The Chronos Effect
Chapter Thirteen: The Unraveling
Three weeks after my defense, Amy woke me up at 2:47 AM by shaking my shoulder.
"Damian. Damian, wake up."
I bolted upright, heart already racing. "What's wrong? Is it the baby?"
"No, the baby's fine. But something's happening outside."
I could hear it now—sirens. Lots of them. And voices shouting, people running. Through Amy's bedroom window, I could see red and blue lights flashing across the houses.
"Stay here," I said, reaching for my jeans.
"Like hell I'm staying here. That's our neighborhood."
We both got dressed quickly and went downstairs. Mrs. Chen was already in the living room, peering out the front window with her phone pressed to her ear.
"Yes, we're all safe... No, we're not going outside... Okay, I'll call you back." She hung up and turned to us. "That was Marcus. There's been some kind of accident on Prytania Street. Multiple injuries."
"What kind of accident?" Amy asked.
"He didn't know. Just said to stay inside until they sort it out."
But Amy was already moving toward the door, grabbing her keys from the bowl on the side table.
"Amy, stop," I said. "Marcus told us to stay inside."
"People are hurt. I'm a doctor."
"You're also still recovering from a truck crash."
"I'm fine."
"Amy—"
"Damian, I took an oath. If people need help, I'm going to help them."
I knew that look in her eyes. The same stubborn determination that had gotten her through medical school, through residency, through the past three weeks of recovery. There was no point arguing.
"Then I'm coming with you."
Mrs. Chen tried to protest, but we were already out the door.
The scene on Prytania Street looked like something from a disaster movie. Three cars had collided in the intersection, their metal twisted and smoking. An ambulance was already there, paramedics working on someone lying on the pavement. Fire trucks were arriving, their sirens adding to the chaos.
"Jesus," Amy breathed.
We ran toward the nearest victim—a woman sitting on the curb, blood streaming from a cut on her forehead. Amy knelt beside her immediately, her doctor instincts taking over.
"Ma'am, can you hear me? What's your name?"
The woman looked at her with unfocused eyes. "Sarah. My name's Sarah."
"Okay, Sarah. I'm Dr. Chen. You're going to be fine, but I need to check you for injuries."
I stood back, letting Amy work, and that's when I felt it.
The buzzing.
Faint at first, like a mosquito in the distance. But growing louder, more insistent, until it felt like my skull was vibrating.
No. Not now. Not after everything.
I looked around the accident scene, trying to find the source. And that's when I saw him.
The drunk driver from the original timeline. Robert Hendricks. Standing at the edge of the crowd, staring at the wreckage with tears streaming down his face.
He caught my eye and recognition flashed across his features. Then he turned and walked away, disappearing into the darkness.
I followed him.
"Damian?" Amy called after me, but I was already running.
I found Robert two blocks away, sitting on the steps of a closed convenience store with his head in his hands.
"It was supposed to be me," he said when I sat down beside him.
"What was?"
"That accident. I was supposed to be driving tonight, but my sponsor called, said I needed to come to a meeting. So I gave my buddy Mike my truck keys and told him to go without me." He looked up at me, his face streaked with tears. "Mike's the one they're scraping off the pavement back there."
The buzzing in my head intensified.
"You couldn't have known," I said.
"But you did, didn't you? That day you slashed my tires, you knew exactly what was going to happen. You said I was going to kill people."
"You didn't kill anyone tonight."
"Because you stopped me. Because you changed things." Robert wiped his face with the back of his hand. "But changing things doesn't make them better, does it? It just makes them different."
I didn't have an answer for that.
"Mike has two kids," Robert continued. "Seven and nine. What am I supposed to tell them? That their dad died driving my truck because I was too busy being a better person?"
"You're not responsible for this."
"Then who is? Who decided Mike should die instead of me?"
The question hung in the air between us, heavy with implications I didn't want to examine.
"I need to go," I said, standing up. "My fiancée needs me."
"Dr. Torres?"
I turned back.
