His stomach hadn't finished inverting when Sable realized: one minute wasn't enough.
Reality snapped back—colors bleeding from white to black, sound reversing into silence, his organs twisting like wrung fabric—and he was behind the dumpster again. Ellaya pressed against his side. Second clutched in her trembling hands.
The Knight's footsteps echoed from twenty meters away.
*Thud.*
*Scrape.*
*Thud.*
Sable's blue eye tracked the platform automatically. Calculated angles. Measured distances. His brown eye just saw the bodies.
Fourteen dead. No—fifteen. The woman behind the support beam had just collapsed, throat opened in a perfect horizontal line.
One minute of rewind. Fifteen corpses back. Still dying. Still trapped.
*This is unwinnable.*
The thought came cold. Clinical. His medical training cataloging facts: limited mobility, single exit point, opponent with superior speed and sensory capabilities. No leverage. No advantage. No—
Ellaya's hand squeezed his. Small fingers. Shaking.
He looked down at her. Brown eyes wide. Terrified. Trusting him to fix this.
*Fuck.*
Sable's mind shifted gears. If he couldn't win, he could delay. Distract. Buy time.
"Listen," he whispered, barely audible. "When I move, you run. Opposite direction. Fast as you—"
Warmth flooded his chest.
Not warmth. *Wet.*
He looked down.
His torso was opened from sternum to hip. Not cut. *Separated.* Like someone had unzipped him with surgical precision. Blood poured over his hands—too much blood, arterial spray painting Ellaya's face—and his organs were visible, glistening wet in the green light.
*How—*
His blue eye tracked left. Found the Knight. Still twenty meters away. Hadn't moved.
*Impossible. The distance is wrong. The timing is—*
Beside him, Ellaya's scream cut off mid-breath.
Her body separated at the waist. Top half sliding sideways. Bottom half collapsing.
Second was gone. Just feathers drifting in air that smelled like copper.
Sable tried to speak. Blood filled his mouth. His vision greyed at the edges, narrowing to a pinpoint of green light and the sound of his own heart failing.
*Even whispering—*
*It heard—*
Regret flooded through him. Sharp. Immediate.
*Fuck fuck FUCK—*
**[T I M E S H I F T]**
-----
Behind the dumpster. Again.
Ellaya looking up at him. Confused why he'd suddenly gone rigid.
Second chirping softly in her hands.
Sable's hands moved on instinct—one covering his mouth, the other pressed to Ellaya's lips. Firm. Urgent.
Her eyes widened.
He shook his head slowly. Brought one finger to his lips.
*Silence.*
*Absolute silence.*
Ellaya nodded. Small. Terrified. Understanding.
The Knight's footsteps continued their methodical pattern.
*Thud. Scrape.*
Sixteen dead now. A man behind a pillar clutching his intestines, trying to push them back inside. Failing.
*Thud. Scrape.*
Seventeen. A woman's head rolled past their hiding spot, eyes still blinking.
Sable's mind raced. No talking. No sound. The Knight's hearing was beyond human—could track whispers from twenty meters away.
But it was still *hunting*. Still searching. Which meant it didn't have perfect sensory awareness.
Yet.
His blue eye cataloged the platform. Three industrial lamps spaced evenly—east, center, west. The eastern one closest to the stairs. He'd mapped this hours ago when Nash was still alive.
*If that goes out, half the platform goes dark.*
His stolen Grace hummed beneath his consciousness. Enhanced Night Sight. He could see perfectly in darkness.
Could the Knight?
Ellaya was shaking. Full-body tremors. Her hands squeezed Second so tight the bird made a small, pained sound—
The Knight stopped.
Thirty meters away. Helmet turning. Scanning.
Sable's heart hammered against his ribs. Too loud. Too fast. Could it hear that? Could it—
The Knight pivoted. Walked toward a collapsed support beam.
Found a teenager hiding underneath. The boy was silent. Perfectly still.
The Knight stood over him for three seconds.
Then the sword came down.
Vertical. Through the skull. So precise the boy's eyes stayed open, confused, still processing that he was dead.
The Knight moved on.
*It can't see through objects. Has to search manually.*
Hope flickered. Died. Because manual searching meant time, and time meant eventually reaching their corner.
