He was standing in his old apartment. It was dark, save for the blue glow of a laptop screen in the corner. There she was. Elena was sitting on the floor, typing away at her thesis, completely unaware of the temporal anomaly forming behind her.
Arthur stared at the digital timestamp blinking on his monitor: . 1676971801.002
Arthur watched in horror as the air around Elena began to fracture like broken glass. The timestamp was executing itself. He was standing in his old apartment
The hum rose to a glass-shattering shriek. The air turned the metallic color of a bruised sky. Arthur squeezed his eyes shut as a blinding flash of white light swallowed his vision. Elena was sitting on the floor, typing away
At 1676971801.002, the universe didn't just take her; it traded her. Arthur felt a violent, invisible vacuum pull at his chest. He realized his mistake too late. The law of conservation applied to time just as it did to energy. To pull someone out of a moment, someone else had to take their place.
Arthur stood alone in the dark apartment in 2023, watching the blue light of the laptop fade. He sat down in her empty chair, looked at the blinking cursor, and began to type a message he knew she would find three years later.
Arthur tried to speak, but his voice was a silent vibration. He looked at the digital clock on the desk. 01:30:00 AM.