"This…"
Leon's lips parted, but for a second no sound came out.
"That guy only has three minutes and twenty-three seconds left?"
No.
Three minutes and twenty-two seconds.
Three minutes and twenty-one.
Three minutes and twenty.
His heart slammed against his ribs. Each beat came harder than the last. His breathing turned shallow. He swallowed, throat tight, and stared at the heavyset middle-aged man—Frank Carter—without blinking.
The countdown above Frank's head kept dropping.
Second by second.
Cold.
Merciless.
Absolute.
Leon's skin prickled.
For the first time, he doubted what he was seeing.
Because the man didn't look like someone who was about to die in a few minutes.
Frank's face was flushed with life. Aside from looking a little irritated—glancing at his watch over and over, shifting on his feet with obvious impatience—he seemed perfectly healthy.
Nothing about him suggested he'd be dead before the rain let up.
Time kept moving.
Leon watched him closely.
Rain hammered the pavement outside. Fat drops burst against the street in a constant rattle, sharp and loud in the dark, like thousands of tiny firecrackers going off at once.
Then, just as the number over Frank's head was nearing zero, something changed.
Frank looked at his watch again. Then at the rain. Then across the street.
His jaw tightened.
A second later, he clutched his briefcase under one arm and bolted into the downpour.
His target was obvious—the bus stop across the street.
The blacktop had been washed slick and shining by the rain. Streetlights smeared across the road in yellow streaks.
By the time Frank reached the curb, he was already soaked through.
And without hesitating, he stepped into the street.
Leon's eyes widened.
In his vision, the countdown above Frank's head had already dropped to four seconds.
3.
Everything seemed to slow.
Then—
A horn blasted through the storm.
From the corner, a red sports car shot into view like a streak of light, its headlights tearing through the rain.
People under the awning turned at once.
Frank did too.
But it was too late.
The car was moving way too fast. There was no time to react.
A heavy, sickening crash split the night.
Then came the harsh screech of brakes.
Frank's body was thrown high into the air. His briefcase flew free from his hand. For one horrible moment, he seemed suspended in the headlights before slamming down onto the wet street.
Blood spread fast beneath him, shockingly red against the rain-washed pavement.
The sports car left a long skid mark before finally grinding to a stop.
2.
1.
0.
The words above Frank's head turned blood red.
Remaining Lifespan: 0
The driver stumbled out of the sports car.
People nearby rushed toward the scene. Others yanked out their phones and called 911.
But Leon knew before any paramedic got there that it was useless.
Frank Carter had died the moment his body hit the ground.
Leon had just watched a man's death from beginning to end.
His mouth had gone dry.
He lifted his head and looked at the people gathering around the accident—at the strangers shouting for help, at the bystanders backing away in shock, at the woman crying into her phone.
And above every one of them, there were numbers.
Countless ticking clocks.
His whole body turned cold.
…
Leon stood there in a daze.
A police cruiser arrived first, lights flashing red and blue across the rain. Then the ambulance. He watched the paramedics hurry over. Watched one of them check Frank, pause, and then give the smallest shake of his head.
Dead.
Leon looked once more at the rain.
Then he stepped out from under the awning and walked straight into it.
He flagged down a cab, paid way too much for the ride, and went back to the cramped apartment he shared with two other people.
He barely remembered the ride home.
Once inside, he went straight to his room, shut the door, and sat down at his desk.
The image of the crash replayed in his mind.
The horn.
The impact.
The body in the air.
The blood.
His hands started shaking before he realized it. A tremor ran through him, deep and uncontrollable.
He sat there like that for a while.
Then, slowly, he calmed down.
And as the fear settled, something else began to surface.
His eyes, dead and tired just an hour ago, were no longer empty.
Something hot was rising in them now.
Excitement.
Hunger.
Ambition.
The corner of Leon's mouth lifted.
Then a little more.
He clenched his fist so tightly the veins stood out across the back of his hand. His breathing grew rougher, faster.
"This is it," he whispered.
"A chance to change my life."
"A chance to break out."
He lowered his gaze and began sorting through the information that had been poured into his mind.
Not random.
Not meaningless.
It was a system. A set of rules.
His new ability could be broken down into four parts.
Buy Time.
Sell Time.
Accelerate Time.
Slow Time.
Leon went through them one by one.
Buy Time
He could acquire time from other people.
Not metaphorically. Literally.
He could take a portion of someone else's lifespan and make it his own, like a businessman making a deal.
Sell Time
If he could buy it, then he could also sell it.
He could transfer the time he possessed to someone else.
Lifespan wasn't fixed anymore—not to him.
It was something that could be traded.
Accelerate Time
If Leon stacked the time he owned onto himself, he could speed up his personal flow of time relative to the outside world.
For example, if he used two units of time at once, then for every minute that passed outside, he would experience two.
To the world, one minute.
To him, two.
It was like isolating himself inside a faster stream of time.
Slow Time
This worked in reverse.
He could reduce his own rate of time—half speed, a quarter speed, maybe even more.
If one minute passed for him, two might pass for the outside world.
His body, his awareness, his existence—everything tied to him could move under a different clock.
Leon sat motionless, staring at the wall.
The word time sounded almost too simple for what this really was.
Because this wasn't about minutes on a watch.
It wasn't even just time in the ordinary sense.
It was the amount of time a human being was allowed to remain in this world.
Their lifespan.
Their years.
Their life itself.
And now, somehow—
it could be bought.
it could be sold.
And it could belong to him.