The air smelled faintly of burnt paper and nostalgia. Salem opened his eyes to a cityscape that wasn't quite the one he had left—or rather, the one he had arrived from. Buildings twisted at impossible angles, their edges bending like wet cardboard. Streetlights flickered in and out of existence, casting shadows that sometimes moved independently of their sources. Somewhere, a distant siren wailed—or maybe it was laughter. Hard to tell.
"Ah, the usual chaos. Cozy, isn't it?"
Salem froze. The voice wasn't from anyone nearby—it came from the corner of his mind, the corner that hummed whenever reality was trying to cheat him.
He rubbed his temples. "Do I even want to know who that is?"
"Knowledge is optional, curiosity is mandatory. You're in a liminal space, Salem. Don't expect it to be polite."
The words were spoken by the ever-present voice, and he could feel the weight of it pressing against his skull. He hated how much he had come to rely on it. Hated how it often made him laugh before he realized he should have panicked.
Salem's boots hit cracked cobblestones, each step echoing like a drumbeat in a hall of mirrors. Time here wasn't a river; it was a puddle that splashed him with fragments of yesterday, tomorrow, and every "maybe" in between.
"Look lively," the voice said, almost cheerfully. "Someone's coming."
From the fog-shrouded street, a figure emerged. At first glance, it looked like a child, hunched and small. But as Salem blinked, the figure expanded and contracted like a living shadow, face flickering between familiarity and stranger.
"Salem…" the figure whispered, voice trembling. "Do you… remember me?"
Salem's heart skipped. The name hovered on the edge of memory, tantalizingly close, then vanished.
"Memory is a playground," said the voice. "Don't hold onto it too tightly."
The figure stepped closer, eyes glinting with wet light. "You promised… you promised we'd fix it all. But now… now it's worse. Everything is wrong."
Salem swallowed, chest tight. "I—I know. I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought I could… I don't know, control it."
"Control is a myth," murmured the voice, almost a sigh this time. "And you, of all people, should know that."
The child—or whatever it was—shivered and extended a hand. Salem stared at it. He wanted to reach out, but the air thickened, like moving through syrup made of shadows and broken clocks.
Suddenly, the ground beneath them cracked, splitting into fractal patterns. Cobblestones floated upward, hovering like frozen raindrops. Time rippled. A scream—or was it a memory?—curled around his ears. He stumbled back, nearly colliding with a lamppost that wobbled like it had been poured from molten metal.
"C'mon, Salem," the voice urged, impatient now. "Your audience is getting restless."
"Audience?" Salem groaned. "I can't—please, not now. I don't have the energy for meta commentary."
"You always have the energy. Don't pretend you don't like the spotlight."
From the fog, a carousel emerged. Its horses weren't wooden—they were half-fleshed, half-gears, with eyes that seemed to watch him, all of him, simultaneously. He knew—knew—that one of those horses carried a version of himself, older, battered, laughing with a bitterness that made his teeth ache.
Salem froze. "Not this again…"
"Oh, but it's the best part," whispered the voice. "You love watching yourself fail in infinite permutations. Admit it."
Salem's hands curled into fists. "I hate it. I hate this place. I hate you."
"And that's why you're perfect. The universe needed someone who hated everything but still moved forward."
A sudden wind swept through the street, tearing papers, broken glass, and whispered regrets into a cyclone around him. The child-figure screamed, and the voice hissed, "Focus, Salem! Choices await, whether you like them or not."
The carousel spun faster. The Ferris wheel in the distance—he recognized it now from dreams, nightmares, and misplaced memories—started turning in reverse. Each carriage revealed a scene he should remember but didn't: birthdays erased, conversations he never had, friends who were now strangers.
"Time isn't linear here," said the voice. "It's a toy. A cruel, spinning toy."
Salem's eyes darted. The older version of himself on the carousel horse laughed, and the sound was a razor slicing through his chest. It was familiar… too familiar.
"Why are you here?" Salem demanded. "Why me? Why now?"
"Because you're the one who keeps trying, idiot. And because the story won't stop, even if you want it to."
The child-figure's eyes glowed suddenly. "Salem… if you take one more step forward, everything you think you control… disappears."
Salem froze. A chill crept down his spine. His fists unclenched slowly. "I don't… understand. How can I?"
"Exactly. Don't understand. Just feel. Survive. Navigate. And for the love of all broken clocks, don't blink."
A soft chime rang again—like the pocket watch from before, but louder, closer, and now thrumming inside his chest. Time around him slowed, then stretched, snapping back into jagged pulses. The Ferris wheel creaked, the skeletal horses lunged—but not at him, just through him, their translucent forms brushing past like silk.
Salem felt the world bending, twisting… folding over itself like origami gone mad. And then, silence. Absolute, suffocating silence.
A line of glowing text appeared in the sky, bright against the fractured city:
"This choice… will define everything you will ever lose."
Salem blinked, breath ragged, heart hammering. He wanted to run. He wanted to hide. But somewhere deep in his chest, a thrill rose—a terrible, ecstatic thrill that told him the chaos wasn't done with him yet.
The child-figure stepped forward, holding out a single, impossible key. Its surface shimmered with a thousand fragmented realities.
> "Take it… if you dare."
Salem's fingers twitched. The key hummed. The Ferris wheel groaned. The skeletal horses whinnied in unison, shadows stretching into infinity. And the fractured city… waited.
Because sometimes, in the wrong time, the right choice is just the start of another disaster.
Salem's teeth clenched. He reached for the key. And the world exploded.
A deafening silence swallowed him, and then a voice, deeper than any he'd heard, whispered directly into his soul:
"You shouldn't have taken it… Salem."