Rain hammered the windshield so hard that Michael Rivers felt as though he were driving through the bottom of an endless sea. The wipers fought desperately, blades squealing across soaked glass, unable to keep pace with the torrent. Every sweep revealed only a smear of red tail-lights, bleeding ribbons that stretched forward into a dark horizon. The highway lamps blurred into molten halos, bending and breaking into water until the world itself seemed to dissolve.
The wheel vibrated under Michael's grip. His hands were stiff, knuckles pressed bone-white against the leather. His shoulders locked forward with the kind of tension that lives in the body long after the mind admits exhaustion. He hadn't slept properly in days, not since the headaches began, not since he'd started hearing the relentless ticking in his pocket over everything else.
The heater coughed against the damp, blowing air that smelled faintly metallic, as if the storm itself had seeped into the car. Michael's breath fogged the windshield, adding another layer of blur to the already drowning view. His heart beat fast, shallow, racing with the rhythm of rain and wipers.
In his coat pocket, the pocket watch ticked. Not loud, not at all, but Michael couldn't un-hear it. Tick. Tick. Tick. Louder than the rain. Louder than the tires that hissed through black water. Louder than his pulse hammering through his temples. Each second gnawed at him, biting away what was left of his time.
His chest tightened. He thought of Arthur Caldwell. Not his father, no — that man had vanished in twisted metal long ago — but the man who had stepped into the absence and carried him through it. Arthur, the librarian who became mentor, caretaker, something steadier than blood. Arthur had carried the watch for decades, winding it even when it slowed, polishing its silver case when the edges dulled. On a storm-soaked day years ago, he had pressed it into Michael's palm. He had not spoken much, only squeezed his hand with a kind of firmness that seemed to say: remember what this costs.
Michael exhaled, pressing his lips together. His jaw ached from the tension. He stared through the storm, searching for some anchor in the blur.
Then headlights exploded across the windshield.
A semi roared into his lane.
Michael's body snapped to action before his mind could. He jerked the wheel hard. Tires shrieked, rubber screaming against water-slick asphalt. The car spun sideways, metal screeching as it struck the guardrail. Glass shattered, exploding into constellations of cruel light. The world spun into fragments.
The airbag detonated with brutal force, punching his chest, slamming his head back. A taste of blood filled his mouth, hot and metallic. His body flailed in the violent ballet of collision, every bone jarred, every nerve set alight.
Then came darkness.
It was not empty.
---
Michael woke drowning in sound. The steady beep of machines. The drip-drip of IV fluid. The shuffle of rubber soles across tile. Each sound isolated itself, magnified, until the room became a mechanical ocean.
His eyelids fought against the weight of unconsciousness, but he forced them open. Harsh fluorescent light burned into his skull. The ceiling swam, pale and sterile. His body felt crushed, pinned under unseen weight. Tubes laced into his arms. Each breath stabbed at his ribs, tearing shallow gasps through the bandages wound tight across his chest.
Shadows moved at the edge of vision. White coats. A nurse passing, the muted clink of instruments on a tray. Voices, hushed, just beyond glass.
"…impact worsened existing swelling… tumor accelerated…"
"…prognosis uncertain… six months, maybe less."
The words fell like stones through water, each sinking deep, unstoppable. Michael's heart jolted. The monitor quickened, its frantic beeping betraying the panic inside his chest. He tried to lift his head, but his neck screamed, his vision burst with static.
And then — a softer sound. The quiet click of glasses being set down. The faint rustle of cloth.
Arthur sat in the corner.
Michael blinked, tears already welling at the sight. The old man looked thinner, shoulders bent from years hunched over books. Silver hair framed his lined face. But his presence — calm, solid, unyielding — filled the sterile room more surely than the machines. His grey eyes locked on Michael with a patience that outlasted storms.
"Arthur…" Michael rasped, voice like broken glass. "You stayed?"
Arthur leaned forward, elbows braced on knees. "Of course I stayed. Someone had to."
Michael tried to laugh. It broke into a cough that tore his ribs, pain ripping through him until his vision spotted black. Arthur was there instantly, hand steady on his arm, the kind of grip that said: you're here, you're alive.
"Easy. You've been through hell. Don't sprint back into it."
Michael turned his face to the side, eyes burning. "They said… six months."
Arthur nodded once, firm, unsparing. He did not reach for false comfort. He did not pretend otherwise. His silence was heavier than pity.
"Doctors count days," Arthur said at last, voice low, rough from age but certain. "Men count what they do with them."
Michael blinked, throat tight. "What if I waste mine?"
Arthur leaned closer. His eyes were sharp, and in them Michael saw years of quiet watching, of holding truths others couldn't bear. The smell of paper and dust clung faintly to him, the scent of a thousand hours in shelves and stacks.
"Then you'll live long enough to regret it," Arthur said. His voice was steady, a stone in the tide. "And regret… there's no medicine for that."
Michael turned his head toward the ceiling, unable to hold his gaze.
And in that silence, memory rose like floodwater.
---
Rain again. Different rain.
He was eighteen, his shoes sinking in cemetery mud. Two coffins lowered into the earth, rain hammering so loud it drowned the priest's words. His parents, gone in an instant of twisted metal and fire.
He had stood rigid, fists clenched, refusing to cry though tears blurred with rain until he couldn't tell them apart. Relatives stood in black clusters, whispering condolences that washed over him meaningless.
"Why them?" he whispered hoarsely to the storm. "Why not me?"
Arthur had stood beside him, umbrella useless, coat soaked through. He had not spoken at first. He had simply been there, a hand steady on Michael's shoulder. He had let him rage. Let him break. Only when silence came, ragged and empty, had Arthur spoken.
"Time waits for no one." His voice was iron through the rain. "So use it wisely, son. Because once it's gone, nothing brings it back." His gaze locked into Michael's, unflinching. "There's no medicine for regret."
The words had seared him then, sharp and cruel. He had wanted to scream at them, to shove them away. But they had buried themselves deep.
Now, lying broken beneath hospital lights, they returned.
---
Michael gasped awake, chest heaving. His eyes flew open, dragging him back to the sterile brightness of the room. Arthur was still there, polishing his glasses with that familiar slow patience, waiting.
On the bedside table, the pocket watch lay gleaming. Its tick filled the silence. Steady. Merciless.
Michael stared at it until his jaw clenched. That sound was no longer counting for him. It was counting against him. Each second one less than he would ever have. Each beat a cruel reminder: you are dying. You are running out.
He turned back to the ceiling. The blank tiles stretched on, a false infinity above him. His thoughts slipped toward Vanessa, toward Jason, toward the fragile pieces of a life he had thought still waiting for him. Promises unkept. Dreams already broken.
Six months. Maybe less.
Six months wasn't time. Six months was a mockery.
The truth pressed down so heavy it threatened to split him. He wanted to scream. To smash the watch. To tear the tubes free and storm out into the night.
But beneath the despair, something flickered.
Not hope. Not mercy.
Something sharper.
A hunger.
The kind of hunger that could either save him… or consume him whole.