The red numbers above the stage continued their silent descent.
06:00
The police officers and special forces stood in formation, guns raised, fingers steady on triggers. Dominic looked at them without emotion. Then—for the first time since stepping out from behind the curtains—he smiled. It was charming. Warm. The kind of smile that once made audiences adore him. But to the armed men in front of him, it felt wrong. It felt like something smiling before a storm.
"Dear guests," Dominic began calmly, his voice carrying effortlessly through the theatre, "welcome to the final act."
His gaze swept across the officers.
"Normally, I would greet you properly. We would exchange pleasantries. Perhaps even applause." He tilted his head slightly. "But it seems tonight's guests did not arrive with cheerful intentions."
No one lowered their weapon. Dominic continued.
"The rules are simple. If you win this game, the timer above us will stop. And when it stops… what is meant to happen will not happen."
A pause.
"But if you fail to defeat me before it reaches zero…" His eyes softened slightly. "Then what is meant to happen, will happen."
A cold silence spread across the theatre.
"And I assure you," Dominic added gently, "it will not be pleasant for you."
One of the commanding officers stepped forward.
"Mr. Dominic, this is your last warning. Surrender peacefully. Look around you— forty officers are present, and reinforcements are on the way. Within minutes there will be nearly a hundred. You cannot escape."
Dominic looked directly at the man.
"I do not care."
He raised his hand.
"And for the record… the game has already started."
The timer shifted.
05:48
Murmurs broke out among the officers.
"To make this fair," Dominic said lightly, "let us even the odds."
He snapped his fingers. Outside the theatre, sirens abruptly distorted. Then—several police vehicles began flashing uncontrollably. Engines sputtered. One erupted into sparks and smoke. Another simply died. Inside, officers instinctively checked their weapons. Triggers pulled. Clicks. Nothing. Slides jammed. Internal mechanisms locked as if clogged from within.
"What did you do?!" a young officer shouted.
Dominic did not answer. The timer dropped.
05:12
"You have than five minutes now," Dominic said calmly. "I suggest you hurry."
That smile returned. And something about it made the air feel thinner. Suddenly—a female officer broke formation. With a sharp movement, she drew her tactical knife from her belt and lunged forward, closing the distance before anyone could stop her. She aimed directly for his ribs.
Dominic stepped aside—smooth, minimal movement. She passed him. His hand caught her collar from behind. A pivot. He pulled her backward while driving his knee upward into the lower section of her spine. The impact was precise. Not excessive. Just enough. A sharp cry escaped her lips as her body collapsed forward, nerves screaming in shock.
Dominic released her gently, letting her fall to her knees. He did not look down at her. Instead, he looked at the remaining officers.
The timer continued to fall.
04:39
"Who's next?" he asked softly.
Silence lasted less than a second. Then the remaining officers understood something clearly—he wasn't stalling. He intended to fight them all.
"Move!" someone shouted.
Ten officers rushed him at once. Boots thundered against the floor. They were less than three meters away—
Snap.
Every single one of them dropped. Not stumbled. Not tripped. They collapsed as if their bodies had simply decided to stop working. The other thirty-nine officers froze. No gunshots. No visible impact. Just ten trained professionals on the ground, unmoving.
Dominic dusted off his sleeve casually.
"Would you like to see a magic trick?"
He raised one finger and pointed toward an officer standing to the left. The officer stiffened—then crumpled. A second finger moved. Another officer fell. A third. A fourth. Each time he pointed, someone collapsed. No sound except bodies hitting the ground.
Panic spread like fire through dry grass. By the ninth fall, only twenty officers remained standing. Some backed away. Some crouched behind vehicles. One officer actually ducked beneath a patrol car as if hiding from a sniper. A few weaker-willed ones began trembling. One man's legs shook so violently he nearly fell on his own.
Dominic tilted his head.
"Is this trick getting boring?" he asked lightly. "Let's change it up."
He pointed at a police vehicle parked near the stage entrance. Its headlights flickered on. The engine roared. The car shot forward—straight toward Dominic. Officers shouted warnings—Snap.
The steering wheel twisted violently. The vehicle swerved away from Dominic and sped toward the officers instead. Another snap. Two more cars ignited. Then five. Then ten. Engines screamed to life like a mechanical choir.
Inside the chaos, one officer grabbed his shoulder-mounted radio microphone—clipped near his vest collar.
"Headquarters, this is Unit Seven! Target demonstrating abnormal behavior! Suspected— suspected supernatural capability! We need immediate backup!"
Static. Then a sharp voice replied:
"Confirm statement. Are you certain this is not equipment malfunction?"
"I am looking at him point at us and we're collapsing one by one! He's controlling vehicles like puppets! Send everything—tactical units, military support—anything you have!"
"Reinforcements are mobilizing. Hold position."
The officer lowered the mic slowly. That's when another officer shouted—
"Wait! If the cars are moving, then the weapons should be working!"
All heads snapped toward their weapons. They had discarded several jammed firearms earlier. Hands scrambled to retrieve them from their holsters and tactical pouches. Some weapons still malfunctioned. But not all. A few clicked back into partial operation.
"Target him!"
They raised their guns—but Dominic was already standing behind a barricade of moving vehicles. Bullets fired. Sparks flew as rounds hit reinforced doors and armored panels. Then—all headlights flared on at once. Blinding white beams filled the theatre entrance. The vehicles on the far left and right suddenly accelerated toward the officers.
That broke them. Weapons dropped. Training shattered. They ran. Boots pounded across pavement. Shouts echoed in every direction.
Then—Snap.
