Chapter 15 - The Day Time Stopped

  Ezra had to face it. He had to return to the labs. Had to clean out Haru’s dormitory. Mr. Key had given him time off. But it still felt too soon. Too raw. Too final.

  He stood outside Haru’s door. His stomach twisted. For a moment, he thought about turning back. Then— He exhaled sharply. And opened the door.

  Chaos.

  God.

  It looked like a hurricane had gone through. Clothes were scattered everywhere. The floor was a disaster. Ezra took one look at the mess and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Jesus Christ, kid."

  It was such a stark contrast to how Haru kept his workplace. There? Everything was organized. Every tool perfectly placed. But here? Oh, this was a kid’s room. A nerd’s room. And, Jesus Christ, he was such a weeb.

  Posters lined the walls. Not just any posters. Tenzai Raikou. Figures, model katana, even a goddamn body pillow of Raikou’s hot sidekick, Ezareena. Ezra groaned. "You little shit."

  Despite himself—Despite everything—He smiled.

  Then, he got to work. He had brought trash bags for the garbage. And dear god, was there garbage. Unfinished pizza. Takeout containers. Loose notes, some covered in drawings of anime fight choreography. Ezra shook his head, carefully sorting everything.

  The memorabilia, he packed with care. Every little figure. Every katana. The body pillow? …That was going in a separate box. As the room began to clear up, Ezra’s eyes drifted to something odd.

  A graviton battery. Sitting near a novelty plasma bulb toy. He didn’t think much of it. At first. Then, on a whim—He plugged the plasma bulb in.

  For a while, he just sat there. Watched it hum with electricity. Just took a breather. Tried to remember the good times. Then—Something strange happened.

  The plasma flickered. Like an LED bulb recorded by a phone. But—that shouldn’t be happening. Electricity should be smooth. Ezra rubbed his eyes. Was he just staring at it too long? He blinked. No. No, something was happening.

  On instinct, he picked up the graviton battery and moved it to the other side of the room. The flickering stopped. "Hey…" Ezra frowned. "That’s kinda funny."

  He moved the battery closer again. The flickering returned. Stronger. Then he moved it away. It stopped. Back closer. Stronger.

  Ezra’s pulse quickened. Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck, he had some experiments to run.

  Ezra wasted no time. He set up shop in the lab. If something was off, he was going to find out why.

  Step One: Observations.

  Just what the hell was the plasma bulb doing? Ezra didn’t trust his own eyes. So he bought a slow-motion camera. Something high-speed, precise. He ran the first test.

  The bulb flickered. At first, it looked normal. Then, he replayed the footage. And his blood ran cold. Electricity doesn’t move like that.

  It wasn’t just pulsing. It was going back and forth. Like it was being slowed down. Ezra leaned forward, watching frame by frame. The pulses were not just delayed. They were being actively restrained.

  Almost like… Like they were fighting against something unseen. Ezra sat back in his chair, rubbing his chin. "What the fuck…"

  Step Two: Measurements.

  Voltage reader? Check. Oscilloscope? Check.

  He set up two different circuits. One for AC power. One for DC power. Then, he ran the numbers.

  At first? Everything seemed fine. But when he compared the readings? Something was definitely wrong. The electron flow was slower. Much slower.

  Electricity was not supposed to slow down. Not like this. This wasn’t resistance. This wasn’t a capacitor delay. This was something else.

  He ran more tests. The pulses? They weren’t natural. And the most disturbing part? Ezra had slowed footage before. Typically, to see electric pulses clearly, you needed to slow the footage by 100,000x. And for that, you’d need dozens of cameras firing simultaneously.

  But his slow-motion camera? It wasn’t even close to that range. Not only that—It was capturing the effect smoothly. Like the distortion was already happening in real time. Like he was seeing something that wasn’t meant to be seen.

  Ezra’s pulse quickened. "This ain’t normal." He leaned forward. Eyes locked on the screen. It wasn’t just electricity behaving strangely. It was something deeper. Something fundamental.

  Ezra could see it. Which meant…He could map it.

  Ezra stood before the whiteboard, marker poised mid-air, staring at the tangled mess of equations and theories he had scrawled across it. Something wasn’t adding up. Something small—a minuscule detail lost in the grand picture. He could feel it, hovering just outside his grasp, taunting him.

  He went back to square one, running through what humanity knew about gravitons. The batteries were like transformers, keeping gravity waves trapped in a closed-loop system. When energy was needed, it was simply transferred from one form to another, a seamless transaction. But the time dilation effect—that had always been accounted for. It was a known variable in graviton technology.

  And yet…

  Ezra frowned, tapping the marker against his chin. How in the hell was it affecting electrons? Circuits weren’t supposed to behave this way. Electrical current operated in predictable ways, even under gravitational influence. So why had no one ever noticed this before?

  Then it hit him.

  Systems running on graviton energy took time dilation into account—but what about the circuitry itself? The very wiring, the resistors, the pathways conducting the flow of electrons? Had anyone ever thought to measure how gravitational forces influenced the internal mechanics of electronics?

  Ezra dropped the marker, stepping back.

  "That’s it," he muttered. "That’s the missing link."

  Setting up his next experiment was tedious, but necessary. He collected several graviton batteries and prepared a small breadboard circuit on his workstation. A simple setup—LEDs connected in series, each placed carefully to observe how the current flowed under different conditions. Right before the battery terminals and the inverter, he installed two diodes, effectively turning the circuit into a one-way street for electrons.

  He ran the control test first. Power on. The LEDs lit up smoothly, flickering in predictable pulses. Nothing unexpected. So far, so good.

  Next came the real test.

