Chapter 6: Between a Promise and a Breakdown

Ren’s feet felt like lead as he stumbled back to his room that night. His mind kept replaying Kai’s words: We’re running out of time. Lock the timeline, or everything falls apart—people, memories, even moments that hadn’t happened yet.

The quiet hum of the Tokyo streets outside did little to calm his nerves. His head buzzed with noise, each thought colliding into the next. He flopped onto his bed face-first, gripping the pillow like it could hold him in place.

“Think,” Ren mumbled into the fabric. “There’s got to be another way.”

But no matter how many scenarios he ran through in his mind, none ended well. Either he locked the timeline and lived with his mistakes forever—or he kept rewinding until everything dissolved into chaos.

Neither option felt survivable.

Ren dragged himself up to sit at his desk, idly spinning a pen between his fingers. Maybe a small rewind wouldn’t hurt—just a tiny one, to test if the machine was still functional. He needed to see if reality could hold itself together for just a few more jumps. One little trip. Nothing major.

He glanced toward the window, where the faint glow of city lights bled through the blinds. Midnight was still a few hours away, plenty of time to experiment.

Plan A: Test a small change. Something harmless. Nothing complicated.

Ren paced his room, trying to think of a low-risk experiment. His gaze landed on a bowl of dried-up instant noodles on the floor. “Perfect.”

He grabbed the bowl and headed to the kitchen. The experiment was simple: rewind by five minutes, eat the noodles, and see if future-Ren remembered eating them.

“Genius,” he whispered to himself as he microwaved the soggy noodles.

Once the timer beeped, Ren inhaled the entire bowl in under thirty seconds, slamming it down with a victorious grin. He ran back to his room, breathless from excitement, and opened his backpack where the time machine’s portable controls were stashed.

He powered it on. The screen glitched briefly, lines flickering like static, but it booted up. Ren set the coordinates: five minutes back.

“Okay, just a quick hop,” he whispered. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

Famous last words.

Ren felt the world twist and shift as he activated the machine. His vision blurred, and for a moment, the air felt thick—like swimming through syrup. Then, with a snap, everything clicked back into place.

He blinked and found himself in his room again. The noodles were back in the bowl, untouched, sitting on his desk. So far, so good.

Ren was about to celebrate when the first glitch hit.

At first, it was subtle—a faint hum, like radio static buzzing in his ears. Then the walls of his room flickered, dissolving for half a second before snapping back into place. The air felt heavier, like a storm gathering just beneath the surface of reality.

Ren’s wristwatch ticked wildly, the hands spinning backward in short, chaotic bursts.

Then came the sound.

A knock at his bedroom door.

Ren froze. No one should have been there—it was past midnight. Slowly, cautiously, he opened the door.

Standing on the other side was himself.

Ren stared, mouth open, at the second version of himself. His double—another Ren, identical down to the ruffled hair and sleepy eyes—tilted his head curiously, holding the same bowl of noodles in one hand.

“Uh...” Ren-2 blinked. “Why are you still awake?”

Ren’s brain screamed at him to slam the door, pretend this wasn’t happening. But before he could do anything, Ren-2 frowned, as if suddenly realizing something.

“Wait,” Ren-2 whispered, eyes narrowing. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

Ren-1 took a step back. “I’m not supposed to be here? You’re the copy!”

Ren-2’s expression twisted with annoyance. “No way. I definitely came first.”

“This makes no sense!” Ren-1 snapped, waving wildly between the two of them. “I only jumped back five minutes!”

“Yeah? Well, maybe the timeline disagrees.”

Ren-2 casually took a bite of the noodles, like encountering his alternate self was no big deal. “You really messed up this time.”

Before Ren-1 could respond, the walls flickered again, and both versions of Ren stumbled as the floor tilted beneath them. The timeline was folding in on itself, warping under the strain of overlapping versions of the same person.

“We can’t both exist here!” Ren-1 shouted over the rising hum of static.

Ren-2 shrugged, slurping the last of the noodles. “Not my problem.”

The lights in the room flickered wildly, casting eerie shadows that stretched and twisted in impossible ways. The air buzzed with tension, thick enough to choke on.

Ren-1 could feel the timeline collapsing, fraying at the edges. If he didn’t act fast, both versions of him could be erased—folded out of existence.

He bolted for the time machine’s control panel, fingers trembling as he reset the coordinates. His double watched calmly, showing no urgency.

“You won’t make it in time,” Ren-2 called lazily. “Might as well enjoy the ride.”

Ren-1 ignored him, slamming the activation button. The machine roared to life, blue light flooding the room as reality twisted again. The two versions of Ren flickered violently, like TV channels switching in and out of focus.

Then everything went black.

When Ren’s vision cleared, he found himself sprawled on his bed, gasping for air. The room was still. The walls held their shape. No alternate versions of himself lurked in the doorway.

For a moment, he thought he might have imagined the whole thing. But then his eyes landed on the bowl of noodles—now smashed against the floor, as if two people had fought over it at once.

His heart sank.

The glitches were getting worse. And next time, there might not be a way back.

The clock on his desk read 11:59 PM. Ren’s pulse quickened. If he was going to meet Kai at the arcade, he had to leave now. But as he grabbed his jacket, a thought nagged at the back of his mind.

What if the Ren I just met wasn’t the last?

He shook the thought away, focusing on the only thing that mattered: fixing the timeline before it tore him apart.

Ren sprinted down the street, the night air cool against his skin. The city felt different—quieter, as if the world was holding its breath, waiting for the next inevitable glitch.

By the time he reached the arcade, Kai was already there, leaning against the entrance with his arms crossed.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Kai said without looking up.

“Worse,” Ren muttered, catching his breath. “I saw myself.”

Kai’s expression didn’t change. “Yeah, that happens.”

Ren wanted to scream. “How is that normal?!”

Kai pushed off the wall, his gaze calm and steady. “Get used to it, Takahashi. This is only the beginning.”

As they stepped inside the arcade, the machines flickering faintly under neon lights, Ren knew one thing for sure: the timeline wasn’t just unraveling—it was hunting him.