The smell of coffee usually signaled the start of the loop. It was the olfactory anchor—roasted beans, hazelnut, the promise of a clean slate.
But this morning, the coffee smell was overpowered by something sharper. Ozone.
It smelled like a thunderstorm trapped inside a sealed room. It smelled like the air after a lightning strike.
Maya stood by the shattered remains of the ceramic mugs, hot liquid soaking into her socks. She didn't move. She couldn't take her eyes off the bed.
Elena—the Elena from the future, the Elena who had died screaming in a timeline that no longer existed—lay tangled in the Egyptian cotton sheets. Her skin was a terrifying shade of greyscale, devoid of all color, as if she were a black-and-white photograph pasted into a technicolor world.
"Fascinating," Julian whispered.
He wasn't horrified. He wasn't panicked. He was leaning over the corpse, his face inches from the dead woman's open, glazed eyes. He looked like a child who had found a new species of beetle.
"She's not just dead," Julian murmured, reaching out to touch the silver sequins of her dress. "She's... static."
"Don't touch her!" Maya yelled, finding her voice.
Julian ignored her. His finger brushed the fabric.
CRACK.
A spark of violet electricity arced from the corpse to Julian's fingertip. It was loud, like a whip cracking. Julian jerked his hand back, hissing. He looked at his finger. The tip was burnt, the skin blistered instantly.
"Entropic rejection," Julian said, staring at his injury with a twisted grin. " The universe recognizes her as foreign code. It's trying to delete her."
He turned to Maya. The playful, charming mask was gone. In its place was the raw, unpolished intensity of the scientist—the madness that had built the machine in the first place.
"You did this," he said. It wasn't an accusation; it was a statement of fact. "How?"
Maya wrapped her arms around herself. She was shivering uncontrollably. "I held on. I just... I wanted to save her. I didn't want her to be erased."
"You acted as a tether," Julian theorized, pacing the room, stepping heedlessly over the spilled coffee. "The device creates a localized Einstein-Rosen bridge. Usually, only the consciousness of the Observer—me—travels back to the anchor point. But you... you've been retaining memory. Your neural pathways are already irradiated with chronon particles. When you grabbed her, you extended your field."
He stopped pacing and looked at the body again.
"You didn't save her, Maya. You just dragged her wreckage onto the shore."
"She's dead," Maya whispered, tears pricking her eyes. "I failed."
"Worse," Julian corrected. "She's a duplicate. The real Elena—the one indigenous to this timeline—is waking up in her own apartment right now. She's drinking her matcha tea. She's checking her stocks."
He looked at the corpse.
"Two identical sets of matter cannot occupy the same temporal coordinates. It's a violation of the Pauli Exclusion Principle on a macro scale."
As if to emphasize his point, the room flickered.
It wasn't a hallucination this time. The physical reality of the penthouse stuttered. The walls turned transparent for a millisecond, revealing the steel girders underneath, then snapped back to white plaster. The sound of the city outside looped—a car horn honking three times in rapid, glitchy succession.
"The Fishbowl is cracking," Julian said, looking at the ceiling. "We have to get rid of it."
"Her," Maya corrected, stepping forward. Rage flared in her chest, hot enough to burn away the fear. "Her name is Elena. She isn't an 'it'."
"She is a biological hazard," Julian snapped. "And if we don't dispose of this mass before the timeline tries to correct itself, this entire building could implode."
He walked to the closet and pulled out a large, heavy-duty garment bag. He threw it onto the bed.
"Help me."
"No," Maya said.
Julian looked at her. He didn't raise his voice. He didn't threaten her with the knife. He simply pointed to the window, where the sky was beginning to turn a sickly, bruised purple color—a color that definitely did not belong in a Seattle morning.
"Maya, look outside. The paradox is bleeding into the environment. If the wave collapse expands, it won't just be us. It will be the whole block. Do you want to be responsible for thousands of deaths, or just the one you already caused?"
Maya looked at the purple sky. She looked at the glitching walls.
He was right. She had broken the rules, and now the game was crashing.
"Fine," she spat.
She walked to the bed.
Getting the body into the bag was a nightmare of physics and horror.
The corpse was impossibly heavy. It felt dense, like it was made of lead. Every time Maya touched Elena's skin, she felt a low-level vibration, a humming that rattled her teeth.
"Grab the legs," Julian commanded.
Maya grabbed Elena's ankles. The silver heels were still on. Maya slipped them off, her hands shaking. She couldn't stand the sight of the shoes. They were too human.
They lifted. The air crackled with static. The smell of ozone intensified, making Maya gag.
"On three," Julian grunted. "One, two, three."
They heaved the body into the black bag. Julian zipped it up with a finality that made Maya's stomach turn. The sound of the zipper was like a scream cut short.
"Where are we taking her?" Maya asked, wiping her hands on her t-shirt, trying to get the feeling of the static off her skin.
"The incinerator in the basement is for trash," Julian said, wiping sweat from his brow. "It won't get hot enough to destroy discordant matter. We need acid. Or a very deep hole."
