The blue numbers burned like polar ice against the slate-gray sky. Forty-eight hours, thirty-one minutes, fifteen seconds. They hung above the man in the gray trench coat, a cold, unwavering beacon in the unnatural stillness. Below, pressed against the cold metal of the mailbox, Lín Mò felt the phantom ache of his own stolen time – sixty-eight hours, fifteen minutes, twenty-one seconds bleeding away on his wrist. The weight of the boy he'd saved, now utterly still beside the postbox, pressed down on him, a tangible reminder of the brutal economy of this frozen world. Three days of his life, extinguished for a moment of mercy that felt increasingly like a defeat.
The man on the rooftop turned fully now. Distance blurred his features, but Lín Mò felt the scrutiny, a pressure against his skin colder than the stagnant air. It wasn't just observation; it was assessment. Predatory. Ouyu's warning echoed: They will stop you. This was the first anomaly, the first fragment he needed to reclaim. And it knew he was here.
Lín Mò's muscles coiled, torn between the instinct to charge and the bone-deep weariness from his sacrifice. Charging meant ascending seven flights of stairs, exposed, vulnerable. The anomaly held the high ground, literally and figuratively. He possessed the power to twist time itself. What form would that power take? Acceleration? Stasis? Something worse?
He pushed away from the mailbox, forcing his legs to move. He wouldn't cower. He couldn't. Every second counted. He scanned the building facade – a standard residential block, fire escape zigzagging up the side. His path. He started towards it, keeping his eyes locked on the blue figure above.
The anomaly didn't move. It simply watched.
Lín Mò reached the base of the fire escape, the metal ladder retracted high above the first landing. He jumped, fingers straining, but fell short. He tried again, the effort sending a fresh wave of fatigue through him. The anomaly remained impassive, a silent sentinel.
Frustration gnawed at him. He looked around, spotting a dumpster frozen mid-tilt against the wall nearby. He scrambled onto its solid, unmoving lid, gaining precious height. From there, a desperate leap, fingers scraping rusted metal, then finally catching the bottom rung of the fire escape ladder. He hauled himself up, the metal groaning in protest under his sudden, solitary movement.
He climbed. Each rung felt heavier than the last, the air thickening with each floor he ascended. The blue numbers remained visible, a constant, chilling reminder of his quarry. He reached the seventh-floor landing, the rooftop access door just ahead. It was slightly ajar.
He paused, catching his breath, listening. Only the ever-present, low thrum of the Entropy Vortex in the distance, a monstrous heartbeat underscoring the silence. He pushed the door open slowly.
The rooftop was a flat expanse of gravel and forgotten rooftop furniture – plastic chairs frozen mid-tumble, laundry lines holding stiff, unmoving clothes. The man in the gray trench coat stood near the edge, his back now partially turned again, gazing out at the swirling darkness devouring the city's southwest quadrant. The blue countdown hovered serenely above him: 48:27:09.
Lín Mò stepped fully onto the roof, gravel crunching unnaturally loud under his boots. The sound made the anomaly turn, fully this time.
He was younger than Lín Mò expected, perhaps late twenties, with sharp features and eyes that held no warmth, only a deep, unsettling stillness. They weren't the eyes of a victim trapped in time; they were the eyes of something that belonged here.
"You found me," the man said. His voice was flat, devoid of inflection, like a recording played back in slow motion. "The variable. The… adjuster." He spoke the last word with a faint trace of something – disdain? Pity?
"Time anomaly," Lín Mò stated, forcing his voice steady. He flexed his hands, ready for anything. "I need your fragment."
A ghost of a smile touched the man's lips. "Fragment? Is that what she told you? That survivor? Ouyu?" He took a slow step forward. "She feeds you lies wrapped in desperation. I am the true Time Regulator. You… you are merely a glitch. A remnant that should have been erased in the last cycle."
The words struck Lín Mò like a physical blow. True Time Regulator? Ouyu had positioned him as the chosen one, the key to fixing this. Doubt, cold and insidious, seeped into his mind. What if Ouyu was wrong? What if he was the anomaly?
"Prove it," Lín Mò challenged, shifting his weight. His wrist burned with the countdown's presence: 68:10:45. Time was slipping.
The anomaly didn't answer with words. He raised a hand, palm outward. The air between them shimmered, like heat haze off asphalt. Lín Mò felt it immediately – a dragging sensation, as if the very molecules around him were thickening. His next breath came slow, labored. His thoughts felt syrupy. The anomaly was slowing time around him!
Panic flared. Lín Mò tried to lunge forward, but his limbs moved with agonizing slowness, trapped in invisible tar. The anomaly watched, that faint smile still playing on his lips, as he took another deliberate step closer.
