The cracks on the glass panel along the side of the building spread faster.
The sound of the alarm mixed with the screams of students flooding the corridor, making everything feel like a nightmare playing too loudly. Thin smoke began creeping from severed cables in the ceiling. The smell of burning metal filled the air, sharp and suffocating.
Alven stood between two choices that both felt wrong.
A few meters in front of him, Lica stiffened, her face pale, her eyes shifting between the student trapped beneath the fallen ceiling frame and the large glass panel above them that was beginning to crack. Near the opposite wall, a male student struggled to pull his leg free from under a chunk of the collapsed structure, gritting through the pain. He looked panicked, breathing rapidly, one hand gripping the floor as if afraid of being left behind.
"I'll help him," Lica said again, her voice quick and firm.
Alven grabbed her wrist. "Don't."
"He could die if we just stand here!"
"I know!" Alven snapped—too loud, too filled with fear.
Lica fell silent. For a split second, shock was clearly visible on her face. Alven rarely raised his voice, especially at her. But he had no time to apologize. His eyes kept tracking the cracks in the glass panel. In the first timeline, Lica died at the plaza. Now they were far from the plaza, yet this building was collapsing in a different way.
As if time had simply changed its route to claim something.
As if the universe refused to lose its victim.
"If we stay here, we'll all get crushed!" Alven said again, softer this time, almost pleading.
The trapped student lifted his head. "Please…" his voice was hoarse, nearly drowned out by the blaring alarm. "Don't leave me…"
Those words struck Alven straight in the chest.
Don't leave me.
Suddenly, he remembered Lica's face at the plaza in the previous timeline—blood at her temple, her breathing fading, her lips moving as she called his name. He also remembered the shock in her expression just moments ago when he had pulled her away. The two images collided in his mind until he could barely tell what had already happened and what had not.
"Alven!" Lica shouted, pulling him back to reality.
A sharp cracking sound echoed. The glass panel on the right side of the corridor shattered from the top corner. Small fragments began to fall, glittering under the flickering red emergency lights.
There was no more time.
"Help me lift this!" Alven said at last.
Lica moved immediately, and together they grabbed the ceiling frame trapping the student's leg. It was far heavier than expected. Alven used all his strength, his jaw clenched, his arm muscles straining. Beside him, Lica pushed as well, holding her breath. The metal shifted slightly.
"Come on!" Lica urged.
The student pulled his leg free with difficulty, suppressing a scream. As soon as he was free, Alven shoved him toward the side corridor.
"Run to the service stairs! Now!"
The student limped away without even having time to say thank you. Lica was about to follow when the floor shook violently. From the direction of the plaza came a loud boom—much stronger than before—followed by a pressure wave that made the walls tremble.
Alven's eyes widened.
"Tiara core…" muttered another student at the end of the corridor, his face pale. "The energy tower… it's ruptured."
Alven froze for a moment. So the center of the disaster still happened. He had managed to pull Lica away from the plaza, but the explosion still occurred—only spreading into other buildings in a new form of destruction.
"We need to get out of the building!" Lica shouted.
This time, Alven didn't argue. He grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the service stairs along with the flow of panicking people. The situation had turned completely chaotic. The alarm blared endlessly, sprinklers activated at the end of the corridor, and the red emergency lights reflected off the remaining glass walls like stains of blood.
Only a few steps into their run, a female student crashed into Alven from the side. The Chronolocket in his inner jacket pocket struck hard against his ribs—then suddenly grew hot.
Alven flinched.
The heat wasn't like metal exposed to high temperature. It was stranger—like a living pulse, spreading directly into his skin and climbing toward his heart. Instantly, his vision blurred. The sounds around him stretched, echoed, then broke apart like a corrupted signal.
"Alven!" Lica's voice sounded distant, as if coming from underwater.
He stumbled and hit the wall. His ears filled with the sound of ticking.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
Not from outside.
From inside his pocket.
He remembered his mother's message. When the time comes…
Time for what?
"Alven, look at me!" Lica held both his shoulders. Her face was right in front of him—tense, worried, alive. "What's wrong with you?"
Alven forced his breathing to steady. "The pendant…"
"What?"
But before he could explain, the emergency speaker in the ceiling crackled to life with a distorted sound. Not a normal evacuation message. Just harsh static, followed by fragments of electronic speech too fast to understand.
"…synchronization failed… twelve-hour protocol… anomaly active…"
Alven's blood seemed to freeze.
Twelve hours.
This wasn't coincidence. Not a dream. Not a hallucination from trauma. What he experienced was real—and the campus system, or someone behind it, somehow knew that something about time had just been activated.
Lica had clearly heard the fragments too. "What does twelve hours mean?"
"I don't know," Alven lied quickly.
Lica's gaze shifted. Not because she believed him—but because she knew he was lying.
They ran again. The service stairs were only a few meters away when a campus security officer appeared from below, directing students to exit one by one. The situation there was slightly more controlled, though the building still trembled beneath their feet.
Once they reached the outside area, Alven finally managed to breathe more fully.
The open field beside the building was filled with evacuated students. Some were crying, some calling out for their friends, others checking floating emergency information screens. From there, Alven could see part of the central plaza covered in thin black smoke. The campus energy tower looked damaged at the top, flickering with unstable blue light.
Ambulance sirens and rescue drones began to fill the sky.
Lica stood beside him in silence, staring at the scene with a pale face. "You knew this was going to happen," she said at last, barely audible.
Alven didn't answer.
"You knew," she repeated—this time not as a question.
"I just…" Alven stopped. Words felt too small to explain something this big. "I just wanted you to be safe."
Lica turned toward him. Her eyes wavered, a mixture of fear, confusion, and something softer. "Why does it feel like you're saving me from something I haven't even had the chance to understand?"
Alven looked down. Beneath all the noise, his head and body suddenly felt light—too light. The world seemed slightly tilted. He raised his hand to touch his nose—and his fingers immediately came away wet.
Red.
Blood was dripping from his nose.
Lica's eyes widened. "Alven—"
He quickly covered it with his hand, but the red stain had already fallen onto the concrete floor. His body suddenly weakened. His knees almost gave out if Lica hadn't quickly caught his arm.
"I'm fine," he said reflexively, though it was far from convincing.
"That does not look fine!" Lica's voice sounded panicked for the first time. "We're going to medical, now."
Alven wanted to refuse, but his head was still ringing. In his pocket, the Chronolocket had turned cold again, as if it had just taken something from him and was now satisfied.
He stared at the blood on his fingertips.
So this was the price.
He saved Lica. He saved the trapped student. But the disaster still claimed other victims—and his own body had begun paying something he didn't yet understand.
One life did not come without a cost.
As Lica helped guide him toward the emergency medical post, Alven glanced once more toward the smoke-covered plaza. In the distance, at the center of the damage, the core of the energy tower still flickered faintly—like a heart that hadn't fully stopped beating.
And for the first time, the fear he felt was no longer just about losing Lica.
What if every time he tried to save someone, time would simply take someone else—
or take pieces of him, little by little?