The hospital doors slid open.
Ethan, Liya, Mira, and the chronal officer stepped outside.
Morning sunlight flooded the street.
Everything looked normal.
Too normal.
But now they knew the truth.
Three hours until the tower collapsed.
Three hours until the universe tried to reset the loop again.
Mira started her motorcycle.
"Hop on."
The engine roared to life.
Ethan raised an eyebrow.
"All of us?"
She smirked.
"Not unless one of you wants to sit on the fuel tank."
The chronal officer sighed.
"I'll take my own transport."
She tapped her device.
A sleek black vehicle appeared on the street corner.
Temporal division tech.
Hidden in plain sight.
Liya blinked.
"…You had that the whole time?"
"Protocol."
"Backup transport."
Ethan looked at the skyline.
Riverside Tower stood tall in the distance.
Glass reflecting the morning sun.
Hard to believe that building would be rubble in a few hours.
He climbed onto the motorcycle behind Mira.
Liya followed.
The officer pulled into the street behind them.
Mira grinned.
"Alright."
"Let's go stop a building from exploding."
The motorcycle shot forward.
The city rushed past in a blur.
Traffic lights.
Pedestrians.
Morning chaos.
But Ethan's mind wasn't on the road.
It was on the clock.
The officer's voice came through Mira's comm device.
"Countdown update."
Ethan asked,
"How bad?"
"Two hours fifty-one minutes."
Liya held onto him tighter.
"…Still time."
Mira laughed.
"Plenty."
They reached Riverside District twenty minutes later.
The tower rose above everything else.
Forty floors of glass and steel.
Thousands of people inside.
Working.
Talking.
Completely unaware.
Ethan jumped off the motorcycle.
"…This place."
Mira removed her helmet.
"Feels familiar?"
"Too familiar."
The chronal officer parked beside them.
Her device already scanning the structure.
The screen filled with red warnings.
"Structural stress detected."
Ethan frowned.
"…Already?"
"Yes."
She zoomed in on the building diagram.
A small fracture glowed near the central support column.
Mira whistled softly.
"Well that's subtle."
Liya leaned closer.
"…That tiny crack causes the entire collapse?"
The officer nodded.
"Chain reaction failure."
"Once the core breaks…"
"…the entire structure drops."
Ethan looked up at the tower.
Thousands of windows.
Thousands of lives.
"…We have to evacuate the building."
The officer shook her head immediately.
"That would take hours."
"We don't have hours."
"Then we reinforce the column."
Mira laughed.
"With what?"
"Duct tape?"
Liya frowned.
"There has to be a way."
The officer kept scanning.
Her device suddenly highlighted something new.
A glowing object inside the structure.
"…Wait."
Ethan looked at the screen.
"What is that?"
The officer zoomed in.
The object pulsed faintly.
Temporal energy.
Her eyes widened.
"…That's not a structural fracture."
Mira's smile vanished.
"…It's a time fracture."
Ethan's stomach dropped.
"…The universe planted it."
The officer nodded slowly.
"Containment trigger."
"If it activates…"
"…the building collapses instantly."
Liya whispered,
"…So we can't just fix the structure."
"No."
"We have to remove the fracture."
Mira cracked her knuckles.
"Great."
"Another impossible job."
Ethan looked at the diagram.
The fracture sat deep inside the tower's core.
Floor 27.
"…We go inside."
The officer hesitated.
"That's risky."
"Everything about this is risky."
Liya stepped forward.
"We're wasting time."
The countdown on the officer's device ticked lower.
TIME UNTIL COLLAPSE
02:22:48
Mira grabbed her helmet again.
"Well."
She nodded toward the tower entrance.
"Let's go break the universe's reset button."
They walked into the building.
The lobby was busy.
Office workers.
Security guards.
Coffee cups.
Normal life.
Ethan looked around.
"…None of them know."
Liya whispered,
"…Let's make sure they never have to."
The officer checked the building map again.
"Elevator to floor 27."
Mira pressed the button.
The elevator doors slid open.
They stepped inside.
The doors closed.
The elevator began to rise.
Floor numbers climbed slowly.
10…
14…
19…
But the officer's device suddenly screamed.
Everyone looked down.
The timer had just changed again.
COLLAPSE EVENT ACCELERATED
The new time appeared.
01:07:13
Liya's heart raced.
"…It just cut the time in half."
Mira sighed.
"The universe is getting nervous."
Ethan looked up as the elevator stopped.
Floor 27
The doors slid open.
The hallway lights flickered once.
Then stabilized.
But the officer's device showed something terrifying.
The temporal fracture wasn't small anymore.
It was growing.
Fast.
Ethan stepped out of the elevator slowly.
"…We're not just fixing a crack."
Mira looked at the glowing distortion ahead.
"…No."
"We're about to fight time itself." ⏳