  Ezra powered up the graviton batteries, directing their energy toward the setup. The LEDs glowed just as they had before. Smooth. Stable. No disruptions.

  He leaned in, brows furrowing. Nothing seemed different. Still, he knew better than to trust his own eyes. He reached for the slow-motion camera. At maximum FPS, the footage showed nothing out of the ordinary. He exhaled sharply. "Come on, give me something…"

  Lowering the FPS setting bit by bit, he scrutinized the screen, watching the recorded pulses in real-time. At first, it looked identical to the control group—smooth, rhythmic. But something in his gut told him to keep going.

  So he did. As the FPS dropped further, a subtle shift emerged.

  A flicker. A disruption in the current. Ezra narrowed his eyes. "Wait… that’s not right."

  The pulses weren’t just oscillating—they were behaving erratically, almost as if they were resisting something unseen. Electrons weren’t just flowing one way anymore; they were slowing down, pushing against an invisible force. He cross-checked the data with his oscilloscope. The AC current appeared to function normally. No deviations. No anomalies. But the slow-motion footage told a different story.

  He sat back in his chair, arms crossed. "This feels right," he muttered to himself. "But it’s still not all of it. Something’s missing." He tapped a finger against the desk, frustration creeping in. The puzzle pieces were right in front of him, but they weren’t fitting together the way they should. What was he missing?

  What was he not seeing? Ezra took a deep breath. He wasn’t done yet.

  Ezra spent weeks running test after test, diving into every possible variable he could think of. It wasn’t just about setting up the experiment anymore—it was about understanding what he was missing. Every time he thought he had a lead, the data would slip through his fingers like sand, teasing him with near-perfection, only to leave him stranded without a definitive answer.

  His instruments were perfectly calibrated.

  The slow-motion camera captured every flicker, every pulse.

  The oscilloscope readings were stable, normal.

  Too normal.

  That was what gnawed at him the most. If there was something happening here—something new, something big—then why did the readings insist that everything was behaving as expected?

  He spent hours locked in deep thought, rerunning possible hypotheses in his mind. Maybe his setup wasn’t picking up the right signals. Maybe his tools weren’t sensitive enough to catch the anomaly.

  Or maybe… he wasn’t looking at the right thing.

  Eventually, he had to take a break before frustration burned him out completely. He threw himself into mindless scrolling, binge-watching videos, saving memes, soaking in whatever fun facts he could to keep himself occupied. Anything to pull his mind away from the relentless obsession that this experiment had become.

  And then, late one night, with his mind clouded by Auntie Ciarra’s penjamin, it hit him.

  The phone.

  Ezra turned it over in his hand, staring at the case. It wasn’t just durable—it had a built-in solar cell. Not a full-scale one, nothing powerful enough to keep the device running indefinitely, but just enough to pull in a trickle charge in an emergency. It was designed to keep the phone’s essential functions alive even when it was off. Even when there was no battery left.

  That was how emergency services could still track you. A tiny reserve of power, just enough to keep the system checking for signals.

  He sat up suddenly, phone in hand. That was it. "Ki Ki," he muttered, voice thick with haze.

  The AI assistant booted up smoothly. "Yes, Ezra?"

  His thoughts were scattered, racing faster than his ability to form words. "How much power can a solar cell provide?" Ki Ki listed the standard output, detailing various types, efficiencies, and use cases. Ezra licked his lips. "How much would it read if it were placed next to an LED?" The AI assistant calculated again, responding with another set of figures.

  His heartbeat picked up. "And how much should it read," he said carefully, "if I were using the LEDs I’ve been experimenting with?" Ki Ki processed for a moment before delivering the answer. The numbers didn’t match.

  Ezra exhaled, his pulse pounding. He had a new experiment to run.

  The next morning, Ezra set up the solar cell right next to the LED circuit. He ran the test with standard conditions first. Control group. No graviton energy. Everything worked exactly as expected. The solar cell picked up a steady, predictable output.

  Then he activated the graviton batteries. The readings changed. At first, it was subtle. Barely noticeable. But as Ezra increased the graviton energy, the solar cell output began to drop. That didn’t make sense. Light was light.

  If anything, increasing power should have made the LED glow brighter. The solar cell should have picked up more energy, not less. Ezra frowned, moving the solar cell away. The output stabilized. He moved it closer again. The output weakened.

  His breath caught in his throat. That could only mean one thing. The LED wasn’t just dimming. The photons weren’t reaching the solar cell.

  Something was slowing them down. Ezra sat there, staring at the setup, feeling like his mind was being rewired in real-time. Light didn’t just slow down. Not unless… His blood ran cold. "Ki Ki," he whispered, unable to look away from the experiment.

  "Yes, Ezra?"

  "Run the numbers again. Based on the drop in output, how much of a delay is happening here?"

  Ki Ki processed the data. Ezra’s foot tapped anxiously on the floor as he waited, his stomach twisting into knots. Finally, the response came. "0.00000042 seconds per photon delay detected at maximum graviton exposure."

  Ezra blinked, his breath hitching. That was impossible. But if the photons were being delayed—If light itself was being affected—Then that meant electrons weren’t just moving backward.

  Time was.

  The realization hit him all at once. He shot up from his chair, knocking over his notes. He grabbed the slow-motion footage, playing it back, frame by frame, studying the flickers—the inconsistencies that shouldn’t be there.

  It all added up. The LED pulses, the irregular oscillations, the feedback loop that shouldn’t exist. It wasn’t an error. It wasn’t a malfunction. It was time itself, being stretched, bent—delayed.

  Ezra let out a sharp breath. Then—He whispered it aloud. "Holy shit…" His fingers shook. "That’s—" He swallowed. "That’s time travel."

