It started with a sneeze.
Not Salem's. The world's.
One moment, reality hummed along with its usual background noise—people sipping coffee, trains running late, endless chatter about nothing. The next, everything hiccupped. A stutter. Like the universe forgot its next line in the script.
Salem felt it first—a sharp tug in his gut, that familiar warning before a skip. He braced for the usual disorienting jump. But when he blinked… he was still in the same spot. Same cracked sidewalk. Same chilly morning air.
Only this time, he wasn't the only one who noticed.
Around him, people froze mid-step. A man walking his dog blinked repeatedly, looking at the leash like he didn't recognize it. A woman holding a phone dropped it, staring at her own hands in horror.
Someone screamed. Another person laughed hysterically. Across the street, a cyclist keeled over, clutching his helmet.
Salem's chest tightened.
"Oh no," he muttered. "It's happening."
---
The first wave of confusion rolled like a shockwave. Social media exploded instantly—tweets and posts flashing across giant screens, the words "Did we just lose a day?" trending worldwide within minutes.
In cafés, in offices, on buses, people were freaking out in real-time. Half of them swore it was Tuesday; the other half insisted it was Thursday. No one could agree on what they'd eaten for breakfast, let alone what they'd done yesterday.
And everywhere Salem went, eyes darted to him.
Not because they knew he was responsible—he wasn't, not really—but because he looked calm. Too calm.
He'd seen this before.
---
At a nearby newsstand, a TV blared an emergency broadcast. A frazzled anchor shuffled her notes, muttering off-mic:
"Do we… do we tell them the day's missing? Or just… pretend?"
The feed glitched. Her face froze in an awkward half-smile before melting into static, only to resume mid-sentence with a completely different story about weather patterns.
"…authorities are urging citizens to remain calm as investigations continue. This is not a—"
The signal cut again, leaving behind a distorted laugh that wasn't hers.
Salem shivered. The skips weren't subtle anymore. They were loud, messy, unavoidable.
---
By the second hour, the world had officially entered denial. Governments issued statements blaming "satellite anomalies." Influencers started selling "memory-protection crystals". Conspiracy theorists took to the streets with megaphones shouting:
"WAKE UP, SHEEPLE! TIME ISN'T REAL!"
Salem ducked behind a corner, watching the chaos unfold. He should've felt vindicated—finally, the world knew he wasn't crazy. Instead, dread curdled in his stomach.
If everyone was experiencing the skips now, that meant the system holding reality together was collapsing. And when things collapse, people look for someone to blame.
---
It didn't take long for his face to hit the feeds.
"UNIDENTIFIED MALE LINKED TO TIME INCIDENTS," one headline screamed.
Grainy security footage of Salem stumbling through a skip played on repeat, his expression twisted in confusion.
They painted him as a hacker. A terrorist. A walking anomaly.
He pulled his hood tighter, muttering, "Great. I'm officially public enemy number one. Again."
---
The skips came faster.
People vanished mid-conversation, reappearing blocks away. Entire subway cars skipped to empty tracks. In one surreal incident, a wedding party found themselves suddenly attending their own reception—with no memory of the ceremony.
Everywhere, fear metastasized into anger. Crowds formed, looking for answers, for a scapegoat.
And in the middle of it all, Salem felt the Writer watching him.
"Having fun yet?"
The voice purred in his head, smug and amused.
"Shut up," Salem hissed.
"Oh, come on. Look around. It's not just your nightmare anymore. You wanted company—there you go."
Salem bit back a curse. "This isn't what I wanted."
"Sure it isn't."
---
By evening, sirens wailed across the city. Armed patrols combed the streets, their scanners tuned to "temporal anomalies." Salem's chest pounded as he ducked into an alley, narrowly avoiding a patrol drone.
Its speaker crackled with an automated message:
"ATTENTION: REPORT ALL INSTANCES OF MEMORY LOSS OR TIME DISPLACEMENT. DO NOT ENGAGE THE SUSPECT."
He pressed his back against the damp wall, heart hammering. The world was hunting him for something it couldn't even explain.
A trash can beside him blinked—literally blinked—and transformed into a confused tabby cat before scampering off. Salem rubbed his temples.
"This is getting worse by the hour," he muttered.
---
His phone buzzed—a notification from an unknown number:
I REMEMBER TOO. MEET ME. MIDNIGHT. OLD TRAIN STATION. YOU'RE NOT ALONE.
Salem's breath hitched.
Another person who remembered? Someone like him?
Or bait.
---
As night fell, the city descended further into paranoia. People barricaded themselves in their homes, terrified of skipping into an unknown tomorrow. News anchors stopped pretending everything was fine, their broadcasts dissolving into frantic arguments and glitching laughter.
Salem perched on a rooftop, looking down at the chaos below.
For the first time since the skips began, he wasn't the only one drowning in the uncertainty. But that didn't make him feel better.
If anything, it made the weight of what was coming even heavier.
The Writer's voice hummed again, almost gleeful:
"Oh, Salem. This is only the beginning. Shall we make things… worse?"
Salem clenched his fists. "No. I'm going to fix this."
"Oh, sweetheart," the Writer chuckled darkly. "That's not your line."
The city flickered. For a heartbeat, Salem saw dozens of overlapping realities—streets crumbling, skyscrapers twisting into spirals, people frozen mid-scream.
And then everything snapped back.
He stumbled, breath ragged, as one thought echoed louder than the rest:
The world was breaking, and this time, everyone could feel it.