Chapter 10: Two Hours Too Late

Ren ran until his lungs burned. The school, the classrooms, the streets—everything blurred together as if the world were chasing him. He couldn’t explain it, but deep down, he knew: the clock ticking forward to 12:00 wasn’t a solution—it was a countdown. To what, he had no idea.

But whatever was coming, it wasn’t good.

He stumbled into a familiar place without thinking: a small park hidden behind a row of apartment buildings. It was the kind of place where old bicycles gathered dust and kids left chalk drawings that faded with every rainstorm. The wind stirred, rustling through the bare trees.

Ren slumped onto a bench, chest heaving. His watch ticked steadily now, but each movement felt like a warning.

“You can’t run forever,” he thought bitterly. But maybe you can hide for a little while.

He needed to think, to figure out why time was still breaking apart even though the timeline was supposedly locked. If the glitches were back, then something—someone—had made another change.

The thought hit him like ice: What if locking the timeline didn’t stop the other versions of himself? What if one of them was still out there?

The watch beeped, jolting Ren from his thoughts. It wasn’t a cheerful beep, though—it was low, cold, and final, like the click of a lock turning. A strange symbol flickered briefly on the screen: a spiral made of jagged lines, twisting inward like a black hole.

Ren frowned. “What the hell?”

Before he could react, someone sat down on the bench next to him.

Ren flinched, ready to bolt—until he recognized the person.

Kai.

The other boy leaned back, hands stuffed into his jacket pockets, his expression unreadable. “You always run to weird places when you panic, huh?”

Ren scowled, still catching his breath. “How’d you find me?”

Kai tapped his temple. “You’re not the only one who remembers things, Takahashi.”

Ren’s heart sank. “What do you mean?”

Kai gave a small, humorless chuckle. “I told you—locking the timeline doesn’t erase everything. It just pushes the glitches into the shadows. Some people—people like us—can still feel them.”

Ren ran a hand through his hair, frustration bubbling to the surface. “So what? You knew this was going to happen? That things would get worse?”

Kai shrugged. “I hoped it wouldn’t, but here we are.”

Ren shot him a glare. “Thanks for the warning.”

Kai smirked, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “You wanted things to go back to normal. I told you normal’s not possible when you mess with time.”

The air between them grew heavy. Ren wanted to scream, to punch something—but what good would that do? Every choice he had made so far had only tangled things further. And now, even locked in place, the timeline was slipping again.

“So what now?” Ren muttered, kicking a stray pebble. “Do we just... wait until the whole thing collapses on us?”

Kai shook his head slowly. “No. There’s another way.”

Ren’s stomach twisted. “What kind of ‘way?’”

Kai hesitated, his usual mask of indifference cracking just slightly. For the first time, Ren saw a flicker of doubt in his eyes.

“We find the anchor,” Kai said quietly.

Ren blinked. “The what?”

“The anchor,” Kai repeated. “Every timeline—every loop—has an anchor point. Something that holds everything together, like the nail holding a painting on the wall. If we can find it and fix it...” He paused, letting the words hang in the air.

Ren leaned forward, his pulse quickening. “Then what?”

Kai’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Then the timeline will stabilize. For good.”

Ren narrowed his eyes. “Sounds too easy.”

Kai gave him a pointed look. “It’s not.”

Of course not. Why would anything involving time travel be easy?

Ren leaned back on the bench, staring up at the sky. “So, where do we find this anchor?”

Kai’s silence spoke volumes.

Ren turned to him, dread coiling in his gut. “You don’t know, do you?”

Kai shook his head. “No. But... I have a hunch.”

Ren groaned. “Oh, great. A hunch. That’s super reassuring.”

Kai ignored the sarcasm. “There’s only one place where we can look for it—where things started going wrong.”

Ren frowned. “The lab?”

Kai nodded. “If the time machine is still connected to the anchor point, we might be able to trace it back to the source.”

Ren’s heart sank. Returning to the lab meant going back to the place where everything began—the place that had lured him in with promises of second chances and perfect outcomes, only to rip them away the moment things got complicated.

But he didn’t have a choice, did he?

“Fine,” Ren muttered, standing up and brushing off his clothes. “Let’s go.”

Kai stood too, stretching lazily. “Don’t get your hopes up, Takahashi. This might not work.”

Ren shot him a wry smile. “When have things ever worked the way we wanted?”

Kai grinned, a rare flicker of amusement in his eyes. “Fair point.”

The walk to the lab was quiet. The streets felt heavier than usual, as if the world itself knew what they were about to do. Ren kept glancing at his watch, half-expecting the hands to stop again. But they didn’t. They just kept ticking—steady, relentless, and unforgiving.

When they reached the alley where the lab was hidden, Ren hesitated. The building loomed ahead, rusted and forgotten, like a graveyard for things people no longer cared about.

Kai stepped forward first, pushing open the creaky metal door. “After you.”

Ren rolled his eyes. “Gee, thanks.”

Inside, the air smelled of dust and old machinery. The time capsule sat in the corner, its surface dull and lifeless, as if it had been waiting for them to return.

Kai walked over to the control panel, brushing away a layer of grime. “If we’re lucky, the anchor point will show up here. If not...”

“We’re screwed?” Ren finished for him.

Kai gave a small, noncommittal shrug. “Pretty much.”

Ren knelt beside the machine, his heart pounding. He wasn’t sure if it was fear, excitement, or both. Maybe it didn’t matter.

“Okay,” Kai muttered, flipping a switch. “Let’s see what this thing has to say.”

The machine groaned to life, lights flickering weakly across its surface. Ren watched as the screen lit up with a series of strange symbols—spirals, numbers, and something that looked vaguely like a map.

“There,” Kai whispered, pointing to a blinking dot on the screen. “That’s our anchor.”

Ren squinted at the map. The dot pulsed softly, like a heartbeat—and it wasn’t located inside the lab.

It was somewhere else entirely.

Ren’s stomach twisted. “That can’t be right.”

Kai glanced at him, eyebrow raised. “Why not?”

Ren swallowed hard. “Because that’s the park.”

Kai’s expression darkened. “The same park you were at earlier?”

Ren nodded, dread settling in his chest. “Yeah. And it’s still waiting.”

As the machine’s hum faded into silence, Ren knew one thing for sure: whatever was waiting for him at the park, it wasn’t just an anchor—it was the past, present, and future, all tangled into one final knot that demanded to be untied.