The Maestro advanced, each step synchronized with the rattling of every loose beam in the opera house. The black-crystal roses were blooming inside now, sprouting from the waterlogged floor, the thorns hooking into wood and pulling themselves upward like living claws.
I staggered up, clutching the watch. Its hands spun wildly now—forward, backward, forward again—every twitch matched by a flicker of vertigo in my skull.
When the next blast of sound came, I didn't dodge. I held the watch in front of me.
The glass face split in two.
And time… screamed.
It was like the world inhaled in reverse. The falling glass from the chandeliers froze mid-air, lightning outside stuttered like a failing bulb, and the Maestro's note turned into a grotesque low drone, as though stretched too thin to exist.
I could move.
But every step I took left a trail of myself behind, frozen versions of me still bracing against the last moment.
I reached the Maestro. Its faceless head tilted, and for the first time, the tubes on its arm recoiled.
I didn't think. I pressed the fractured watch to its chest.
The reaction was instant.
A note too high for my ears ripped through the hall. The Maestro shattered—not into pieces, but into sheets of crumpled sheet music, each one burning to ash before they hit the water.
Time slammed forward again.
And the roses were still growing.