  Ezra knew he had to take things a step further. He had already proven that gravity could slow down particles. That it could even make them behave in ways they weren’t supposed to. But slowing them down wasn’t enough.

  He needed to see it. He needed proof. That meant one thing. If gravity was acting like a wave, stretching and delaying particles, then there had to be a way to collapse that wave into something observable.

  If he could trap it, pinpoint it, isolate it—He could turn those waves into particles. Then, he would know for sure.

  It took him weeks just to set up a safe experiment. He couldn't just throw particles together recklessly. He was dealing with antimatter. Unstable. Unpredictable.

  And if things went wrong, he wouldn’t get a second chance to correct them. He had to be careful. The setup was inspired by the classic wave-slit experiment. It had been done before—countless times, in fact. Humanity had already proven graviton particles existed.

  They had a different name for them. Antimatter.

  The most volatile substance known to man. And now, Ezra was about to run the same experiment. But this time? He wasn’t just going to observe the usual results. He was looking for something new. Something everyone else had missed.

  The experiment began. A beam of electrons was fired through the isolation chamber, which had been flooded with a small amount of antimatter. It should have worked. But when Ezra checked the results—Nothing.

  No reaction. No anomalies. Just—nothing. Ezra stared at the screen. Frowned. That wasn’t right. Antimatter wasn’t supposed to ignore electrons. Something had to be happening. Something his instruments weren’t picking up. Then—Ezra noticed something strange.

  The chamber looked normal. At first. Then he saw it. One side of the chamber—the exit point of the electron beam—It was warm. Ezra grabbed an IR laser thermometer and took a reading. There it was. The temperature was higher than it should have been.

  Not by much. But enough. Curious, he reached forward, pressing his hand against the exit panel. -ZAP!-

  A sharp electric shock shot through his fingers. Ezra jerked his hand back. What the fuck?

  His mind raced. The electrons should have passed through. That was the whole point of the experiment. But they hadn’t. Instead—They had built up at the exit point. They were stuck. Stopped.

  Ezra’s heart pounded. If antimatter was supposed to be slowing things down, then how had it completely halted the electrons? Unless—Ezra rushed back to the whiteboard.

  Started scribbling equations. Numbers. Patterns. Connections. Antimatter had always been used in reactors, refined into energy. But here? It wasn’t behaving like energy.

  It was blocking flow. Not just slowing it down—Stopping it. That didn’t fit. That didn’t make sense. There had to be a middle ground.

  A balance between the wave-slowing effect of gravity and the particle-halting force of antimatter.

  If he could figure it out—He might be able to manipulate electrons at will. But the math wasn’t supporting it. Every equation—every formula—came up wrong. Ezra knew what he was seeing. He knew what was happening.

  But the numbers weren’t agreeing with reality. Which meant—It wasn’t his theory that was flawed. It was the physics itself. He was missing something. Something big.

  Ezra stepped back from the board, running a hand down his face. He was so close. So, so close. But until he found the missing variable… He wasn’t sure if he was on the verge of a breakthrough—Or about to run himself straight into a dead end.

  After weeks of pushing himself in the lab, Ezra hits a wall. His brain feels fried. His calculations aren’t adding up. Nothing he tries feels right. So—He does what he and Haru used to do whenever they were stuck.

  He takes a break.

  Ezra found himself at the old ramen shop he and Haru used to hit up after long shifts. The little hole-in-the-wall joint was tucked between two towering buildings, steam always rolling from its open kitchen, the smell of broth thick in the air. He slid into their usual booth, the one in the corner with the cracked tabletop and faded graffiti carved into the wood.

  Without thinking, he ordered the same thing Haru always got—miso ramen with extra pork belly. The old man behind the counter gave him a knowing nod, like he remembered them. Like he knew someone was missing. Ezra sat there, staring at the empty seat across from him, listening to the hum of the city outside, the clatter of chopsticks, the faint echo of Haru’s laughter still lingering in the space between them.

  While he’s sitting there, lost in thought, something happens.

  Something small.

  Something ordinary.

  A storm is rolling in. A car’s headlights flicker as it drives over a pothole. A street vendor’s paper sign keeps flipping back and forth in the wind. And then—He hears a familiar voice.

  "Kiddo."

  Ezra freezes. Turns around. And there he is. Mr. Shoelace. Sitting at the bench next to him. Like he had been there the whole time. Like he had never left. He’s dressed casually, legs crossed, his ever-present smirk lingering at the edges of his lips. Ezra stares. "Jesus fucking Christ."

  Mr. Shoelace chuckles. "Not quite, but close."

  Ezra rubs his temples. "I’m losing my mind. This is it. My brain’s cooked. Do you know how many weeks I’ve been banging my head against the wall?"

  "Yeah, actually," Mr. Shoelace replies, pulling out a small notebook. "Thirty-six days, give or take a few hours. I was wondering how long it’d take for you to look up from your equations."

  Ezra glares. "You could’ve saved me some time."

  Shoelace just shrugs. "Nah. Some things ya gotta figure out for yourself."

  Ezra exhales sharply. "So why are you here?"

  Shoelace gestures to the storm rolling in. "Just enjoying the view."

  Ezra follows his gaze. Lightning flashes in the distance. The clouds are moving in thick waves. The wind picks up, making the street vendor’s paper sign flutter wildly again. Ezra’s eyes linger on it.

  The sign flips one way. Then flips back. Back and forth. Repeating. Like a wave…

  And then—it hits him.

  Ezra grabs his head. "Holy shit."

  Mr. Shoelace chuckles. "There it is."

  Ezra looks at him, eyes wide. "The balance isn’t in either the wave or the particle. It’s in both. It’s about oscillation—the inversion of the wave."

