Salem woke to silence. Not peace—silence.
The kind that presses against your skull, that makes you realize something fundamental is missing.
He opened his eyes. He was lying in the middle of a street. The asphalt beneath him was cracked, the paint on the crosswalk smeared like someone had dragged time itself across it.
The city was recognizable—his city—but… wrong.
The sky hung low, smudged with gray, as if clouds had been erased and redrawn too many times. Windows of buildings were boarded up. Shops had faded "CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE" signs taped crookedly, some overlapping with themselves in layers, repeating the same words like broken memory.
And the people…
They stood frozen. Entire crowds. Mid-step. Mid-conversation. A child reaching for a balloon. A couple about to argue. A man adjusting his mask.
Every single one of them wore a mask.
Salem pushed himself up, heart hammering. "No… no, no, no. Not this. Not again."
The Watch ticked softly on his wrist. "Oh, but yes. Welcome to Lockdown City. Half-COVID, half-Skip. All nightmare."
Salem turned slowly, panic rising. "This—this can't be real. This is just… memory. I lived this. Everyone did."
The Watch chuckled. "Correction: everyone forgot this. That's why it's stuck here. Between skipped days and pandemic days, whole stretches of reality just… slipped."
Salem's hands shook. He remembered the headlines, the sirens, the empty shelves, the endless fear. But now it was worse—because here, time itself had gotten involved.
He walked past a frozen café. Cups hung mid-fall, coffee trapped mid-splash, suspended like amber.
He whispered, "This place… it's suffocating."
"Exactly," the Watch replied. "The city forgot to breathe."
As if to prove its point, Salem noticed the masks again. Not just masks. The people behind them… weren't breathing. Chests locked. Air unmoving. Their eyes were wide, staring, but not alive.
Salem staggered back. "Are they… dead?"
The Watch ticked. "Define dead."
Salem growled. "Don't start with me right now."
A faint sound echoed. Not footsteps. Not wind. A cough.
Salem froze.
It came from an alley nearby, sharp and wet. Too real. Too alive.
He turned toward it. The alley stretched impossibly long, lined with broken clocks nailed to the walls. At the far end, a shadow moved.
"Hello?" Salem called. His voice cracked.
Another cough. Then a whisper: "You shouldn't be here."
Salem's skin crawled. "Yeah, I keep hearing that. Not exactly helpful."
The shadow stepped closer. Not a stranger. Not a monster. It was him—again. But this version wore a hospital gown, IV tubes dragging behind him, eyes sunken but burning with fever-bright light.
Salem's throat went dry. "…You're the sick one. The one in the bed."
The figure smirked weakly. "And you're the lucky one. For now."
The Watch ticked louder, urgent. "Careful. This version carries the virus and the skip. A hybrid. Dangerous."
The sick-Salem coughed, each hack sending distortions down the alley, bending clocks, twisting shadows. "You don't understand yet. But you will. Every skipped day carried more than absence. It carried infection."
Salem's heart pounded. "What are you saying?"
The sick one's grin widened, cracked, too sharp. "You're patient zero. And patient infinity."
The world shuddered. Buildings flickered. The frozen people twitched, masks tearing slightly, muffled screams leaking out.
Salem staggered back, but the sick-Salem lurched forward, coughing hard, black-gold mist spilling from his mouth.
The Watch screamed: "RUN!"
Salem bolted, but the mist was faster. It spread like wildfire, touching the frozen figures, making them move again—but not right. They twitched, spasmed, turning their heads too far, bending joints the wrong way.
One by one, the masked people started walking toward him. Silent. Jerky. Wrong.
Salem sprinted through the street, lungs burning. His mind screamed, This isn't just lockdown. This is infection of time itself.
He turned a corner—only to slam face-first into something solid.
It wasn't a wall.
It was a door.
A plain wooden door, standing in the middle of the street with no building to attach to.
A hand gripped the knob from the other side.
It turned.
The door creaked open.
And someone—someone Salem recognized instantly—looked back at him.
"Well. About time you got here."
The person holding the door open… was Salem's father.
But younger. Alive. Smiling in a way Salem didn't remember.