Chapter 3 CHASE's POV

I jolt awake in my chair.

Third time. Fourth loop. I don't even know anymore.

But the moment I open my eyes, I know something's different.

The clocks on my wall are already spinning frantically, twitching, like they're trying to shake themselves free from the wall. The air hums louder than before. More unstable. More fractured.

Time's unraveling faster.

I reach for my watch.

00:00

Nothing.

I shove it away.

Focus, Chase. Focus.

In the last loop, she remembered. She believed me. And right before everything crashed, she said something I can't get out of my head: "We stop trying to outrun it."

Maybe she's right. Maybe this isn't a problem I can fix with code or circuits or data. Maybe time's not something to be controlled but understood.

And I hate that. I hate that she might be right.

I've spent my life mastering the uncontrollable. Making chaos predictable. Containing pain in variables and formulas.

But she saw it in one afternoon.

One loop.

Her mural, the one I erased, maybe I was never supposed to delete. Maybe it was a map. A message.

And now?

Now I need her again.

I push back from the desk, heart pounding. "Avery," I whisper like she can hear me across dimensions.

I have to find her before the loop collapses completely.

Avery POV

I know before I open my eyes.

That heaviness in my limbs. The way the sunlight hits the far wall at the exact same angle as it did last time. The same voicemail ping from my landlord. The exact scent of burnt toast drifting in from the apartment across the hall.

Loop four.

God help me.

I sit up too fast and nearly black out.

The truth slices through my skull like a migraine of memories of things that technically never happened. The mural. The Resonator. Chase. His hand gripping mine before time blinked out.

This isn't just déjà vu anymore. It's muscle memory.

I stumble to my feet and pull on the same jeans as before. But this time, I didn't bother brushing my hair. There's no point playing dress-up for a world that's going to disappear again in ninety minutes.

I need to get to him.

Before he forgets. Before I do.

My hands tremble as I grab my sketchbook. Flip to the last page. It's blank, but my fingers move on their own, tracing lines I shouldn't remember concentric rings, clocks that bleed into each other, a heart inside the gears.

I don't know what it means yet.

But I know who does.

Chase Turner.

And this time, I'm not waiting for him to come to me.

Chase POV

Security blinks when I bypass three floors of clearance without explanation.

I don't care.

Let them report me. Let them try to stop me. There's no HR form for the end of time.

I step out of the elevator and into the sublevel where the Resonator hums with something close to desperation. I swear it's louder now, its pulse more erratic.

But I'm not here for the machine.

I'm here for her.

She's already in the lab when I arrive standing in front of the Resonator like she never left. Her back is to me, braid trailing down her spine like a tether I want to hold onto and never let go.

"Avery," I say.

She doesn't flinch.

"I know," she says softly. "We're running out of time."

I exhale. "You remember."

She turns.

And something tightens in my chest.

There's exhaustion in her eyes, yes but also clarity. Like she's lived five lives in one breath and still has enough fire to fight.

"Tell me everything," she says. "No more tech-speak. No more deflection. I want the truth, Chase. What happened? What really happened?"

My throat closes.

"I built it for my father," I say. The words fall like stones. "He died two years ago. Brain aneurysm. No warning. Gone in seconds. I couldn't process it. Couldn't accept it. So I built something that could... give people more time. Just five minutes. Enough to say goodbye."

Her expression softens. Just a little.

"And it backfired," she whispers.

I nod.

"It looped. Time snapped backward. And every time I tried to correct it, the window shrank. Like it was punishing me for trying to rewrite the rules."

Avery steps closer.

"Maybe time isn't punishing you," she says. "Maybe it's warning you."

I shake my head. "Warning me about what?"

She lifts her sketchbook.

And I see it.

The diagram. The circles. The gears. The heart.

"What is this?" I whisper.

"I don't know," she replies. "I just... woke up and my hands knew what to draw. I think it's part of the answer. Or at least a piece of it."

I study the sketch, pulse ticking faster.

The pattern... it mirrors the Resonator's feedback loop. But there's something more, something organic. Emotional.

Like she said last time.

The Resonator isn't just malfunctioning.

It's a feeling.

Avery POV

He stares at my drawing like it's written in fire.

And I watch his face shift from doubt to horror to... hope.

"You said this sketch matches the feedback?" I ask.

He nods slowly.

"It's an emotional pattern," he murmurs. "Not just data. It's mapping feelings. Grief. Guilt. Memory. You didn't draw circuits, Avery. You drew echoes."

I shiver.

"So what do we do with it?"

He looks at me.

Then past me to the Resonator.

"I think you need to finish the mural."

I blink. "You wiped it."

"I was wrong too," he says. "I think it's the key. Your mural held something real emotion, memory, vulnerability. And time responded to it. But I erased it. I destroyed the only stabilizer we had."

A long pause.

And then I whisper, "If I finish it..."

"Maybe we can anchor the loop," he says. "Long enough to fix this."

My throat tightens. "But what if I can't remember it all?"

"I think you will," he says, stepping closer. "I think you already do."

Chase POV

We have sixty minutes.

I rushed us back to the lobby, to the vast white wall where her mural used to breathe. I tell the team to clear out. I don't care how weird it looks, no one argues.

Avery unwraps her supplies in silence.

The moment her brush touches the wall, the clocks slow.

I feel it.

Like the air shifts in deference.

Like time itself is listening.

She paints like she's on fire. Like her soul remembers what her body can't. The swirl of loss. The shock of color. The heartbeat in the center of the storm.

I watch her become more than human.

And I realize maybe this was never about me.

Maybe the Resonator needed her from the start.

Maybe I did.

The edges of the loop ripple. The world bends.

But she paints through it.

Until-

The final stroke.

Silence.

The clocks freeze.

The lights flicker... and hold.

Time doesn't reset.

Not yet.

She turns to me, chest heaving.

"I think we bought ourselves time."

I step toward her, and for the first time in years...

...I don't feel like I'm running.