The chronometer clicked. 8:43 AM. A third Tuesday was trying to shoulder its way into existence.
She placed the crystalline splinter into a containment field. The field hissed. The splinter pulsed. And for a single, sickening second, the morgue didn’t smell like formaldehyde and bleach. It smelled of rain on hot asphalt and the electric tang of a lightning strike that hadn’t happened yet. She saw herself, reflected in the shard’s impossible surface, but older. Harder. Standing in a field of white flowers under a purple sky. Fringe
“What did you see?” Marcus asked, his voice sharp. He knew the signs. The chronometer clicked