The Chronos Effect
Chapter Seven: The Last Morning
I didn't sleep. How could I? Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Amy's face in those final seconds before the truck hit us. The way her eyes went wide. The way she reached for me like I could somehow pull her back from whatever was coming.
So I sat in the chair by our bedroom window and watched her sleep instead. The way her hair fell across the pillow. The little crease that appeared between her eyebrows when she dreamed. The gentle rise and fall of her chest that would stop forever in fifteen hours.
At 6:23 AM, her alarm went off. Same time as always. She hit snooze without opening her eyes, rolled over, and found me sitting there.
"Damian?" Her voice was thick with sleep. "Why are you in the chair?"
"Couldn't sleep."
"Bad dreams again?"
If only she knew. "Something like that."
She sat up, pulling the sheet around her shoulders. "You look terrible. When's the last time you actually got a full night's sleep?"
"I don't remember."
"That's not healthy." She swung her legs out of bed, bare feet finding her slippers. "Maybe you should talk to someone. A therapist or—"
"Amy."
Something in my voice made her stop. She turned to look at me, really look at me, and I saw her expression change.
"What's wrong?"
I wanted to tell her everything. About the loops, about watching her die, about the impossible choice I'd made. I wanted to grab her and hold her and never let her leave this room.
Instead, I said, "I love you."
"I love you too." She came over and kissed my forehead. "But you're scaring me a little."
"Don't be scared."
"Then talk to me. What's going on in that head of yours?"
I looked up at her, memorizing the way the morning light caught the gold flecks in her brown eyes. "Do you ever think about parallel universes?"
"Random question for seven in the morning."
"Humor me."
She perched on the arm of my chair, running her fingers through my hair. "Sometimes. Why?"
"Do you think there are versions of us out there who made different choices? Who ended up somewhere else?"
"Maybe. I like to think there's a version where I became a pediatrician instead of going into emergency medicine. Where you finished your thesis without having a nervous breakdown."
"What about a version where we never met?"
Amy was quiet for a moment, still playing with my hair. "I don't like thinking about that one."
"Why not?"
"Because meeting you was the best thing that ever happened to me. I can't imagine my life without you in it."
The words hit me like a physical blow. I had to look away.
"Hey." She cupped my face, forcing me to meet her eyes. "Where is this coming from?"
"Just thinking about how fragile everything is. How quickly things can change."
"Nothing's going to change, Damian. We're solid. We just talked through the baby thing, we're planning our future together... we're good."
"Are we?"
"Yes. We are." She kissed me softly. "But you need to get some sleep, and I need to get ready for work."
I watched her move around the room, getting dressed in her scrubs. Green today, the color that made her skin look golden. She hummed while she got ready, the same Taylor Swift song from yesterday. Everything exactly the same as the first time I'd lived through this morning.
"Amy?"
"Yeah?" She was in the bathroom now, brushing her teeth.
"Call in sick today."
She stuck her head out, toothbrush still in her mouth. "What?"
"Call in sick. We can spend the day together."
She spit out the toothpaste. "I can't call in sick. We're already short-staffed, and I have three patients scheduled for—"
"Please."
She came back into the bedroom, studying my face. "Damian, what's really going on?"
"I just... I have a feeling something bad is going to happen."
"What kind of feeling?"
"The kind where I need you to stay home with me today."
Amy sat down on the edge of the bed, her expression serious now. "Are you having another one of those dreams? About me dying?"
I nodded, not trusting my voice.
"Honey, they're just dreams. Anxiety dreams because of all the stress you've been under."
"What if they're not?"
"Then what? We never leave the house again? We live in fear of every car, every accident that might happen?"
"Just today. Just stay home today."
She reached over and took my hands. "Damian, I can't live my life based on your nightmares. And I can't let you live yours that way either."
"Amy—"
"No, listen to me. You're not sleeping, you're barely eating, you're having panic attacks about things that haven't happened." She squeezed my hands. "I think you need to talk to someone. A professional."
"After today. If you stay home today, I'll call a therapist tomorrow."
"Promise?"
"Promise."
She was quiet for a long moment, chewing her lower lip the way she did when she was thinking hard.
"I can't call in sick," she said finally. "But I can try to get someone to cover the evening shift. Come home early, maybe around three instead of seven."
"That would... that would help."
"Good." She kissed my cheek. "And you're going to eat actual food today, not just coffee and anxiety."
"Okay."
"And you're going to call Dr. Martinez's office and make an appointment."
Dr. Martinez was the therapist Amy had been suggesting for months. In the original timeline, I'd never called.
"Okay."
She finished getting ready while I sat there, calculating hours. If Amy came home at three instead of seven, we'd have almost nine extra hours together. Nine more hours to talk, to laugh, to exist in the same space before...
"I'll see you tonight," she said, grabbing her keys from the dresser. "Try to get some sleep."
"Amy, wait."
She turned back, one hand on the door frame.
"I'm proud of you. For telling me about the baby last night. I know that was hard."
Her face softened. "Thank you for not hating me for it."
"I could never hate you."
"Even if I mess up again?"
