Salem's scream lingered across timelines, bouncing off invisible walls of fractured reality. The golden hand, impossibly fast, had reached for him—its fingers twisting and stretching like molten metal, glinting with light from timelines that didn't yet exist. He tried to dodge, but the void itself seemed to resist movement, tugging him toward the hand with an unseen gravity.
"Oh, you think you can run?" the voice boomed, somewhere between the Watch and the hand itself. "You've already fallen behind before you even started."
Salem skidded across a surface that shifted beneath him: clock faces spiraling, fragments of streets he'd known and never known appearing and vanishing as he moved. Every step echoed with a thousand voices—himself, yelling, crying, laughing, whispering advice he didn't understand.
The golden hand flickered, then split into three, then five, each reaching from a different angle, each representing a fractured possibility of him—of all of him. Each hand was a mirror of a decision, a skipped day, a forgotten choice. And each wanted something different.
"Choose," the voice hissed. "Choose which you are—or which you will become. Or don't. But that will be your doom."
Salem clenched his jaw. He didn't like choosing. He didn't like limits. But he had no other option.
He lunged forward, grabbing one of the hands. Its surface was impossibly smooth and alive, pulsing with energy. The instant his fingers touched it, the void collapsed around him. Numbers, faces, landscapes, and voices collided into a single overwhelming storm. He saw his childhood home, burned in flashes of reality; he saw the street where the July revolution had first sparked the chaos that began it all; he saw empty classrooms, children he barely remembered, and versions of himself who hadn't survived.
"Terrifying, isn't it?" whispered the Watch. It floated beside him, gears spinning wildly, the bell chime pulsing with a maddening rhythm. "All of this… your life, your choices, your mistakes. Now… magnified."
Salem's vision doubled. He saw multiple versions of himself standing in the storm: one confident, one scared, one broken, one laughing, one crying. They all reached for the golden hands, each trying to take control, each trying to survive.
He realized, in a jolt, that this was more than a test. It was a battlefield—between his own selves.
"You don't know which hand will guide you… and which will betray you," the voice continued. "All I know is you won't survive if you hesitate."
Salem's breathing quickened. He grabbed one of the hands again, forcing himself to focus. Sparks shot through him—pain, memory, laughter, guilt, love, rage—blending into an overwhelming swirl. His consciousness fractured. And then, painfully, he felt it: a single, coherent thought among the chaos.
Follow the laughter.
It was faint, almost inaudible. But it felt familiar. He turned toward a flicker of light in the storm—a carousel horse, skeletal yet smiling, spinning in impossible time. Its hollow eyes glimmered with a hint of amusement.
"Trust it," whispered one of the fractured Salems, the one that seemed calm, almost serene. "It knows more than the hand… more than anyone."
Salem willed himself to run, plunging toward the carousel. The golden hands recoiled slightly, as if surprised by his choice. But they didn't stop. They stretched, twisted, reaching further, trying to drag him back into the storm.
The carousel spun faster, faster than it should have been possible. Horses leapt into the air, forming arcs that became bridges over fractured timelines. Every leap carried glimpses of what could have been: his missed birthdays, his first heartbreak, skipped days where he'd forgotten faces, moments where the world had almost ended.
"Impressive," the Watch said, floating closer, gears spinning with manic energy. "But… don't get cocky. Every choice has a cost, Salem."
Salem ignored it. He didn't have time to think about costs. The skeletal horses were his path, the only path, and he had to keep moving. He leapt from one horse to another, each time narrowly avoiding the golden hands, which now clawed and stretched with increasing desperation.
Then he saw it. A Ferris wheel rising in the distance—fractured, enormous, glowing with fractured time energy. And in one of its carriages: a version of himself, older, eyes full of knowledge he didn't yet have, holding a small, glowing orb. The orb pulsed with every heartbeat, every skip, every memory ever erased or forgotten.
"That's… me?" Salem whispered.
"Maybe. Or maybe it's what you could become… or fail to become."
The golden hands surged, faster, more insistent. The storm of numbers, echoes, and shadows pressed in from all sides. Salem's stomach twisted, panic rising—but he had a choice now: reach the Ferris wheel, or be consumed by the fractal storm.
He ran. Every step shattered a piece of the fractured ground beneath him, leaving trails of glittering time in his wake. The skeletal horses' eyes blinked in sync, guiding him, urging him forward.
As he leapt onto the Ferris wheel carriage, the golden hands lunged one last time. They wrapped around him, tugging, spinning, stretching reality itself.
And then—silence.
Salem's chest heaved. The storm was gone. The skeletal horses, the carnival, the fractal sky—all gone. He stood on the Ferris wheel, higher than he had ever been, overlooking a city that looked… normal. For a moment, nothing fractured. Nothing glitched.
"Too quiet," whispered the Watch. Its gears spun slowly now, like it was savoring the moment. "Enjoy it. You won't get it again."
Salem exhaled slowly, trying to collect his thoughts. But he couldn't shake the feeling that something was watching him, waiting, calculating. The Ferris wheel creaked, swaying ever so slightly. And then he saw movement in the shadows below: dozens of golden hands, identical to the one that had chased him, climbing up toward him.
"Oh no," Salem muttered. "Not again."
The Watch chuckled softly. "Ah… but this is just the beginning, Salem. You think you've survived the storm? That you've beaten the hands? Time itself is not done with you. And neither… am I."
Salem's fingers curled around the edge of the Ferris wheel carriage. The shadows grew taller, longer, stretching impossibly. The hands reached out with malicious intent, each one a fractured version of himself—or perhaps something darker.
"Make your next choice carefully," the voice whispered, now chillingly calm. "Because… you won't get a third chance."
Salem's heart thumped wildly. His mind raced. And then, without warning, the Ferris wheel lurched violently, tipping backward. Gravity twisted. Time splintered again. The city below melted, shifting into an endless void, filled with echoes of screams, laughter, and forgotten memories.
"No…" Salem groaned.
The golden hands were closer than ever. One of them touched him, and his vision exploded into blinding light. He felt himself being pulled apart, stretched across timelines, each thread of existence fraying.
And then—
Cliffhanger:
Salem Grey fell into the void, screaming, as the golden hands closed around him. And in that fractured, timeless space, a single, omnipotent thought echoed:
"This timeline… is no longer yours."