  Shoelace just smiles. "Took ya long enough."

  Ezra can’t believe it. All this time—he was trying to pick one side or the other. But that’s not how reality works. It’s always both. Wave and particle. Gravity and time. A push and pull.

  Haru was right. Everything has a pattern. Ezra just needed to stop looking at it like an equation— And start looking at it like a game. A dance. A constant back and forth. And that’s the key.

  He turns to Mr. Shoelace, exhilarated. "Okay, so now what?"

  Shoelace leans back. "You tell me."

  Ezra opens his mouth—then pauses. Mr. Shoelace is already gone. Ezra sits there, staring at the empty bench. The street vendor’s sign flutters again.

  Back and forth.

  Back and forth.

  Ezra grins. This? This was gonna be fun.

  Ezra sat at his lab bench, rubbing his temples, staring at the chaotic scrawls covering his whiteboard. He was close. Too close to quit now.

  Alright, so—waves slow time down. That was a given. The particle? A barrier. A boundary. An anchor point. What if he used that barrier to lock the effect into place? Like.. a timestamp? He wouldn’t need nearly as much anti-gravity as before. Just a tiny sample. A microscopic amount, contained, controlled.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  It should be enough. But the gravity waves… Those were the real problem.

  Inverting them was easy enough—he had already proved that. But control? Pinpoint precision? That was another story. If he wanted perfect synchronization between the gravity waves and the movement of electrons, he needed something faster than human hands.

  That’s when the idea hit him. Ezra turned to his phone. "Ki Ki."

  The AI assistant blinked to life. "Yes, Ezra?"

  "I need you to write me a program."

  Ki Ki’s interface pulsed. "What kind of program?"

  Ezra cracked his knuckles. "Something simple. Just another AI—nothing fancy. Its only job is to control the gravity waves." If he could tune the graviton field just right—if he could match the phases of the waves with the exact speed of the electrons… Then he could observe it.

  Measure it.

  Prove it.

  The next experiment was set. The AI-controlled graviton generator sat below a tiny antimatter sample. Beside it? The test circuit. In theory, if the AI was precise enough, the electrons should flow in reverse. Ezra took a deep breath. "Alright. Let’s do this." He flipped the switch.

  The hum of the gravity generator filled the air. Ezra’s eyes flicked to the monitor. The AI adjusted the graviton waves. The antimatter reacted. And then—It worked.

  It fucking worked.

  Ezra’s breath caught in his throat as he saw it on the screen. The electrons weren’t just slowing down. They were moving backward. He did it. He actually did it. Then—KA-BOOM!!

  The shockwave rocked the lab. Ezra stumbled back as a deafening crash filled the air. Glass shattered. Instruments toppled over. The power flickered. His experiment was in ruins. The antimatter had burned out instantly. Used up.

  Completely annihilated. Ezra stood there, stunned, hands still gripping the desk. The lab didn’t ignite. But his work was destroyed. It took a moment before he finally exhaled.

  His pulse was still racing. He turned to the computer. Pulled up the recorded footage. Watched frame by frame. And there it was. Before the detonation—Before the catastrophic failure—It worked.

  His fingers shook as he played it back again. The proof was right there. But now? Now came the hard part. Measuring it.

  Ezra set up in a reinforced lab this time. If he was going to keep blowing shit up, he needed a controlled space for it. The room was sterile—white walls, reinforced barriers, a single isolated chamber for his experiments.

  And in the center? A canvas. A can of paint. And his prototype.

  He had spent days adjusting the AI’s control parameters. If the calculations were even slightly off, the antimatter would burn out again. Ezra wasn’t just looking for results this time. He was looking for proof.

  Proof that reality could be reversed. Even if only for a fraction of a second.

  The setup was simple. Ezra splattered paint across the canvas. Thick, bold strokes, chaotic sprays of red, blue, and white. This wasn’t just an experiment. It was art. A snapshot of entropy. The before. Now, he wanted to see the after.

  Ezra took a deep breath. Flicked the switch. The machine hummed to life. The graviton waves pulsed through the air. Ezra watched—waiting. And then—Some of the paint flickered.

  Like it had second thoughts. Like it wasn’t sure if it wanted to stay on the canvas— Or go back. And then—It went back.

  Droplets of paint lifted off the canvas. Some hovered. Some spiraled backward, retracing their splatter marks. And some—-WHOOSH- Sucked straight back into the paint can.

  Ezra’s jaw dropped. It worked. And then—BOOM. Another explosion.

  When the dust settled, Ezra stared at the footage. Frame by frame. Analyzing. Calculating. And there it was. 20%.

  20% of the paint had reversed before the antimatter detonated. Before reality caught up and shut it down. Ezra leaned back in his chair, running a hand down his face. He was so close. Oh, he was onto something big.

  Ezra sat at his workstation, staring at the blueprints laid out before him. Weeks of trial and error, of failures and near-breakthroughs, had finally led him here.

  He had figured out the chink in reality’s armor.

  Antimatter wasn’t just being used up—it was being pulled away. The gravity waves were doing more than just affecting time. They were disrupting containment. That meant one thing. It wasn’t just physics. It was a design flaw.

  Ezra spent the next several weeks locked in deep thought. Draft after draft. Blueprint after blueprint. He went through every possible configuration.

  Casing materials.

  Energy requirements.

  Containment fields.

  By the time fall was drawing to a close, he had something. A potential design. A small dome-shaped device—one that could fit in the palm of someone’s hand. Simple. Compact. But powerful.

  He ran more tests. The theory was sound. The antimatter, when controlled correctly, wouldn’t just invert time. It would harmonize it. In essence, it wasn’t traveling back in time, but rather bringing the past to the present.

