The air smelled faintly of ozone and burnt paper, a combination that felt familiar but entirely wrong. Salem sat cross-legged on the cracked rooftop, staring at the city below. Buildings flickered like broken holograms, some dissolving into fragments of their former selves before stitching back together. Time wasn't merely skipping anymore; it was bleeding. Overlapping. Twisting. And he was in the middle of it.
"Every day feels like a fever dream now," he muttered, rubbing his temples.
A soft chime echoed behind him. He didn't turn. He knew. The brass pocket watch hovered above the ledge, spinning slowly, its hands twitching in every direction simultaneously.
"You again," Salem said.
"Of course," the watch replied, voice smooth as polished metal, "you can't very well skip temporal chaos without me narrating your misery."
"Misery?" Salem chuckled dryly. "I think you mean existential humiliation."
"Semantics," the watch said. Its tiny gears whirred. "But yes, humiliation is a fair descriptor. Look outside."
He followed its gaze. Across the city, time fractures had taken on a life of their own. People walked backward into puddles that reflected futures that hadn't happened. Cars folded into themselves like origami, then unfolded with different passengers. Somewhere in the distance, a train passed in reverse, leaving a trail of whispers behind it—snippets of conversations, laughter, and cries that were both familiar and foreign.
Salem clenched his fists. "I get it. I'm in the middle of a glitchy mess. Now what?"
"Now?" The watch tilted slightly, almost mockingly. "Now… you listen."
"Listen?"
"Yes. You've been running through time like a madman skipping rope with reality. But someone—or something—has noticed."
A sudden gust of wind knocked him off balance. When he steadied himself, a shadow detached from the fractured skyline. It slithered across the rooftop like liquid smoke, coalescing into the shape of a man. Or maybe a memory of one. Salem's heart sank. The figure's face flickered in and out of focus, a montage of versions of himself he'd met in other timelines.
"Not again," he muttered.
The figure spoke in a voice that was neither his nor entirely foreign. "You shouldn't be here. And yet… here you are."
"I—Who are you?"
"A guide? A warning? Maybe just another draft," it replied, arms crossed. "Time doesn't like interference. But you… you're special. Or cursed. Sometimes those are the same."
Salem rubbed his eyes. "I feel like both. And tired. Mostly tired."
"Good," the shadow said with a thin smile. "Tiredness sharpens awareness. You'll need it. Something's coming, and this time it's not optional."
The brass watch floated closer, spinning rapidly. Sparks of light cascaded from its edges, painting the rooftop in iridescent chaos.
"Something's coming? What is it? Another skip? Another carnival? Another… whatever this is?"
"Worse," the watch whispered. "Or better. Depends on perspective. Depends on who survives. Depends on choices you haven't made yet."
A soft, almost imperceptible hum vibrated beneath Salem's feet. He looked down. The rooftop beneath him was fracturing, splitting into segments like shattered glass. Shadows from the cracks reached up, stretching toward him like blackened fingers, writhing and whispering in unison.
"You see them?" the shadow asked.
"Yes," Salem said. "And I don't like it."
"Then good," it replied. "They won't like you either. They're echoes of what's been erased, drafts of what might have been, and ghosts of choices left behind. And one of them—" The shadow paused. Its form shivered. "—one of them knows your secret."
Salem froze. His pulse hammered in his ears. He knew which secret the shadow meant—the secret he had barely admitted to himself, the one that bent the rules of causality: the child he would father would one day become his own progenitor. That paradox had been a whisper in the back of his mind, a thought he couldn't reconcile. And now… now it seemed the timelines themselves had noticed.
"I… I can't stop it," he said, voice trembling.
"No," the shadow agreed. "But you can survive it. Or at least… witness it."
From the fractured city below, a piercing light erupted, stretching into the sky like a jagged arrow. The ground quaked, fragments of buildings crumbling into temporal dust. People froze mid-motion, faces locked in horror and awe. The sound of countless clocks striking at once deafened him.
"This is it?" Salem shouted over the noise.
"Not yet," the shadow said. "But soon. You're standing at the nexus where past, present, and future collide. Decisions made here echo forever."
The watch floated inches from his face, its hands spinning wildly.
"Decisions?" Salem repeated. "I'm not ready for decisions. I just want to survive."
"Ah," the watch hummed. "Survival is relative. Ready is irrelevant. The universe doesn't wait. And you, my dear Salem, have been chosen for the entertainment of time itself."
A sudden gust tore through the city, and the shadow stretched toward him, then dissolved into hundreds of fragments, each fragment a version of Salem screaming silently. His own reflection stared back at him from the shards.
"No," he muttered. "Not… now."
The ground shifted violently, tossing him across the rooftop. He landed hard, breath knocked out of him. The fractured skyline blurred, twisting into shapes that defied geometry. The Ferris wheel from before appeared in the distance, skeletal and spinning, each carriage carrying a version of himself, laughing or screaming or both at once.
"Everything's connected," the shadow's voice echoed from nowhere. "Every skip, every draft, every choice. And someone—or something—is watching. Always."
Salem's chest tightened. He wanted to run, to leap, to escape, but his legs wouldn't obey. Time itself seemed to grip him, stretching seconds into hours, minutes into lifetimes.
"What… what do I do?" he whispered.
"Witness. Endure. Learn," the watch intoned. "And above all… survive. You'll need every fragment of yourself, every memory, every echo. Because the next skip? It won't be like the others."
The Ferris wheel spun faster, now a vortex of fractured time, pulling pieces of the city into it. The skeletal carriages rattled, groaning like tortured gears. One carriage separated, hovering closer. Inside… an older Salem, scarred, laughing, crying, and silently screaming all at once.
"Don't… make… eye contact," the watch warned.
Salem's eyes locked with the older version. In that moment, every skipped day, every forgotten conversation, every fractured timeline collided. He saw choices he hadn't made, people he hadn't saved, and futures he couldn't escape.
And then—the sky shattered.
A line of glowing, jagged text appeared across the horizon:
"Your next choice… will rewrite everything."
The shadows lunged. The fractured city quaked. The Ferris wheel groaned, and the older Salem smiled knowingly.
Salem's breath caught, his hands trembling. He realized, with a sinking certainty, that nothing—absolutely nothing—would ever be the same.
And in that frozen instant, the world tilted, twisted, and fell into absolute darkness.
Salem's eyes snapped open. He wasn't on the rooftop anymore… but somewhere else entirely. A voice whispered behind him:
> "Welcome… to the real beginning."