Sable looked at Ellaya. At the way her shoulders shook. At the tears streaming down her face that she was desperately trying to silence.
She'd seen everything through the gap beneath the dumpster. Watched twenty people die. Watched the methodical efficiency of execution.
She was seven years old.
*No.*
*No, fuck this.*
Sable gestured. Quick. Precise. The kind of hand signals you used when sound meant death.
*When I move—you run. Stairs. Don't stop. Don't look back.*
Ellaya shook her head frantically. Mouthing: *No. No.*
*Yes.*
He pointed at Second. At the stairs. At her.
*Live.*
Before she could protest, before he could second-guess, Sable moved.
Grabbed the fist-sized rock he'd been gripping since the first loop. Stepped out from behind the dumpster.
Drew his arm back.
The Knight's helmet snapped toward him.
Too fast. Impossibly fast.
Sable threw anyway—not at the Knight, at the pillar fifteen meters to the right. Where a mother clutched her child, both sobbing silently into each other's shoulders.
The rock cracked against concrete.
The sound was a gunshot in the silence.
The Knight moved.
There was no wind-up. No telegraph. One moment: standing thirty meters away.
Next moment: the mother's head was separating from her shoulders, the child's chest was caving inward, and the Knight was already turning back toward—
Sable was running.
Away from Ellaya. Away from the stairs. Drawing the Knight's attention.
"Come on!" he screamed. "You stupid piece of—"
The world tilted.
His legs were still running. Muscle memory. Momentum carrying him forward three more steps.
But his head was falling.
Backwards. Tumbling through air. Vision spinning—green light, concrete, blood spraying in an arc from his neck stump—
His head hit the ground. Bounced once. Rolled.
Came to rest facing the dumpster.
Ellaya was visible through the gap. Standing now. Frozen. Mouth open in a silent scream.
Then her head landed beside his.
Different expressions. Same death.
Hers: despair. Absolute. Final. The look of someone who'd just realized the adult she'd trusted couldn't save her.
His: teeth gritted. Jaw clenched. Eyes burning with rage so absolute it felt like his skull might crack from pressure.
*Is this the price?*
*Dying over and over like a pathetic rat?*
*If it is—*
*I'll gladly fucking take it.*
Regret flooded. Not for dying. For failing. For the look on Ellaya's face as her head fell.
**[T I M E S H I F T]**
-----
**Loop 3.**
This time Sable didn't signal. Didn't warn.
Just moved.
Rock in hand. Arm cocked. But instead of throwing at the pillar with the mother and child, he hurled it left—toward the cluster of survivors near the western wall.
The rock sailed through air. Clattered against metal. Loud.
The Knight pivoted.
Sable bolted right.
Made it six steps before his torso separated at the waist. Top half hitting the ground. Bottom half taking two more steps before collapsing.
His blue eye tracked upward as he died. Saw the Knight's sword returning to rest position.
Saw something else.
A *flicker*. Barely visible. Like a heat shimmer in the air—
The trajectory line of the blade's path. Faint. Translucent. But *there*.
Text burned across his failing vision:
**[RETROGRADE PASSIVE EFFECT UNLOCKED]**
**[TIME PRINT]**
**[You can see the trajectory of kinetic energy once you have witnessed it in a previous rewind]**
**[Limitation: Only applies to observed phenomena]**
His consciousness sputtered. Flickered.
*This—*
*This might be—*
**[T I M E S H I F T]**
-----
**Loop 4.**
Sable stood behind the dumpster, hands shaking, staring at the platform.
And saw them.
Trajectory lines. Dozens. Overlapping. Translucent streaks of motion mapping every kill he'd witnessed. The precise angle of the blade through the mother's neck. The arc through the teenager's skull. The horizontal sweep that had bisected him.
His blue eye cataloged them automatically. His brown eye just felt sick.
*I can see where it attacks.*
*But my body can't move fast enough to dodge.*
He looked down at his hands. At the tremor that wouldn't stop. At the ordinary human limits of muscle and nerve.
*Enhanced Night Sight. Truth Detection. Five-minute breath hold.*
*All passive. All incremental.*
*Nothing combat-capable.*
The Knight killed three more people.
Sable watched the trajectory lines appear. Perfect. Precise. Useless.
*Think.*
*There has to be—*
Ellaya tugged his sleeve. Gestured at the Knight. Then at him. Questioning.