  Ezra had been so focused on breaking time’s natural flow—he hadn’t considered guiding it. When the device activated—BWOMP—time would bend. It wouldn’t create a paradox. It wouldn’t loop endlessly. Instead, it would roll back in a controlled sine wave.

  The peak of the wave? That was his window. A brief moment where someone could step in, change a variable, and step back before time resumed. Five minutes. That was the safe limit. Anything longer? The antimatter would destabilize—and boom!

  Ezra leaned back, grinning to himself. He had done it. The first working prototype. Now all that remained? Perfecting it. And of course— Naming it. Ezra tapped his fingers against the table. Electronic Calculation Harmonizing Oculus.

  E.C.H.O.

  It was fitting. Because time? Time wasn’t something that stopped. It wasn’t something that could be trapped. It was an echo. And now? Now, Ezra could make it repeat.

  Ezra took every precaution.

  Every corner of his lab? Checked.

  Every potential spy footprint? Swept.

  Every blueprint? Hidden among mundane, boring documentation.

  He left hardly any trail. No digital records that could be tracked. No lingering notes that could give anything away. His experiments were locked away, coded, and sealed behind redundant encryptions.

  This wasn’t just his best invention yet. It was his most dangerous. If the Silent Legion caught wind of what he was doing? He wouldn’t get a warning slap to the face. He’d be erased.

  By the end of fall, the device was perfected. The final design? Elegant. Compact. Refined. It had one job—and it did it with terrifying efficiency. It could pull a moment from 30 minutes ago into the present.

  Once activated—the user had 5 minutes. Five minutes to make their changes. Then? Time would resume. Clean. Seamless.

  No explosions. No destabilization.

  The antimatter was used up with an efficiency rate of 99.9999%. And that was with maximum energy input. If he pushed the energy output? It could destabilize.

  Too much power? Boom. Too little? Time could almost be reversed. Even at near-perfection, there were microscopic inconsistencies. Minute errors. Tiny ripples. But nothing big enough to matter.

  For his final test—Ezra needed proof. On himself. He stood on the edge of the testing platform. Checked his watch. Took a deep breath. And jumped. Pain shot through his body the moment he hit the ground. Broken ribs. Bruised limbs.

  He gritted his teeth through the agony. Then—he reached into his pocket, activated E.C.H.O., and threw it. A pulse of reversed time radiated outward. And then—He was back.

  Thirty minutes earlier. Standing at the edge. Untouched. No pain. No bruises. It worked. It fucking worked.

  Ezra exhaled, heart pounding. He had done it. And just in time, too. Duty calls.

  The elevator hummed as it descended into the depths of the core facility, the air growing heavier with each passing second. Ezra stood in silence, his hands tucked into his coat pockets, his mind elsewhere.

  At the bottom, Clover was waiting. She didn’t greet him. She didn’t have to. There was no Haru to take the L with him this time. Which meant someone else had drawn the short straw. Ezra didn’t recognize the silent, armored figure standing off to the side. Probably another Legion grunt, trained to observe, never to question.

  Fine. Whatever. It was business as usual.

  Neither of them spoke as Ezra worked through his checklist. Marked each point on his report. Checked the readings like a good little scientist. It was almost normal. Then—Ezra broke the silence. "What if I quit?"

  Clover raised a brow. She didn’t look at him, just continued flipping through her own report. Unbothered. Unimpressed. "Business would go on," she said simply.

  Ezra’s jaw tensed. "And then what?"

  "Then we replace you." She didn’t even look up. "Until we find someone suitable."

  A suitable replacement. That was all he was to them. Not a scientist. Not a genius. Not a person. Just another lab rat. Just another number.

  Ezra gritted his teeth and forced himself to focus on his work. But as he checked the readings—Something shifted. A whisper. A voice. Faint. Distant. "You're so close… don’t stop…" Ezra froze. His grip on the clipboard tightened.

  Clover noticed. She stepped closer, her expression unreadable. She didn’t even have to ask.

  Ezra sighed. "It’s the visions, isn’t it?"

  Clover tilted her head. "You tell me."

  Ezra turned to face her fully. "You pick 'suitable replacements' because they’re the only ones who can hear them, don’t you?"

  There was a pause. Then—Clover clapped. Slow. Sarcastic. Mocking. "Well, well. No wonder why you graduated at the top of your class from WCU. About time you caught up."

  Ezra’s stomach twisted. He already knew the answer, but hearing it aloud? It made his skin crawl. "So you pick from the best and brightest," he muttered. "Because only they can attune to whatever messages the core sends them."

  Clover didn’t confirm or deny it. She didn’t have to.

  Ezra exhaled, running a hand through his hair. "Well, this one was mighty motivational." He smirked, shaking his head. "Kept telling me to never give up."

  Clover didn’t laugh. Didn’t even react. She just stared. Expression flat. Cold. Unreadable.

  Ezra’s smirk faded. "Why can’t the Silent Legion hear any of this nonsense?"

  Clover exhaled sharply. "Because they’re immune."

  Ezra blinked. "Immune?"

  She folded her arms. "Graviton radiation has polluted our genetic makeup." She turned her gaze to the massive chamber around them, at the pulsing, dim glow of the core. "We’re cut off. Exiled. Beyond its reach."

  Ezra felt his pulse slow. His heart pounded against his ribs. So that was it. The Silent Legion weren’t just guards. They were casualties. Cursed to stand outside the door of something they could no longer hear.

  Ezra lets out a slow breath, staring at the clipboard in his hands. The numbers blur together. He’s not even reading them anymore. His mind is elsewhere. Anywhere but here.