Desperation fueled Lín Mò. He focused all his will, picturing his muscles snapping free. He pushed against the sluggishness, a surge of adrenaline burning through the temporal resistance. He wasn't fast, but he managed a stumbling step sideways just as the anomaly reached the spot where he'd been standing.
The anomaly's hand swept through the air where Lín Mò's throat would have been. Missed. Surprise flickered in those cold eyes. Lín Mò used the momentum, swinging a clumsy but powerful punch towards the man's jaw.
The anomaly reacted with unnatural speed. He didn't dodge; instead, the air around his head seemed to blur. Lín Mò's fist connected, but it felt like hitting water – the impact diffused, slowed, robbed of its force. The anomaly barely flinched.
He retaliated instantly. Not with a punch, but with a flick of his wrist. Time snapped back to normal around Lín Mò, then accelerated violently. The world became a blur. The anomaly's next strike – a simple open-palm shove – arrived impossibly fast, amplified by accelerated time.
It hit Lín Mò's chest like a sledgehammer. He flew backward, crashing into a cluster of frozen plastic chairs. Pain exploded through his ribs. He gasped, struggling to breathe, the world spinning.
The anomaly stood over him, looking down with detached curiosity. "Resilient for a glitch. But futile." He raised his hand again, fingers poised to twist the time around Lín Mò's head, perhaps to crush it with accelerated pressure or slow it to the point of brain death.
Lín Mò saw his death in those cold eyes. He saw the Entropy Vortex consuming everything. He saw the boy by the mailbox, utterly still. Rage, pure and desperate, surged through him. He wasn't a glitch! He was here. He was fighting!
With a guttural cry, fueled by pain and fury, Lín Mò kicked out wildly at the anomaly's legs. It wasn't elegant, but it was unexpected. The anomaly stumbled, his concentration broken. The temporal distortion around his hand faltered.
Lín Mò seized the moment. Ignoring the screaming pain in his chest, he scrambled up, grabbing a leg of one of the heavy, frozen plastic chairs. With all his strength, he swung it like a club.
The anomaly, off-balance, tried to twist time again, but Lín Mò was too close, the swing too committed. The chair connected solidly with the man's shoulder. There was a sickening crack. The anomaly cried out, a sound of genuine shock and pain, staggering back towards the roof's edge.
Lín Mò pressed his advantage, dropping the chair and lunging. He tackled the anomaly around the waist, driving him backward. They crashed against the low parapet wall. The blue numbers flickered wildly above the struggling man's head.
The anomaly fought back with desperate strength, clawing at Lín Mò's face, trying to knee him. But the injury to his shoulder hampered him. Lín Mò, fueled by adrenaline and the primal need to survive, managed to pin one of the man's arms. He drew back his fist, aiming for the jaw.
"Stop!" the anomaly gasped, genuine fear in his voice now. His eyes, wide with pain, locked onto Lín Mò's. "You don't understand! They lied to you! To us!"
Lín Mò hesitated, his fist hovering. The man's words, laced with a sudden, raw desperation, cut through the haze of combat. "What lies?"
The anomaly coughed, a trickle of blood appearing at the corner of his mouth. His blue countdown was blinking erratically: 00:00:47… 00:00:46… "The memories…" he choked out, his voice weakening. "Your past… it's not… not what you think. They… they altered it. To make you… compliant. To make you… fight us…"
Altered memories? Lín Mò's blood ran cold. Fragmented dreams, the unsettling feeling of displacement – had they been hints? Before he could demand more, the anomaly convulsed. His eyes rolled back. The blue numbers above his head flared once, brilliantly, then shattered like glass, dissolving into shimmering motes of light that vanished into the stagnant air.
The man in the gray trench coat went utterly limp, his body sliding down the parapet to the gravel rooftop, as still as the boy by the mailbox. Dead. The first time anomaly was gone.
Lín Mò staggered back, breathing raggedly, his chest on fire. He looked down at his wrist. The red numbers pulsed: 67:58:03. The fight had cost him over an hour. But the cost felt deeper than time.
They altered it. To make you compliant.
The words echoed in the sudden, crushing silence. He looked at the dead man, no longer an enemy, but a potential mirror. What if this man had believed he was the true Regulator? What if Ouyu…?
He knelt beside the body, searching for anything – a clue, a fragment Ouyu had mentioned. Nothing. Just a cooling corpse in a gray trench coat. The only thing reclaimed was time Lín Mò had lost fighting.
He looked towards the Entropy Vortex, its dark maw seeming larger, closer. Sixty-seven hours. Six more anomalies. And now, a seed of doubt planted deep within him, whispering a terrifying question: Who was he, really? And whose memories did he carry?
The rooftop wind, eternally still, offered no answers. Only the Vortex's hungry drone filled the void. Lín Mò pushed himself to his feet, the pain in his ribs a sharp counterpoint to the chilling uncertainty in his mind. The hunt continued, but the enemy was no longer just out there. It might be inside him.