"We can't just walk out of the lobby with a body bag, Julian! Elias is at the desk!"
Julian checked his watch—not the violet time machine, but his actual Rolex. "Elias takes a smoke break at 7:15. We have three minutes to get to the service elevator."
"You know his schedule that well?"
"I know everyone's schedule, Maya. I've lived this Tuesday enough times to know exactly when Elias lights his cigarette, exactly when the mailman trips on the curb, and exactly when the pigeon hits the window on the 14th floor."
Thump.
Right on cue, a dull thud echoed from the floor below.
Julian offered a tight, terrifying smile. "Shall we?"
The service elevator smelled of industrial cleaner and grease. The black bag lay on the floor between them.
Maya stood as far away from Julian as possible, pressed into the corner. The numbers on the display ticked down. 20... 19... 18...
"Why didn't you just reset?" Maya asked softly.
The question hung in the air.
Julian looked at the bag, then at Maya. For the first time, he looked unsure.
"I tried," he admitted.
Maya's blood ran cold. "What?"
"When you screamed. When the mugs broke. My first instinct was to hit the button. To wipe the error."
He held up his left wrist. The violet face of the Chronos device was dark. Inert.
"It's locked," Julian said. "The paradox has jammed the signal. We can't go back, Maya. We're stuck in Loop 146 until the timeline stabilizes."
Maya stared at the dead device.
She had done it. She had disabled the reset.
But the victory felt hollow. They were trapped. If she died today, she stayed dead. If Julian killed her today, there was no waking up.
"So," Maya said, her voice trembling. "This is it? The final loop?"
"Only if we survive the correction," Julian said.
The elevator shuddered. The lights flickered and died, plunging them into pitch blackness.
"Julian?" Maya gasped.
"Just a power surge," Julian's voice came from the dark. "The localized reality is struggling to render the elevator."
In the darkness, the bag on the floor began to glow.
It wasn't a bright light. It was a faint, ghostly luminescence radiating through the black plastic. And with the glow came a sound.
Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.
Maya stopped breathing.
"Is that..."
"A phone," Julian said.
It was coming from inside the bag. Elena's clutch purse. She had been holding it when Maya tackled her.
Buzz. Buzz.
The elevator lights flickered back on, blindingly bright.
Julian dropped to his knees. He unzipped the bag just enough to reach his hand in. The ozone smell billowed out. He rummaged around the cold, stiff limbs and pulled out a sleek silver smartphone.
The screen was cracked, but it was lit up.
"Who is calling?" Maya whispered. She felt like she was going to throw up.
Julian stared at the screen. His face went completely slack. He turned the phone so Maya could see the Caller ID.
The name on the screen was Elena Vance.
The living Elena was calling the dead Elena.
"The network," Julian whispered, his mind racing. "The duplicate phone is still connected to the cellular grid. The living Elena... she must be trying to find her phone. She thinks she lost it."
Julian's thumb hovered over the green 'Answer' button.
"Don't," Maya warned. "Julian, do not answer that."
"Curiosity," Julian murmured, his eyes wide and manic, "is the engine of progress."
He swiped right. He put the phone to his ear.
Maya pressed herself against the metal wall, horror clutching her heart.
"Hello?" Julian said. His voice was calm, smooth. The voice of the charming billionaire.
Maya could hear the tinny voice on the other end. It was Elena. Sharp, annoyed, alive.
"Who is this?" Elena's voice demanded. "Why do you have my phone? I'm tracking it right now."
Julian smiled. "Hello, Elena. You didn't lose your phone. You just... misplaced it in time."
"What? Who is this? Julian? Is that you?"
"It is."
"Julian Vane? Why do you have my spare phone? I'm looking at my main phone right now, but my 'Find My Device' says my work phone is... with you?"
"We need to talk, Elena," Julian said. "In person."
"I'm at my office. Bring it to me immediately or I'm calling security. You were weird at the gala last week, but theft is—"
"I'm coming to you," Julian interrupted. "And I'm bringing a friend."
He hung up.
He looked at Maya.
"Change of plans," he said. "We aren't incinerating the body."
"What are we doing?" Maya asked, eyeing the glowing bag.
"We're taking it to her," Julian said, standing up and pressing the button for the garage level. "I want to see what happens when the two variables meet."
"You're insane," Maya breathed. "The universe is already breaking! If you bring them together..."
"Then we get to see the fireworks," Julian said.
The elevator doors opened onto the parking garage. The air was cold and damp.
Julian dragged the body bag out. He looked back at Maya, extending a hand.
"Coming, my love? Or do you want to stay here and wait for the walls to dissolve?"
Maya looked at the dark elevator. She looked at the glitching, purple-hued world outside.
She realized then that the "safe" apartment was gone. The loop was broken. The only way out was through the madness.
She stepped out of the elevator.
"I'm driving," she said.
Julian threw his head back and laughed—a harsh, barking sound that echoed off the concrete walls.
"That's the spirit, Maya. Loop 146 is shaping up to be my favorite one yet."