Arin hadn't slept in forty hours.
His hands shook as he packed the hard drives, labeling each one in his tight, meticulous handwriting.
The light from his desk lamp stuttered every few seconds, matching the pulse in his temple.
He kept glancing at the clock — 02:54 a.m.
Three minutes until it started again.
Three minutes until the world rewound.
He hit record on his voice log, forcing his voice steady.
> "Personal note. Time irregularities increasing. Ripple radius now extends beyond lab perimeter.
Every anomaly begins at 02:57 and ends precisely three minutes later.
I think... something followed me back."
His throat went dry as he replayed the words.
They sounded insane — but he knew insanity didn't leave data trails, didn't mark time loops, didn't erase people.
He wasn't imagining this.
And if he was — he'd prove it wrong.
---
By morning, the sky was the color of bruised steel.
Arin's car engine coughed twice before starting, as if time itself hesitated to let him go.
He drove through empty streets toward the university's central research wing — Mira's old department.
The corridors smelled faintly of ozone and disinfectant.
Every footstep echoed too loud, too long, like sound replaying itself.
He found Dr. Anaya Mehta hunched over a stack of papers, her silver hair pulled back, glasses perched on her nose.
When she saw him, she blinked — once, slowly — as though it took her mind a moment to catch up to his presence.
> "Arin?" she said softly. "My God, you look like death."
He almost laughed. "That's… not far off."
> "You shouldn't be here. You were in an accident."
"I need access," he cut in. "Mira's project files. The ones marked Borderline."
Her expression hardened.
> "That research was decommissioned years ago. It was a dead end — literally."
He leaned forward, his voice shaking.
> "No. Mira wasn't wrong. She found something — something between death and memory. I've seen it."
Anaya hesitated. "You're still processing trauma, Arin—"
> "I flatlined for three minutes."
The words hung in the air like a blade.
"Three minutes," he repeated. "And something happened there. Something that came back with me."
---
He showed her the footage — the janitor's vanishing, the time-looping feed, the digital whiteouts.
For three full minutes, she said nothing, her eyes darting across the screen.
> "Could be compression artifacts," she said finally, but her voice faltered.
"Artifacts don't erase people, Doctor."
Anaya's knuckles whitened around her mug. She glanced toward the darkened hallway, as if afraid of being overheard.
> "Mira Das recorded similar events before her death. We thought they were hallucinations caused by hypoxia."
"She wasn't hallucinating," Arin said. "She was mapping the other side."
Her eyes flicked up to his.
> "And you think you are too?"
"I don't think," he whispered. "I know."
---
Anaya exhaled slowly, then said,
> "Send me your data. I'll review it discreetly. But you need rest. You're starting to sound like Mira did near the end."
Arin opened his mouth to argue — then stopped.
In the reflection of her office window, his own image lagged a fraction of a second behind his movement.
It tilted its head — just slightly — before catching up.
He blinked.
When he looked again, the reflection was normal.
He forced a smile. "Sure. I'll go home."
---
That evening, Anaya sat at her desk with his drives.
The folders were neatly labeled, but every name had changed overnight.
All of them read:
> RETURN.
Her cursor moved on its own — opening one of the directories.
The files inside were blank except for a single audio file looping a low hum — like breathing through static.
The lights flickered.
Her computer clock jumped to 02:57.
---
At the same moment, across the city, Arin's phone vibrated on his desk.
A message from Anaya:
"I saw it too."
Before he could reply, the message vanished.
In its place appeared a single notification: an audio file from her number.
He played it.
At first, only static — then the faint sound of her voice.
> "…Arin, don't come back. Whatever it is… it remembers you."
The file ended at exactly 03:00.
---
He sat in the dark, listening to the ticking of his wall clock.
Three beats.
Pause.
Three beats.
Then silence —
and from somewhere deep in the apartment, a whisper that did not belong to him:
> "Three minutes left."