  He could walk away. Could be free of all this. Could finally go home and be the husband and father he should’ve been. This—this wasn’t his fight. It never was.

  Clover watches him in silence. She knows he’s on the edge. So she doesn’t push. She doesn’t threaten. She just waits—lets him sit with his thoughts. And then—She tilts her head. "You still looking for him?" she asks.

  Ezra stiffens. His stomach twists. She doesn’t say who. She doesn’t have to. He turns his head slowly. "What?"

  Clover shrugs. "Haru."

  Ezra’s fingers tighten around the clipboard. His voice is carefully neutral. "Why?"

  Clover meets his gaze, her expression unreadable. "You tell me."

  There’s a silence. A long, hollow silence. Then—Clover takes a step closer. "You still think he’s dead?"

  Ezra’s breath catches. His chest tightens. She’s fucking with him. She has to be. But—She leans in slightly. "I know what you’ve been working on," she murmurs. "Your little—experiments."

  Ezra feels his blood go cold. He hides it well. Doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t react. But Clover? She sees right through him. "You’re close," she says simply. "Closer than you realize."

  Ezra’s throat is dry. He doesn’t ask how she knows. Because if the Silent Legion wanted to know something? They’d find a way.

  Clover takes another step back. "So go ahead," she says lightly. "Walk away." She gestures toward the exit. "Go home. Be a father. Be a husband. Forget all about this."

  She lets the words settle. Lets them sink in. Then, in a voice so quiet, so calm—so devastatingly cruel, she adds— "Just know that if you leave? You’ll never find him."

  Ezra’s heart stops. The clipboard creaks in his grip. His head is screaming at him to ignore her. To call her bluff. To turn around and walk the fuck away. But—There’s a reason she said it.

  A reason she knew it would keep him planted where he stood. Because—Deep down—Somewhere, in the darkest part of his mind—Ezra isn’t sure Haru is dead either. And if there’s even a chance she’s right—He can’t leave.

  Clover watches him. Waits. She knows she’s already won. Finally—Ezra exhales sharply, running a hand through his hair. He doesn’t look at her. Doesn’t say a word. He just gets back to work.

  Ezra sat alone in his lab, staring at the prototype in his hands. The ECHO hummed softly, its energy pulsing like a heartbeat. A machine designed to replay a moment in time. To echo the past, but never truly change it. It was a parlor trick. A cheap time loop.

  And it wasn’t enough. Not for what he needed. Not for Haru.

  Ezra clenched his jaw. He had broken reality. Bent the laws of physics in ways no one else had. But it still wasn’t enough. He couldn’t bring Haru back. Not yet.

  But he was closer than anyone had ever been. And that? That meant something.

  His fingers traced the edges of the ECHO, deep in thought. This wasn’t a failure. It was a foundation. A blueprint. A stepping stone toward something greater. Ezra needed to expand the window. Half an hour wasn’t enough.

  What he needed was something bigger. Something stronger. Something that could reach farther back. And for that? He needed more power. Way more.

  He set the ECHO down carefully, reaching for his blueprints. His calculations. Clover said he was close. That meant she knew something. She knew where this path led. Ezra didn’t trust her. Didn’t trust the Silent Legion. Didn’t trust any of them.

  But for now? He didn’t care. Because he wasn’t stopping. Not until he had the real answer. The real way to undo this. Ezra exhaled sharply. "Half an hour isn’t enough," he muttered to himself.

  Then, narrowing his eyes at the equations in front of him—"So I’ll just have to go further."

  The hum of the ECHO filled the silence. And Ezra? Ezra got back to work.

  The hum of the strato-jet was a steady rhythm beneath Ezra’s seat, a distant, mechanical heartbeat as he thumbed through his blueprints. His mind raced, his eyes scanning the intricate equations, the delicate balance of forces, the sheer magnitude of what he was trying to do.

  Even with everything he had uncovered—even with all his breakthroughs—the bottleneck was still there. The power. The energy required to make this work—to expand the ECHO beyond its mere half-hour loop—was astronomical. The numbers weren’t just impractical. They were impossible.

  And if he pushed beyond that threshold? Catastrophe. Not just for him. Not just for the lab. For the world. Ezra exhaled sharply, running a hand through his hair. What was he doing? Was he really willing to gamble everything for this?

  His fingers traced the edges of the ECHO device resting on the seat beside him. A small, sleek machine that had already shattered the limits of reality—yet still wasn’t enough.

  He needed more time. More time to think. More time to find another way. Because one thing was clear—Ezra Key wasn’t willing to trade the world for just one boy.

  Ezra returned to Nonna’s house for Quarantinemas, but this time, something felt different. The air was still warm with the scent of home—cooked meals, wood-burning stoves, the gentle hum of holiday music drifting through the walls—but Ezra wasn’t really here. Not entirely. His body sat at the dinner table, but his mind was buried deep in the blueprints stuffed inside his luggage.

  Julie noticed first. Of course she did. She always did. She knew when Ezra was being Ezra and when he was pretending to be Ezra. And right now? He was pretending.

  It didn’t help that Adam was more aware this year. He was talking—barely—but enough to notice when his father wasn’t paying attention. At dinner, the little boy would tug at Ezra’s sleeve, babbling incoherent toddler phrases that demanded a reaction. Ezra would force a smile, nod along, ruffle his son’s hair. But Julie? Julie watched the whole thing with a frown.

  "You’re here, but you’re not here," she finally said when they were alone in their room that night.

  Ezra hesitated mid-motion, peeling off his sweater. He sighed. "Jules, I—"

  "Don’t." She shook her head. "I know that look. It’s the same look you had last year. And the year before that. You’re still chasing something, aren’t you?"

  Ezra didn’t answer. Because yes. Yes, he was.