*What do we do?*
Sable looked at her. At Second pressed against her chest. At the stairs twenty meters away that might as well have been on the moon.
*We can't fight it.*
*Can't outrun it.*
*Can't—*
Wait.
His blue eye tracked the platform again. Noticed something.
The Knight was methodical. Searched left to right. Pillar to pillar. Object to object.
But when something made *sound*—when the child behind the pillar had cried—the Knight went directly there.
*Sound-tracking overrides visual search pattern.*
*Which means if we stay absolutely silent…*
Sable gestured to Ellaya. Pressed his finger to his lips. Pointed at the ground.
*Stay. Don't move. Don't breathe.*
She nodded. Clutched Second tighter.
They waited.
The Knight continued its sweep. Twenty dead. Twenty-five. Thirty.
Got closer. Ten meters. Five.
Sable pressed Ellaya against the wall. Covered her mouth with one hand. His other hand clamped over his own.
*Don't breathe don't breathe don't—*
The Knight walked past the dumpster.
Three meters away.
Two.
The wet *scrape* of metal on stone was deafening. The smell of blood so thick Sable could taste copper on his tongue.
The Knight stopped.
Right beside their hiding spot.
Helmet turning. Scanning.
Sable's lungs burned. Ellaya's eyes were going glassy. Second wasn't moving at all.
*Five seconds.*
*Four.*
*Three.*
The Knight's helmet tilted. Toward the dumpster.
*Two.*
*One.*
Then: a sound. Distant. A piece of rubble shifting in the maintenance tunnel.
The Knight turned. Walked toward it.
Away from them.
Sable let Ellaya breathe. She gasped—too loud—but the Knight was already fifteen meters away.
Thirty-three dead now. Maybe more.
The Knight stood still. Perfect silence.
Then started walking again.
Directly toward the dumpster.
*No.*
*No, it's coming back—*
*Did it hear Ellaya's gasp?*
*Fuck, we're—*
Second moved.
Not a flutter. Not a shift.
The bird *launched* from Ellaya's hands. Burst upward. Wings beating frantically.
Sable lunged. Fingers closing on empty air. "No—"
The whisper was too loud.
But the Knight wasn't looking at him.
It was tracking Second. Helmet tilted upward. Following the robin's erratic flight path.
The bird flew directly toward the Knight. Suicidal. Desperate.
*Protecting us.*
The Knight raised its sword.
Sable saw the trajectory line form. Perfect arc. Intersecting with Second's flight path in 0.4 seconds.
His hand moved without thinking. Grabbed the rock. *Threw*.
Not at the Knight. At the eastern lamp. The industrial fixture hanging from chains thirty meters away.
The rock sailed through air. Hit metal.
Sparks. Shattering glass.
The eastern lamp exploded. Plunged half the platform into darkness.
**[Enhanced Night Sight: ACTIVE]**
The world shifted. Colors inverted. The darkness resolved into perfect clarity—every detail sharp, every shadow transparent.
Sable could see everything.
The Knight went very still.
Helmet sweeping. Searching. Blind.
*It can't see in the dark.*
Sable grabbed Ellaya. Lifted her. Started moving.
Toward the stairs.
*One step.*
His boot hit concrete. The sound echoed. Loud. Too loud.
The Knight's helmet snapped toward them.
*Two steps.*
*Three.*
The Knight moved.
Trajectory line appeared. Horizontal. Knee-level.
Sable's legs separated below the knee. Both of them. Clean cuts.
He fell forward. Ellaya tumbling from his grip. His stumps hit concrete. Blood sprayed. Arterial. Pulsing.
Ellaya scrambled toward the stairs. Made it five meters.
The Knight was already there.
Waiting.
The sword came down.
Sable watched from the ground. Watched Ellaya's body collapse in sections. Watched her eyes go dark.
Regret—
**[T I M E S H I F T]**
-----
**Loop 8.**
Behind the dumpster.
Second about to launch.
Sable's hands moved. Not toward the bird. Toward his boots.
Fingers shaking. Fumbling with laces. Ellaya watching him with wide, confused eyes.
*What are you doing?*
No time to explain. No time to gesture.
Left boot off. Right boot off. Both dropped silently to the side.
