00:00The salvage beacon from Kronos shouldn't have existed.
00:04Fifteen years after the research station vanished near Charybdis-7,
00:09our long-range sensors picked up its automated distress call.
00:14Three days of hard burn brought my crew to within visual range of the impossible,
00:20a pristine station orbiting 12 kilometers from the event horizon,
00:24its lights burning steady against the cosmic dark.
00:27Life signs detected, Elena announced, her fingers dancing across the sensor array.
00:34Faint, but definitely human.
00:37I checked my chronometer. 1432-17.
00:41The main display read 1432-15.
00:45The backup console showed 1432-19.
00:50Sensor drift? Marcus asked, noticing my frown.
00:54Probably gravitational interference, I lied,
00:57though the discrepancy made my skin crawl.
01:00Our boarding tube sealed with Kronos Airlock 7 with a satisfying click.
01:06Standard atmosphere. Normal pressure.
01:09Temperature holding steady at 21 degrees Celsius.
01:12Everything perfect for a station that should have been a frozen tomb.
01:17The corridors hummed with life support systems.
01:21Fresh coffee lingered in the galley.
01:23Not recycled rations, but real beans ground that morning.
01:28I touched the pot. Still warm.
01:31This is impossible, Marcus whispered, running his scanner along the bulkhead.
01:36Carbon dating shows construction materials aged 15 years,
01:41but organic matter tests as days old.
01:44Elena's voice crackled through comms from the command center,
01:48her face pale as stellar radiation.
01:51What is it? I asked.
01:53My log entries.
01:55She pointed at the screen with a trembling finger.
01:57The text scrolled past Elena's handwriting, Elena's voice patterns,
02:08discussing our current mission in past tense.
02:11According to the log, we'd already been aboard Kronos for six hours.
02:16It described finding bodies.
02:18It described screaming.
02:20It described Marcus dying.
02:23System malfunction, I said, though my voice sounded thin.
02:28Corrupted databanks.
02:30A shadow moved in the viewport behind Elena's reflection.
02:34I turned, but the observation deck was empty.
02:37When I looked back, Elena was gone.
02:40Elena? I called into my comm.
02:43Static answered.
02:44Marcus appeared in the doorway, but something was wrong with his face.
02:48His left eye socket was empty.
02:51The orbital bone cracked.
02:52Black blood trickled down his cheek.
02:55We need to leave, he calmly said, as if he couldn't see his own injury.
03:00The loops are starting again.
03:02Marcus, you're hurt.
03:03No, I'm not.
03:04He touched his face, fingers getting away clean.
03:08When I blinked, his eye was intact again.
03:11But I will be, in about twenty minutes.
03:13The station shuddered.
03:15Through the viewport, I watched Kronos rotate slowly,
03:19but our inertial dampeners registered no movement.
03:22The stars wheeled past in directions that violated physics.
03:28Elena's scream echoed from everywhere and nowhere.
03:31I ran toward the sound, my boots ringing against metal decking that aged and renewed itself with each step.
03:39The corridor stretched impossibly long, then contracted until I was pressed against the walls.
03:46Emergency lighting flickered between red and normal white, casting shadows that moved independently of their sources.
03:53The command center appeared around me like a fold in space.
03:58Elena stood at the main console, her back to me.
04:01Her reflection in the black screen showed her face twisted in terror, mouth open in a silent scream.
04:08But when she turned, she was calm.
04:11The temporal anchor system failed, she conversationally said.
04:15Fifteen years ago, or yesterday, time doesn't work properly here anymore.
04:20The main display showed our ship, Salvage 7, docking with the station.
04:26I watched myself step through the airlock, watched the cycle begin again.
04:32On another screen, our ship was already leaving, its hull scarred by weapon fire.
04:37A third display showed twisted wreckage where our vessel should be.
04:42How many times have we done this? I asked.
04:45Forty-seven minutes. Always forty-seven minutes.
04:49But each loop spawns variants.
04:51Some of us make different choices.
04:54Some of us die.
04:55Some of us...
04:56She gestured at the screens.
04:58Marcus stumbled in, his face alternating between wounded and whole with each heartbeat.
05:04The bodies in Storage Base 7.
05:06They're us. All of us.
05:08From loops where we didn't make it out.
05:10I wanted to deny it, but the station's log banks confirmed everything.
05:16Hundreds of iterations.
05:17Thousands of small variations.
05:20Crews that panicked and killed each other.
05:22Crews that tried to fix the temporal anchor and triggered worse cascades.
05:27Crews that simply sat and waited as the loops consumed their sanity.
05:32There has to be a way out, I said.
05:34There is, the voice came from behind me.
05:37I turned to see myself, but older, scarred, with hollow eyes that had seen too much.
05:44The older me smiled without warmth.
05:47I've been asking myself that for subjective years.
05:51Elena pointed at the temporal anchor controls.
05:54We can collapse all timelines into one.
05:57Reset everything.
05:58But we'd have to choose which reality becomes real.
06:02And the others ceased to exist, along with everyone in them.
06:07The station shuddered again.
06:09Through the viewport, I saw myself boarding for the first time, fresh and hopeful.
06:15I saw myself dying as the airlock exploded.
06:18I saw myself screaming as something with my face peeled the skin from my arms.
06:24My chronometer read 1432-17, just like when we'd arrived.
06:29The choice split before me like light through a prism.
06:33Escape and leave our alternate cells trapped, or attempt to collapse and risk destroying everything.
06:40But as I reached for the controls, I realized the choice itself was fragmenting.
06:45My hand moved in multiple directions simultaneously, each decision spawning new possibilities.
06:52I felt my consciousness scatter across infinite variations.
06:57In one timeline, I fled and spent the rest of my life wondering which version of Elena and Marcus I'd appended.
07:05In another, I triggered the collapse and watched my friends dissolve into quantum probability.
07:12In a third, I tried to save everyone and condemned us to eternal repetition.
07:17But somehow, impossibly, I was back on Salvage 7, pulling away from Kronos with Elena and Marcus safe beside me.
07:26The station dwindled behind us, its lights steady and peaceful.
07:31We'd escaped.
07:32Except my chronometer showed 1432-17.
07:37It had shown that for the past three hours.
07:40And Elena kept writing in her log about conversations we'd had yesterday, tomorrow, and never.
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