  The ECHO wasn’t enough. He had made something that could rewind time in fragments—bits and pieces, like flipping through an old VHS tape, moving the picture but never stepping outside of the screen. But he needed more than that. A real solution. A real path forward.

  And Clover—goddamn Clover—had all but told him exactly what he wanted to hear. That Haru might still be out there. That if Ezra kept looking, if he didn’t stop, if he just kept digging—he might find him.

  Julie exhaled, sitting at the edge of the bed. "I know you won’t tell me everything," she admitted, voice softer now. "But tell me something. Anything."

  Ezra ran a hand down his face. He sat next to her, resting his elbows on his knees. "Jules," he murmured, his voice tired. "If you had a way to bring someone back—just one person—but it meant risking everything, would you do it?"

  Julie was silent.

  Then—"No."

  Ezra glanced at her, brow furrowing slightly. "No?"

  She looked him dead in the eye. "I’d want to. God, I’d want to," she whispered. "But some things—some lines—you don’t cross."

  Ezra’s throat tightened.

  Julie took his hand, squeezing gently. "I don’t know what you’ve found, Ezra. And I don’t know what you’re planning. But whatever it is—just… don’t lose yourself in it. Please."

  Ezra swallowed hard. He nodded. But deep down? He wasn’t sure if he could promise her that.

  The headaches came back. Not the ordinary, stress-induced ones. The other kind. The kind that felt like someone was hammering nails into his skull, whispering nonsense in a language he couldn’t quite grasp.

  Ciarra noticed. She always noticed.

  "You look like shit," she told him bluntly one night. Ezra gave her a tired glare.

  "Thanks, Auntie."

  She took a slow drag from her peace pipe, exhaling lazily. "You having dreams again?"

  Ezra froze. Ciarra smirked at his expression. "Thought so."

  They were out in Nonna’s backyard, sitting on the old wooden bench, the snow crunching under their boots. Ezra exhaled sharply, rubbing his temples. "I don’t know what they are," he admitted. "Visions. Hallucinations. Maybe I’m just finally going insane."

  Ciarra hummed. "Insanity is just another way of seeing things differently," she mused. "What’s got you spooked?"

  Ezra hesitated. "There was a door."

  Ciarra raised a brow. "A door?"

  Ezra nodded slowly. "It was in the core," he said, recalling the dream—no, the vision—that had been plaguing him for weeks. "I walked through it, and on the other side…" He clenched his jaw. "It was a city. No, a ship. A massive ship."

  Ciarra’s expression flickered. Just for a moment. Then she masked it with another lazy exhale of smoke. "And?"

  Ezra studied her closely. "And I think I saw him."

  Ciarra didn’t ask who. She already knew. "Are you sure?" she asked instead.

  Ezra’s pulse was pounding. His head ached. But he nodded. "Yeah," he whispered. "I’m sure."

  For a long moment, Ciarra said nothing. Then, she reached into her coat pocket. Pulled out something small. A sleek, familiar-looking device.

  Ezra’s breath caught. It was a phone. Just like his. Just like Haru’s. Just like the one she claimed was old. Ciarra turned it over in her hands, inspecting it with a quiet, knowing gaze. Then she tossed it into Ezra’s lap.

  "You’re getting too close," she murmured. "If you keep going down this road—" She took another slow drag, letting the silence stretch. "—you’d better be prepared for what’s on the other side."

  Ezra stared at the phone.

  At the device that shouldn’t exist. At the mystery wrapped in the skin of his own family. His own blood. And for the first time in a long time— He was afraid.

  Ezra shook his head, shoving down the thoughts clawing at the edges of his mind. Enough of this bigger-than-him mumbo jumbo. Enough secrets, enough headaches. "Alright," he announced, clapping his hands together. "Who’s hungry? I say we go get pizza!"

  Nonna raised an eyebrow from her rocking chair. "Pizza? From a restaurant?"

  Ezra smirked, already grabbing his coat. "Italians have a way with pizza, Nonna. Let’s see if the legends are true."

  Julie giggled. "I mean, you do have a white card."

  Ezra shrugged dramatically. "Might as well get some perks out of it."

  Nonna waved her hand dismissively, but the fond smile on her face gave her away.

  The pizzeria was small, nestled in the heart of town, a place Seth used to take Ezra to when he was little. But this time? This time, the place was theirs. A few other cars still passed through the snowy streets—essential workers and stubborn locals—but inside, it was just them.

  The family huddled in a cozy booth near the window. A warm fire crackled in the corner, filling the space with golden light. The smell of dough, cheese, and fresh herbs filled the air.

  Adam was in love with the pizza. Not just love—he was in war with it. His little hands waged battle against the slice, sauce smearing across his cheeks as he babbled nonsense and tried to feed pieces to Ezra. Julie, always the doting mother, pulled out her phone and started recording.

  "Adam," she cooed, laughing as the toddler held out a half-chewed, utterly massacred piece toward Ezra. "Give Daddy some pizza!"

  Ezra grimaced playfully, looking at the mushy offering. "Buddy… uh, that’s real nice, but I think you should finish your—"

  Adam didn’t take no for an answer. He shoved the bite toward Ezra’s lips.

  Julie burst out laughing. "Oh, come on, babe. He made it with love!"

  Ezra sighed dramatically before taking the tiny, soggy offering. "Mmm," he hummed, chewing with an exaggerated nod. "Delicious. Just how I like my pizza. Half-eaten and covered in baby drool."

  Nonna chuckled from across the table. Seth, his cough softened by the warmth of the meal, smirked as he wiped his own mouth with a napkin. "Atta boy, Adam. Make your old man suffer."