"If you could go back and change it—if you could make it so I was the one driving tonight instead of Mike—would you?"
I looked at Robert, sober and alive and breaking under the weight of survivor's guilt. Behind me, I could hear the sirens still wailing, could picture Amy helping the injured, could feel the buzzing in my head asking the same question Robert was asking.
"I don't know," I said honestly.
When I got back to the accident scene, Amy was loading Sarah into an ambulance. She spotted me and jogged over.
"Where did you go?"
"I saw someone I knew. Had to check on them."
"Are they okay?"
"Physically, yeah. Emotionally..." I shook my head. "It's complicated."
Amy studied my face with the intensity she usually reserved for difficult diagnoses. "You're doing it again."
"Doing what?"
"Carrying something heavy that you won't talk about."
"Amy—"
"No, listen. Ever since the crash, you've been acting like you know things you shouldn't know. Like you're carrying around some secret knowledge about how the universe works." She took my hands. "I need you to tell me what's going on. Really going on."
I looked at her standing there in her pajamas and sneakers, covered in someone else's blood, asking me to tell her the truth about things I barely understood myself.
"Do you believe in fate?" I asked.
"I believe in choices. I believe we decide what happens next."
"What if we don't? What if everything is predetermined, and we're just acting out a script someone else wrote?"
"Then why would anything we do matter?"
"Exactly."
Amy was quiet for a moment, processing this. Around us, the emergency crews were cleaning up the accident scene. The injured were being transported to hospitals. Life was moving forward like it always did, one crisis at a time.
"Damian, I don't know what's happening in your head. But I know you're drowning in it." She squeezed my hands. "Let me help."
"You can't help with this."
"Why not?"
"Because..." I struggled to find words for something I'd never tried to explain out loud. "Because what if I told you that every choice we make creates ripples we can't see? That saving one person means someone else dies? That trying to fix things just breaks them in different ways?"
"I'd say welcome to being human. We make impossible choices every day in the ER. Save the patient with the better prognosis. Prioritize the kid over the elderly person. Decide who gets the last bed in ICU."
"And how do you live with that?"
"By doing my best and accepting I can't save everyone." She pulled me closer. "Damian, you can't control everything. You can't prevent every tragedy. All you can do is show up and try."
The buzzing in my head was still there, quieter now but persistent. Like a question I hadn't answered yet.
We stayed at the accident scene for another hour, helping where we could. When we finally got back to the house, Mrs. Chen had coffee and worried questions waiting for us.
"Marcus called again," she said. "Three people dead, two in critical condition."
Amy closed her eyes. "Did he say who?"
"Mike Henderson, Paula Carter, and someone they haven't identified yet."
Mike Henderson. Robert's friend. The man who'd been driving Robert's truck because Robert had been at an AA meeting instead.
I excused myself and went upstairs, sitting on the edge of Amy's twin bed while my hands shook. Three people dead. Because I'd convinced Robert to get sober. Because I'd changed one variable in an equation I didn't fully understand.
My phone buzzed. Text from Dr. Vasquez.
Did you feel it?
Feel what?
The temporal shift. Around 3 AM. My equipment registered a significant disturbance.
I stared at the message, my fingers hovering over the keyboard.
I felt something. But I didn't do anything.
Are you sure?*
Yes.
Then someone else did. The readings are similar to yours, but different. Like an echo or a reflection.
I called her immediately.
"What do you mean someone else?" I asked when she answered.
"I mean the temporal disturbance tonight wasn't caused by you. It was caused by someone experiencing similar trauma. Similar quantum entanglement."
"That's not possible."
"It's not only possible, it's happening. Damian, when you created those fractures, when you looped back multiple times—you didn't just affect yourself. You created a kind of... template. A pathway for others who experience extreme trauma."
"You're saying other people can do what I did?"
"I'm saying you may have accidentally opened a door that can't be fully closed."
I sat there in the darkness of Amy's childhood bedroom, processing this information. The buzzing in my head. Robert's tears. The accident that shouldn't have happened because I'd changed things.
