The door slammed shut before Salem's hand could touch it.
The sound wasn't just a slam—it was a thunderclap, a lock clicking on reality itself. The golden frame flickered once, then dissolved into ash, carried off by a wind that smelled like rot and ozone.
Salem staggered forward, his palm grasping at empty air. "No, no, no… don't do this to me now!"
The city answered with silence at first. Then… footsteps.
Not just one pair. Dozens. Hundreds. An endless shuffling of shoes on broken pavement. He turned sharply, and there they were: the masked figures. Plague-doctor beaks pointed toward him, the glassy eyes reflecting fractured glimmers of light. Their movements were slow, deliberate, as though walking through thick water. But every step echoed like a drumbeat inside his skull.
The mist around them thickened, curling like smoke. Salem coughed, his lungs burning.
"Watch," he rasped. "Open the damn door again!"
The brass watch floated beside him, its hands spinning erratically, gears grinding louder than usual. But for once, its voice wasn't mocking. It wasn't witty. It was sharp, trembling.
"I can't."
Salem froze. He had never heard it say those words.
"Can't?" His voice cracked. "Or won't?"
The watch rotated, its ticking uneven, broken.
"This place is different. It's not mine to open. You walked too far into someone else's time."
The footsteps drew closer, circling him. Salem's chest tightened, his heartbeat syncing with the shuffle of the masked crowd.
From the fog, one figure broke free.
It was him.
Salem—sick, pale, eyes ringed with shadows, skin blotched with lesions like burned-out constellations. His mask was fused to his face, but beneath the glass, his lips moved.
"You shouldn't have breathed," the sick-Salem whispered. "It's already inside you."
Salem stumbled back. His throat was dry, scratchy, as though a cough was waiting to claw its way out. He shook his head violently. "No. I'm not infected. I'm not—"
The sick-Salem smiled. Not wide, not cruel—just patient. "That's what I thought too."
The crowd of masked figures shifted closer, their circle tightening. Salem's mind scrambled for logic, but the city didn't allow it. The buildings around him bent inward, glass windows shattering in silence, walls rippling as though made of liquid.
The cobblestones beneath his feet twisted into a mosaic of broken clock faces, each one cracked, each one frozen at a different time. 03:15. 11:59. 00:00.
"This is wrong," Salem muttered. "This isn't my time. This isn't my mistake."
The watch trembled beside him, its brass shell splitting briefly to reveal raw light.
"Every time is your time, Salem. That's the curse. That's the gift. That's the joke."
Salem clenched his fists. "Not funny."
The sick-Salem tilted his head. "Oh, but it is. You carry it, even now. You felt it, didn't you? The cough. The fog in your lungs. The weight in your blood."
His chest tightened at the mention, and Salem fought the instinct to cough. No. He wouldn't give in. He refused.
"Even if I am infected," he said, his voice hoarse but steady, "I'm not becoming you."
The sick-Salem's eyes glittered behind the mask. "You already are."
The crowd surged, moving like one organism, pressing inward. Salem spun, looking for a gap, an alley, an exit—but the mist filled every space, curling into walls where none existed before.
The air buzzed. The watch pulsed with frantic light.
"Run!" it shouted.
Salem didn't think. He bolted.
The cobblestones clanged beneath his shoes like hollow metal. The city blurred around him, buildings stretching impossibly tall, then collapsing into ruins, then reforming again as he passed. Windows lit up with faces—his faces—watching him from every angle. Some smiled. Some cried. Some simply stared.
The sound of footsteps followed. Not slow anymore. Fast. Too fast.
He risked a glance over his shoulder—and nearly tripped. The masked crowd was sprinting now, their legs moving in jerky bursts, arms stiff like broken marionettes. The sick-Salem led them, his mask glowing faintly, his movements smoother than the rest.
Salem shoved himself harder, lungs burning, but every breath felt like knives scraping his chest. His vision blurred at the edges.
"Don't slow down," the watch hissed. "If you stop, you dissolve into them. That's the rule here."
"Great rule!" Salem gasped.
He darted into an alley, the mist immediately pressing in thicker, suffocating him. The walls pulsed like veins, damp and warm. His hand brushed the bricks, and his skin came away wet—red.
Blood.
The walls bled.
Salem gagged and stumbled back, but the alley was shrinking, closing in like a throat. He turned and sprinted again, but the exit ahead flickered like static, breaking apart.
He was trapped.
The footsteps came closer, louder, surrounding him again. The sick-Salem emerged from the mist, head tilted, watching patiently.
"You're wasting time. You'll end here, just like me."
"No," Salem whispered. His voice cracked, but his eyes hardened. "I won't end like you. I don't end at all."
The watch flared suddenly, its gears screaming.
"Salem! Look—above!"
He glanced up—and froze.
Above him, hanging in the mist like a false moon, was a massive Ferris wheel. The same one from the carnival. Only this time, its carriages weren't clocks. They were hospital beds.
Each carriage carried a Salem. Some dying, some screaming, some motionless under white sheets. Machines beeped and clicked, their screens flashing not heart rates but time codes.
The Ferris wheel groaned, turning slowly, each carriage swinging like a pendulum of doom.
Salem's stomach churned.
"Pick one," the sick-Salem whispered. "Or they'll pick for you."
The mist surged. The crowd lunged.
Salem raised his arms to fight, but his legs buckled. His chest tightened further, his lungs refusing air. The world spun, blurring between mist, blood, and broken clocks.
The watch screamed.
"Don't close your eyes! Don't you dare—"
Too late. Salem's vision collapsed into black.
He gasped awake.
The world was white. Sterile. The steady hum of machines filled his ears. He was lying on a bed—no, a hospital bed. Straps pinned his wrists. Electrodes clung to his skin, but instead of heartbeats, the monitors displayed times. His times. 2019. 2023. 2043. 1971.
He thrashed, panic clawing at his chest. The machines beeped faster, times blinking wildly, overlapping, colliding.
And then—he saw it.
Someone sat in the chair beside his bed. A figure cloaked in shadow, hands folded, face unreadable. Watching.
"Finally awake," the figure said. Their voice was calm, too calm. "We've been waiting for you."
Salem froze.
"…We?"
The figure leaned forward, and Salem's blood ran cold.
It was his father.
Or… at least, a version of him.
The monitor beside his bed flashed red, then displayed a single message instead of numbers:
DO NOT TRUST HIM.
Salem's heart stopped.
And the chapter ended there.