That sound again. A single, calm snap of fingers. Every engine roared simultaneously. All vehicles surged forward at full speed. The officers running heard the tires screech—at the last moment, each vehicle swerved with unnatural precision. Front bumpers clipped them one by one. Not crushing. Not killing. Just enough force to launch them off their feet.
Bodies tumbled across asphalt. Groans filled the air. Within seconds—only one man remained standing. The commanding officer. The same man who had warned Dominic at the beginning. The same man who had called for reinforcements.
The ground was now littered with fallen officers and smoking engines. The timer above the entrance glowed red.
03:10
The officer stared at it. Three minutes. How? How had they lost so quickly? Was it technology? Was it some classified weapon? Or—was it truly something beyond logic? He realized something else. He had no gun. No knife. No backup within sight. Nothing.
Footsteps echoed. Slow. Measured. Dominic walked toward him calmly. The officer looked into his eyes—and for the first time in his career, he felt something primal. Not fear of a criminal. Fear of something he did not understand.
Dominic stopped a few steps away. He observed the horror in the man's eyes. As if the officer were staring at a demon.
The timer continued to fall.
02:05
Dominic smiled slightly.
The courtyard smelled of burnt engines and overheated metal. Officer John lay on the ground, breath uneven, watching Dominic approach. Dominic stopped beside a folding chair. Ironically, it was the very chair John had brought earlier—when he believed this operation would be routine.
Dominic turned it around and sat. Crossed one leg over the other. Calm.
"Officer John," Dominic said gently, "it's been a while."
John's eyes tightened. They had never met. No badge displayed his name. No public record connected him directly to Dominic.
"How…?"
Dominic smiled.
"Normally, a magician never reveals his tricks." He leaned forward slightly. "But this is my final act."
Unnoticed—or so John believed—he pressed the emergency transmit switch on his collar-mounted tactical communicator. At headquarters, audio came alive. Technicians froze. The Special Forces Commander turned sharply.
"Enhance that feed. Now."
Around the world, millions were already watching. From the moment the timer appeared, every network had been hijacked. Screens. Phones. Public displays. News satellites. Even old radio frequencies carried commentary. This wasn't just a confrontation. It was a broadcast.
Dominic looked directly at John.
"Where should I begin?" He tapped his finger against the armrest thoughtfully. "Let's begin with perception."
He stood and began pacing slowly.
"When I exited the theatre, I walked calmly. Unbothered. Elegant. After defeating ten trained agents." He stopped. "What does that tell the human brain? Confidence without visible advantage suggests hidden power."
He glanced up at the timer.
01:49
"Then I introduced the countdown. A timer triggers urgency. Urgency reduces rational decision-making. I repeated the time constantly. I compressed your thinking window." He smiled faintly. "You could have shot me. But you rushed."
Dominic's voice lowered.
"Now we reach the interesting part." He crouched slightly to meet John's eyes. "A month ago, forty officers were selected. You received a 'wellness beverage' through internal distribution channels. Popular. Exclusive. Energizing. It contained a neuro-suppressant compound. Non-lethal. Designed to remain dormant. Chemically masked. Harmless under normal immune response."
He paused.
"But your immune systems were conditioned through repetition."
Every officer, over weeks, experienced small, engineered misfortunes whenever a specific snapping sound occurred nearby. A dropped call. A failed transaction. A minor injury. Nothing dramatic. But consistent.
"The brain loves patterns," Dominic said softly. "You were trained to associate the snap with negative outcomes. And when under stress, the brain amplifies pattern recognition. When you charged me, adrenaline surged. Heart rates spiked. Neural activity heightened."
He snapped his fingers once. John flinched instinctively.
"The snap triggered a stress cascade. Your conditioned response activated the immune system in the wrong direction—increasing blood-brain permeability for milliseconds. The compound traveled along neural pathways. Temporary motor collapse. Controlled shutdown."
He smiled slightly.
"You fell exactly when I predicted."
John whispered, "That's impossible…"
Dominic tilted his head.
"Placebo can heal. Nocebo can harm. Two weeks ago, your unit received forty new patrol vehicles. They were equipped with autonomous defensive AI. For three seconds, we overrode ownership authentication. The engines responded to me. But here is the real trick: The vehicles were programmed to brake automatically before impact. You ran. You believed they would hit you. Fear peaked. Stress peaked. Neural instability peaked. The moment you believed death was imminent… your bodies shut down. The cars barely touched anyone."
John remembered the impact. The sensation of being thrown. The blackout. Dominoes. Dominic stepped back.
"You were not given the full dosage," he added calmly. "I needed one witness capable of understanding."
John realized the truth. They had never been combatants. They had been components. Around the world, silence spread across screens. Some still believed it was an act. Others no longer did.
The timer blinked.
01:08
A distant thudding sound echoed above. John's eyes lifted. A helicopter. Hope flashed across his face. Reinforcements. A rope dropped. Dominic looked up.
"Ah," he said lightly. "Right on schedule."
He grabbed the rope. As he rose into the air, wind whipping his coat, he looked down at John.
"You endured the fear," Dominic said calmly. "That is why you remained conscious."
John stared upward helplessly. The helicopter ascended. The timer continued.
00:58
John reached for his communicator.
"Report— Target airborne. Repeat— target airborne!"
Static crackled. At headquarters, chaos erupted. Then—John's vision blurred. The delayed compound finally reached threshold. His body went slack. He collapsed.
Across the command center, absolute silence fell. The broadcast feed ended. The Special Forces Commander slammed his fist against the console.
"Deploy everything. I want him found."
But hesitation lingered in every room. Because one thought echoed silently: If this was only the final act… what was the real objective?