"What do I do?" I asked.
"First, you tell me if you're experiencing the temporal awareness again."
"It's there. Faint, but there."
"Can you feel an anchor point? A moment you could jump back to?"
I closed my eyes and reached for it. And yes, it was there. Faint but distinct. 2:47 AM. The moment Amy woke me up.
"Yes."
"Don't use it," Dr. Vasquez said urgently. "Whatever you do, don't jump back. The fractures are barely healed. Another loop could—"
"Could what?"
"Could create a cascade we can't stop this time."
I ended the call and sat there, feeling the weight of knowledge I didn't want. Three people were dead. Robert was drowning in guilt. And somewhere out there, someone else might be discovering they could manipulate time.
Amy came upstairs and found me sitting in the dark.
"Hey," she said softly, sitting beside me. "You okay?"
"No."
"Want to talk about it?"
I looked at her, this woman who'd agreed to marry me, who was carrying our child, who trusted me even when I couldn't be fully honest with her.
"What if I told you that I think I made things worse? That by trying to save people, I actually caused more harm?"
"I'd say you're being too hard on yourself."
"Am I? Three people died tonight, Amy. Three people who might still be alive if I hadn't—" I stopped myself.
"If you hadn't what?"
"If I hadn't interfered."
Amy took my face in her hands, forcing me to look at her. "Listen to me. You are not responsible for that accident. You didn't force those drivers to be on the road. You didn't make them crash. Whatever guilt you're carrying, it's not yours to carry."
But it was mine. Because I'd changed Robert's timeline, and those changes had rippled outward until they crashed into Mike Henderson and Paula Carter and an unidentified third person who'd been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
"I'm tired," I said, which was true but not the whole truth.
"Then let's sleep."
We lay down in the narrow twin bed, Amy curled against my side. But sleep didn't come for me. I lay awake listening to her breathing, feeling the buzzing in my head, knowing that 2:47 AM was right there, accessible, waiting for me to reach back and try to fix things one more time.
Robert's question echoed in my mind: if you could go back and change it, would you?*
Three people were dead. But if I went back, who would die instead? Robert? Someone else? How many times could I loop before I broke reality completely?
At 4:23 AM, my phone buzzed again. Text from an unknown number.
I know what you did. I know what you can do. We need to talk.*
I stared at the message, my heart pounding.
Who is this?
Someone like you. Someone who can see the threads. Someone who knows that time isn't as linear as people think.
How did you get this number?
The same way you knew about the accidents before they happened. The same way you've been carrying around knowledge you shouldn't have.
I sat up slowly, careful not to wake Amy. My hands were shaking as I typed.
What do you want?*
To help. Or to warn you. Maybe both. Meet me tomorrow at Café du Monde. 10 AM. Come alone.
Why should I trust you?*
Because I'm the only other person who understands what you're going through. And because if you don't learn to control what's happening to you, more people are going to die.*
The message felt like a threat and a promise all at once.
I looked at Amy sleeping peacefully beside me, one hand resting on her stomach where our baby was growing. I thought about Robert's guilt, about Mike Henderson's two kids, about the fractures in reality that Dr. Vasquez said were barely healed.
And I thought about the choice I was facing. Go to this meeting and learn more about what I was becoming. Or ignore it and hope the buzzing in my head would eventually go away.
But I already knew the answer. The buzzing wasn't going away. The temporal awareness wasn't fading. Whatever door I'd opened when I first looped back to save Amy, it was still open.
And apparently, I wasn't the only one who'd walked through it.
I typed back: I'll be there.
The response came immediately: *Good. Bring your questions. You're going to need answers soon.
I deleted the messages and lay back down, pulling Amy close. In a few hours, she'd wake up and make breakfast plans. Mrs. Chen would fuss over us. Life would continue moving forward like everything was normal.
But nothing was normal anymore.
And tomorrow at 10 AM, I was going to find out just how abnormal things had become.