Socks too. Bare feet on cold concrete.
Second launched.
Sable threw the rock. Hit the lamp. Darkness fell.
**[Enhanced Night Sight: ACTIVE]**
He grabbed Ellaya. Lifted her. Moved.
Barefoot. Silent.
*One step. Two. Three.*
No sound. Just the whisper of skin on stone.
The Knight's helmet was still sweeping. Searching. Blind in the darkness.
*Four steps. Five. Six.*
They reached the stairs.
Sable looked back.
Second was still in the air. Still flying. But something was *wrong*.
The bird's movements were too fast. Too precise. Wings beating at impossible speed.
And its eyes—
Sable saw them in the darkness. Saw the way they *glowed*. Faint crimson. Getting brighter.
*What—*
The Knight swung.
Blind. Frustrated. The blade carved through empty air where Second had been half a second ago.
The bird dove. Weaved. Climbed. Moving like liquid. Like physics was optional.
"What's up with this fucking bird—"
The voice shattered the silence.
Young. Female. Upper City accent. Education and privilege and boredom wrapped in aristocratic consonants.
Not a soldier's growl. An executive's complaint.
The Knight swung again. Harder. Faster. The displacement of air strong enough to push Sable backward even from ten meters away.
He stumbled. Caught himself.
Looked at the stairs. At Ellaya standing beside him, safe.
Looked at Second. Still flying. Still dodging. Still *wrong*.
*I could leave.*
*Right now.*
*Take Ellaya and run.*
*Second bought us the escape.*
*That's enough.*
*That's—*
The thought died before it finished forming.
Because Sable could see Second's trajectory. Could see the way the bird's flight pattern was degrading. Wings faltering. Speed decreasing.
*Running out of time.*
And if Second fell—
If the thing that had followed him for three weeks, that had chirped for food, that had nested in his pocket, that had *chosen* him—
If that thing died while Sable ran—
*No.*
*Not again.*
"Stay here," Sable whispered to Ellaya. Set her down at the base of the stairs. "Don't move. Don't make sound."
Her eyes widened. She shook her head frantically.
"I'll be right back."
He ran.
Not toward the stairs. Toward the supplies.
Nash's team had stacked them against the far wall—rations, medical kits, maintenance equipment. Sable's blue eye had cataloged everything hours ago.
*Eastern wall. Third pile. Red canister.*
He found it. Gasoline. Industrial. Five liters.
Grabbed it. Grabbed the fire starter beside it.
Turned back toward the Knight.
Second was still flying. But slower now. Wings faltering. The impossible speed fading.
*Move.*
Sable ran. Bare feet silent on concrete. Twenty meters. Fifteen. Ten.
The Knight was swinging wildly. Blade carving arcs through darkness. Each swing producing a sound like thunder.
Sable got close. Five meters. Close enough to smell the blood on the armor. Close enough to see the perfect, unmarred surface.
He twisted the gasoline cap. Started pouring.
The liquid splashed across blue-black plate. Ran down the Knight's back. Soaked into the gaps between armor segments.
"Wha—what the fuck is—"
The Knight spun.
Sable saw the trajectory line form. Horizontal. Chest-level.
He dropped. Hit the ground. Rolled left.
The blade whistled overhead. Missed by centimeters.
Sable kept moving. Circled behind. Poured more gasoline. Emptied the canister.
The Knight was drenched. Dripping. The smell overwhelming.
Sable pulled the fire starter. Flicked it.
*Click.*
Nothing.
*Click.*
Nothing.
"*Fuck*—"
The Knight's blade came down. Vertical. Fast.
Sable threw himself sideways. The sword buried itself in concrete where his skull had been.
He scrambled backward. Flicked the starter again.
*Click.*
Spark. Small. Weak.
But enough.
The gasoline *ignited*.
Not a fireball. Just a low *whump* of expanding flame. Blue-orange. Spreading across the Knight's armor in sheets.
But Sable was too close.
The fire spread. Touched his hand. The one still gripping the starter.
His fingers lit. Then his wrist. Then his forearm.
The pain was—
There were no words.
His medical training tried to catalog it: *third-degree burns, nerve damage, subcutaneous tissue cooking*—
But his mouth was already open. Already screaming.