"Even then."
She blew me a kiss and left. I heard her car start in the driveway, then fade as she drove away.
I sat there for another ten minutes, listening to the silence of our empty apartment. Then I got up and made coffee, called Dr. Martinez's office like I'd promised, and tried to figure out how to spend what might be my last day on earth.
The phone rang while I was staring into my coffee cup. Dr. Vasquez.
"Damian? Please tell me you didn't sleep in my office."
"I'm at home. Why?"
"Because I've been here since five AM working on equations, and I may have found something."
My heart jumped. "What kind of something?"
"The kind that might give you another option. Can you get here in twenty minutes?"
"I'm on my way."
I threw on clothes and drove to campus faster than I should have, hope and fear warring in my chest. What if she'd found a solution? What if I didn't have to let Amy die after all?
But what if trying to save her broke everything worse than before?
Dr. Vasquez's office looked like a tornado had hit it. Equations covered every available surface—the whiteboard, sheets of paper taped to the walls, even scribbled on napkins. She was standing in the middle of it all, hair wild, coffee mug in hand.
"Thank God," she said when she saw me. "I need you to check my math."
"What did you find?"
"Sit down first."
I sat. She grabbed a marker and started drawing on the whiteboard.
"I've been thinking about your temporal anchor points. Every time you loop back, you create a quantum entanglement between your consciousness and that specific moment in spacetime."
"Right."
"But what if, instead of trying to prevent the anchor point, we could create a controlled release?"
"I don't understand."
She drew a series of interconnected circles. "Think of it like pressure in a pipe. Right now, every time you loop, you're building up temporal pressure with no way to release it. But what if we could create a deliberate fracture? A way to bleed off the pressure without causing a cascade failure?"
"How?"
"By creating multiple small anchor points instead of one massive one. Instead of experiencing one traumatic loop that destroys reality, you experience several smaller loops that gradually reduce the temporal pressure."
I stared at the equations, trying to follow her logic. "You want me to loop back multiple times on purpose?"
"Controlled loops. With specific parameters designed to minimize fracture expansion."
"That sounds incredibly dangerous."
"More dangerous than letting Amy die when you might be able to save her?"
The question hung in the air between us. She was offering me what I wanted most—a way to save Amy without destroying everything else.
"What would it involve?"
"You'd loop back, but not to the morning. To specific moments throughout the day. Small interventions designed to create minor course corrections rather than major timeline shifts."
"Like what?"
"Like convincing Amy to take a different route home. Or getting the drunk driver's keys taken away by a bartender instead of slashing his tires. Subtle changes that achieve the same result without creating massive ripple effects."
I could feel the hope building in my chest, dangerous and desperate. "You really think it would work?"
"I think it's worth trying. The alternative is letting the woman you love die when we might be able to save her."
"And if you're wrong? If it makes things worse?"
Dr. Vasquez set down her marker and looked at me directly. "Damian, I've run every scenario I can think of. The math suggests this could work. But you're right—it is dangerous. There's a chance it could accelerate the cascade failure instead of preventing it."
"How much of a chance?"
"Thirty percent."
"And if I do nothing? If I let Amy die in the original timeline?"
"Then the temporal pressure releases naturally, reality stabilizes, and everyone else lives."
Thirty percent chance of saving Amy and everyone else. Seventy percent chance of destroying everything by trying.
"I need time to think."
"How much time do we have?"
I looked at my watch. 11:43 AM. Amy would die in twelve hours and four minutes.
"Not much."
"Damian, whatever you decide, I want you to know something."
"What?"
"In all the years I've been studying quantum mechanics, I've never seen anything like what you're experiencing. The level of consciousness-based temporal manipulation you're achieving... it's unprecedented."
"Is that supposed to make me feel better?"
"It's supposed to make you understand that you're not just choosing between Amy and everyone else. You're choosing what kind of person you want to be. Someone who accepts loss, or someone who fights it no matter the cost."
I left her office with equations swimming in my head and a terrible choice burning in my chest. Seventy-thirty odds. Amy's life hanging in the balance.
I drove home in a daze, barely aware of traffic or stoplights. In a few hours, Amy would come home early from work. We'd have dinner, maybe watch a movie. And then, at 11:47 PM, I'd either watch her die in my arms or risk everyone's existence trying to save her.
When I got home, there was a voicemail waiting on our landline. Amy's voice, bright and happy.
"Hey, babe. Good news—I got someone to cover my shift. I'll be home by three like I promised. And I'm bringing takeout from that Thai place you like. Love you."
Three o'clock. Four hours from now.
Four hours to decide whether to be a hero or a coward.
Four hours to choose between love and responsibility.
Four hours to figure out if I was strong enough to let the most important person in my life die to save everyone else.
I sat down at our kitchen table and put my head in my hands. Outside, the world continued spinning, oblivious to the choice that would determine whether it kept spinning or fell apart completely.
The clock on the wall ticked toward three o'clock, each second bringing me closer to the moment when I'd have to decide who lives and who dies.
And for the first time since this nightmare began, I honestly didn't know what I was going to choose.