Chapter 3 Borrowed Time 3 and 4

The transition was not seamless.

Dr. Renn had expected a moment of disorientation. A pull, a flash, maybe some nausea. Instead, it felt like drowning inside a memory someone else was still trying to forget.

He opened his eyes to find himself standing in the same field the woman had been in. The sky above him twisted in hues that didn't belong together-purple bleeding into gold, then shattering into grey. A place between seconds. A purgatory stitched together by desperation.

The air felt... fragile.

He turned and there she was.

The woman and her son. Sitting beneath a tree that grew without casting a shadow.

"You shouldn't be here," she said quietly, brushing the boy's hair.

"You broke the contract," Renn replied.

"I bent it. There's a difference."

Renn approached slowly. "Time isn't a contract, it's gravity with rules. We borrow, but we return. That's how Chronos works. That's how the world works."

She looked up, tired but resolute. "Then the world is broken. My son died because I blinked. One moment, and he was gone. And you gave me a second chance. You can't expect people not to hold onto that."

The boy looked at Renn curiously. Innocent. Alive. Real.

And then Renn heard it. A low hum beneath the surface of everything. The chronal distortion was worsening.

"You staying here," Renn said, "is tearing open fractures in time. People are losing parts of themselves. Forgetting their own names. Moments are being devoured."

Her eyes filled, but she didn't flinch. "Is it really worse than forgetting what it's like to hold your child?"

Before he could answer, the sky cracked.

Not thunder. Fracture.

The air split like glass, and from the rupture, a figure emerged-shifting, faceless, cloaked in threads of undone time. Not a being. A consequence.

The Collector.

Chronos had its failsafes. Time, when cheated, sent something to balance the scale.

Renn instinctively moved between the Collector and the woman, though he knew it was useless. The thing wasn't alive. It was entropy made manifest.

"You can't fight it," she whispered.

"I'm not here to fight," he said, eyes still on the Collector. "I'm here to negotiate."

The Collector paused. It tilted its head. Curious.

And then, in a voice like rusted gears grinding through eternity, it spoke:

"One must return."

Renn didn't hesitate.

"Take me."

The woman gasped. "No! Elias-why?"

"I built this machine. I opened this door. I should be the one to close it."

The boy ran to him suddenly and hugged him. No fear. Just trust.

The Collector moved.

But then the woman stepped forward, shaking her head.

"No."

She turned to Renn. "You can go back. Tell the world what this place is. Make it right. Let people know the cost. *I'll stay.*"

The Collector waited.

Renn knew time had stopped bargaining.

He looked at her. "Are you sure?"

She smiled. Sad. Brave.

"I already got more time than I deserved."

The light dimmed. The field began to fade.

And then Renn was back. Alone.

In the lab.

The console was silent. The machine cold. The humming gone.

On his desk sat the photo she'd brought-only now, the boy's face was turned slightly, smiling at the camera.

A memory rewritten.

A sacrifice accepted.

Time, for now, was balanced.

But Renn knew better than to believe it would stay that way.

Chronos was still watching.

And time?

Time never forgets.