…
He was connecting the dots because he was looking at the case from the future.
"These… are the victims of the Hell's Angel killer…"
He raised his head.
His eyes began to narrow.
His body leaned forward.
As if he had suddenly seen a path that was right in front of him but he hadn't realized it.
He whispered:
"Six disappeared… one murdered… and the rest… there are still two unknown."