Elias woke to the sound of dripping.
Not water.
Time.
It fell from the ceiling in thick, viscous drops, each one striking the ground with a wet tick that echoed too slowly to be sound. He lay still, afraid that movement might smear whatever fragile continuity held him together.
When he opened his eyes, the sky was wrong.
It hung low and bruised, the color of an old wound. Fractures ran through it like cracks in glass, and from those cracks seeped a dull red glow that pulsed irregularly—like a failing heart.
Elias sat up.
He was in a city.
Or the idea of one.
Buildings leaned at impossible angles, their windows filled not with darkness but with scenes: people laughing mid-laugh, children frozen inches before falling, hands reaching for door handles they would never grasp. Every window was a moment arrested and left to rot.
His chest tightened.
"Don't stare too long," Mara said.
She stood nearby, brushing dust—or something pretending to be dust—from her coat. Her voice sounded thinner here, stretched, as if the air itself resisted carrying words forward.
"What is this place?" Elias asked.
Mara hesitated. "A spillover."
He looked at her.
"A what?"
"When time breaks something it can't delete, it dumps the fragments here. This city is made of discarded hours."
As if to prove her point, a streetlight flickered above them. Instead of light, it released a slow drip of glowing seconds that splashed against the pavement and evaporated with soft screams.
Elias staggered back.
"This is correction?" he whispered.
Mara shook her head. "No. This is quarantine."
They began to walk.
The street bent under their feet, curving forward and backward at once. Elias felt older with every step—not physically, but internally, as though his memories were compressing, stacking on top of one another without room to breathe.
A clock tower loomed ahead.
Its face was shattered, the numbers rearranged into unfamiliar symbols. Blood—real blood—leaked from the cracks, running down the stone in slow, deliberate streams.
"Clocks don't bleed," Elias said.
Mara didn't answer.
They passed people.
Not looping ones.
These figures moved deliberately, cautiously. Their eyes tracked the sky, the buildings, each other. Some wore hospital gowns. Others business suits decades out of fashion. One man pushed a shopping cart filled with watches, all ticking at different speeds.
"Who are they?" Elias asked.
"Those who weren't erased cleanly," Mara said. "Partial returns. Failed edits."
A woman approached them.
Her face was stitched together with scars that pulsed faintly, like timelines trying to reconnect. She smiled with too many teeth.
"How old are you today?" the woman asked Elias eagerly.
"I—what?"
The woman leaned closer, inhaling. "Mmm. Thirty-five years, eight months, twelve days."
Elias recoiled.
"Lucky," she sighed. "I've been Tuesday for a decade."
Mara pulled Elias away.
"That's enough," she said sharply.
They ducked into a building whose door opened before they touched it. Inside, the air was thick and warm, heavy with the smell of rust and ozone.
Finally, Elias stopped.
"You know more than you're saying."
Mara closed the door behind them.
"Yes."
"Why?"
She looked tired suddenly. Older than him. Older than this place.
"Because if you remember it all at once," she said quietly, "you'll finish what you started."
Elias's heart pounded.
"Started what?"
Before she could answer, the building shuddered.
A deep, resonant sound rolled through the city—not a voice, but a countdown.
Numbers began to appear in the air, glowing red.
10
9
The people outside screamed.
Mara grabbed Elias's face, forcing him to meet her eyes.
"Listen to me," she said urgently. "When it offers you a choice—"
The numbers accelerated.
6
5
"What choice?" Elias shouted.
Mara's expression broke.
"The one you already made."
The sky cracked open.
Time poured in.
And Elias remembered screaming yes.