Elias did not go home.
Home implied safety. Continuity. The comforting lie that a door could still separate him from whatever had gone wrong with the world.
Instead, he walked.
The city repeated itself around him in fragments. A cyclist swerved to avoid a pothole that reappeared every few seconds. A traffic light flickered endlessly between yellow and red without ever allowing green. Somewhere nearby, glass shattered—then unshattered—then shattered again.
Elias learned quickly what didn't reset.
Pain did not.
Hunger did not.
Exhaustion clung to him like damp clothing.
After hours of walking, he found himself at the river.
The water flowed forward. That alone made it extraordinary.
He crouched at the edge, watching reflections break apart and reform. His reflection looked older already—just barely, but enough to be undeniable. A man aging against a backdrop that refused to acknowledge time.
"Don't touch it," a voice said.
Elias spun.
A woman stood several meters away, near the rusted railing. She was thin, dark-haired, wearing a hospital bracelet that hung loosely from her wrist. Her eyes were sharp in a way that hurt to look at, like glass catching sunlight.
"You'll lose a finger," she continued calmly. "Or gain one. The river can't decide."
Elias stared.
She was watching him—not past him, not through him.
"You can see me," he said.
She smiled faintly. "You're shaking. That means you're real."
His heart hammered. "You're not looping."
"Neither are you." She stepped closer. "What day do you think it is?"
"June fourteenth."
Her smile vanished.
"Oh," she said softly. "You're early."
Elias stood. "Early for what?"
"For the part where it starts killing us properly."
She introduced herself as Mara.
They sat on opposite ends of a bench overlooking the river. Elias noticed she never blinked for too long, as if afraid the world might move without her consent.
"I died yesterday," Mara said, as if commenting on the weather.
Elias said nothing.
"I drowned," she continued. "Right there." She nodded toward the water. "I felt my lungs tear. I remember thinking I should scream, but there wasn't enough time left to justify it."
Elias swallowed. "But you're alive."
Mara tilted her head. "That depends on who you ask."
She rolled up her sleeve.
There were bruises on her arms—deep, blooming things that had not reset. A jagged scar crossed her collarbone, pink and angry and new.
"I woke up on the riverbank," she said. "Everyone else kept looping. The paramedics never arrived. The crowd never gathered. The splash kept happening without me."
Elias felt something crack open inside his chest.
"How many are there?" he asked.
Mara's eyes darkened. "There were nine."
"Were?"
She looked away. "Time doesn't like witnesses."
They walked together.
As they moved deeper into the city, Mara pointed things out—the places where reality thinned. Street corners that repeated more aggressively. Buildings that aged backward. People whose faces blurred when you tried to remember them.
"It edits," she said. "That's what it does. When something doesn't belong, time trims it away."
"Then why not us?" Elias asked.
Mara stopped walking.
"For you," she said carefully, "I don't know."
"And for you?"
She met his gaze. "Because I'm already dead."
They reached an abandoned subway entrance sealed with warning tape that fluttered without wind.
"This is where the others went," Mara said. "Where time is weakest."
Elias peered into the darkness below.
Something moved.
Not forward. Not backward.
Sideways.
"Whatever you do," Mara whispered, "don't let it learn your name."
Elias opened his mouth to ask what she meant.
The darkness answered first.
A voice—layered, patient, impossibly old—rose from below.
Elias Morven.
Mara screamed.
The world lurched.
And time began to close its hands around them.