  Ezra stuck his tongue out at Seth before taking a real bite of his own slice. The warmth of the cheese, the crisp of the crust, the tang of the sauce—it was perfect. For the first time in what felt like forever, Ezra felt normal. Felt present.

  Then—A loud screech.

  Ezra’s chewing slowed. A bad feeling slithered into his gut.

  The moment he looked out the window, he knew.

  A truck. An SUV. A red light. One driver didn’t see it.

  The crash was instant. A deafening impact of metal against metal. The truck slammed into the SUV’s side, sending glass, debris, and twisted steel flying onto the snow-covered streets.

  The restaurant went silent. Julie gasped, covering her mouth. Adam, sensing something was wrong, looked up in confusion.

  Ezra’s fork clattered onto the plate. He was already standing.

  "Ezra?" Ciarra’s voice was quiet, cautious.

  But he was already moving. The cold bit through his jacket as he stepped outside, snow crunching under his boots. The sounds were muffled, like the world had been put on mute—except for the single, heart-wrenching sound of a woman screaming.

  Ezra turned the corner. And saw it. A mother. Wailing. Her hands clawing at the mangled wreck of the SUV. And inside—Jesus Christ. Ezra barely held back his bile. He staggered back. The child in the backseat… His head. The truck driver wasn’t moving. Blood painted the interior.

  No. No.

  Ezra ran back into the restaurant. His hands fumbled into his coat pocket, tearing out the ECHO device. Ciarra stood, eyes locked onto him, her face pale. Everyone was watching. The whole family. The restaurant owner. The cooks. Strangers frozen in their seats.

  But Ezra didn’t care.

  He burst back onto the street, rushing to the SUV. "MOVE!" he shouted at the mother. She barely registered him, her eyes wild with grief, but Ezra grabbed her shoulders and pulled her back.

  She fought him at first. "MY BABY—"

  "TRUST ME!" Ezra barked, eyes fierce.

  He climbed into the driver’s seat. Hands shaking. Pulse hammering. The ECHO clicked in his grip. He slammed his thumb down on the button.

  -BWOMP-

  Time snapped backward.

  The air around the SUV shimmered, reality folding in on itself. The wreckage reversed, blood retreating into wounds, shattered glass stitching itself together, steel unbending, metal groaning back into place. The SUV rolled backward, undoing the last thirty seconds of horror.

  And just as the timeline stabilized—Ezra hit the brakes. The SUV screeched to a halt, inches from where the truck whizzed past, missing them entirely. Ezra exhaled shakily. The world snapped back into motion.

  A small, confused voice piped up from the backseat. "M-Mom?"

  Ezra turned. The kid—whole. Alive.

  The mother stood outside, eyes wide, tears frozen on her cheeks. She staggered forward, hands over her mouth. Then—She collapsed to her knees, sobbing. Ezra opened the door. The woman rushed past him, yanking the door open and pulling her child into her arms. She wept into his hair, kissing his face, rocking him back and forth.

  Ezra stood there, breathless. Shaking. His stomach churned violently—and then it happened. The lunch he had just eaten violently reversed back into his stomach. Ezra barely had time to turn away before vomiting onto the pavement. Jesus Christ. That was not a fun side effect.

  The world was silent around him. He wiped his mouth, stumbling a little, blinking back the nausea. Then—movement. He turned his head. The entire restaurant was watching.

  Nonna. Seth. Julie, hands covering her mouth. Even little Adam, eyes wide with childlike wonder. The restaurant owner made the sign of the cross.

  Ezra’s legs felt weak. The mother pulled away from her son, rushing up to him, grabbing his hands. "Oh my God—Oh my God, thank you—thank you—" She hugged him before pulling back, checking her child again, unable to believe what had just happened.

  Ezra exhaled shakily. The kid was alive. And everyone saw.

  As the last remnants of the ECHO's pulse faded, Ezra’s body lurched forward, his stomach twisting into knots, the aftermath of reality bending around him like a noose tightening too fast. His knees buckled, and his hand shot out, gripping the SUV’s doorframe just in time to keep himself from hitting the pavement.

  The nausea came hard and fast, his whole body rejecting the unnatural rewind it had just endured—his lungs burned, his pulse thundered in his ears, and for one terrifying second, he thought he might black out. Then—Julie was there. A soft, steadying touch at his arm, firm but careful, grounding him as he struggled to regain his balance. "Ezra?" Her voice was hushed, but the worry was loud.

  Ezra breathed through the vertigo, blinking away the haze. He forced a smirk, shaky but present. "Okay, new rule," he muttered, swallowing thickly. "No pizza before time travel." Julie exhaled, half-laugh, half-sob, gripping his arm just a little tighter.

  After all the shock, after the restaurant’s silence stretched on for what felt like forever—Adam giggles.

  Julie, still covering her mouth, looks down at him. "Adam…?"

  The little boy points at Ezra with wide, bright eyes. "Da-da did magic!"

  Ezra, still recovering from the vomit situation, blinks.

  The whole restaurant erupts into nervous laughter.

  Seth lets out a sharp chuckle, shaking his head. "Hell, kid… you got no idea."

  Ciarra smirks from the side, arms crossed, her tail flicking in amusement. "That’s one way to put it."

  Ezra wipes his mouth with the back of his sleeve, still feeling woozy. "Great. First time travel, now I’m a damn magician?" He sways slightly before catching himself. "That’s it. I’m sittin’ down."

  Julie rushes to his side, gently steadying him. "Yes, you are."

  The tension eases. The moment shifts from overwhelming to almost… surreal. And as the restaurant staff returns to work, murmuring in hushed, reverent tones, Ezra realizes—

  His secret isn’t so secret anymore.