"*Ahhh*—*FUCK*—*AHHHH*—"
The fire climbed his arm. Elbow. Shoulder. Spreading faster than he could think.
Sable fell backward. Rolled. Tried to smother the flames against concrete.
It didn't work.
The fire kept climbing.
Through the pain—through the white-hot agony eating through his right arm—he looked up.
The Knight was staggering. Swinging wildly. Trying to put out flames that clung like liquid.
"*Ahh*—hot—hot—*fuck*—"
The voice lost its bored edge. Went sharp. Pained. Human.
Sable crawled backward. His right arm useless. The flame was almost distinguished. The smell of cooking flesh mixing with gasoline and blood.
The Knight recovered. Flames still consuming. Turned toward him.
Raised the sword.
Trajectory line appeared.
Horizontal. Neck-level. Coming fast.
His body couldn't dodge. Too slow. Too broken.
The blade was already moving—
Second hit the Knight's hand.
Not a peck. Not a scratch.
*Hit.*
Like a thrown brick. Like a sledgehammer. The impact produced a sound—*crack*—that echoed through the station.
The Knight's hand jerked. The blade's trajectory shifted. Missed Sable's throat entirely.
The Knight stumbled backward. Flames still consuming. Stared at Second.
The bird hovered in the air. Wings beating. But wrong. So wrong.
Sable watched through tears of pain.
Watched Second's body *convulsing*. Spasming. Like every bone was breaking and reforming simultaneously.
The sound was wet. Organic. Crackling like green wood in fire.
*Snap.*
Second's wings *expanded*. Joints breaking. Growing. Feathers darkening from grey to black. Lengthening into something between feather and blade.
*Crack.*
The bird's chest swelled. Ribs fracturing audibly. Body doubling in size. Then tripling.
*Crunch.*
Its beak stretched. Curved. Became hooked. Serrated. The kind of weapon designed to tear flesh from bone.
The talons elongated. Thickened. Turned black as obsidian. Each claw as long as Sable's fingers. Sharp enough to catch light even in darkness.
And the eyes.
The small black eyes that had watched Sable with curiosity and affection for three weeks—
They *burst*.
Crimson light poured from the sockets. Not blood. *Light*. Glowing. Burning. The red of arterial spray and molten iron.
Second's skull cracked. Reformed. Grew a crown of bone spurs that curved backward like a predator's crown.
The bird was the size of a dog now. Then a wolf.
Still growing.
Wings spread wide—three meters, four, five—and the air around them *bent*. Distorted. Like reality was flinching away.
The Knight stopped moving.
Stared at the thing that had been a robin.
"What the *fuck*—"
Second's beak opened.
The sound that came out wasn't a chirp.
It was a *shriek*. Primal. Ancient. The sound predators made when they remembered what they were before humanity taught them to fear.
The flames on the Knight's armor flickered. Died. Not from water. From the *sound*.
Second dove.
Not flying. *Falling*. Like gravity had reversed. Like the bird weighed a thousand pounds compressed into a shape that shouldn't exist.
The Knight raised the sword—
Second hit like a meteor.
Talons first. Drove into the Knight's breastplate. The armor that had survived thirty kills without a scratch—
*Crumpled*.
The metal *bent*. Tore. Peeled away like wet paper.
The Knight flew backward. Hit a support pillar. The concrete cracked. Spiderwebbed.
Second didn't stop.
Landed on the Knight's chest. Beak open. Crimson eyes blazing.
And *fed*.
Sable watched.
Couldn't look away.
Couldn't breathe.
The thing that had been Second—that had followed him for three weeks, that had chirped for food, that had nested in his pocket—
Was *mauling* the Knight.
Beak tearing. Talons rending. Wings beating with enough force to crack stone.
The Knight was screaming now. Not bored. Not professional.
*Terrified*.
Human.
Dying.
Sable sat there. Right arm still burning. Vision swimming.
Ellaya appeared beside him. Small hands pulling at his coat. Trying to get him to move.
He couldn't.
Just watched Second tear into armor and flesh with equal efficiency.
Watched the Knight's struggles grow weaker.
Watched crimson light pour from Second's eyes like judgment made manifest.
And thought:
*What the fuck are you?*
The question hung in the air.
Unanswered.
As the thing that had been a robin fed.
And fed.
And *fed*.
-----