By the third day, Elior stopped counting time the way he used to.
Morning did not mean rest anymore. Night did not mean sleep. Everything was measured by how far it was from the moment the sky would turn green again.
He woke up before dawn every day, not because he wanted to but because his body refused to stay still. The first thing he did was pull the curtain aside and look up. He did it half afraid that he would already be too late, that the world would have ended quietly without him noticing.
The sky remained ordinary. Blue when the sun rose. Grey when clouds drifted in. Empty of anything unnatural.
That should have been comforting. It was not.
Aria noticed the change in him quickly. She always did.
On the fourth morning, she stood beside him at the window, arms folded loosely, following his gaze upward.
"You keep looking like you're waiting for something," she said.
Elior forced himself to look away. "I just like the sky."
She smiled faintly, but it did not reach her eyes. "Since when?"
He had no answer for that.
As the days passed, he began altering his routine in small ways. He left the apartment earlier than usual, then later. He took different streets to familiar places. He avoided the city center entirely, circling around it like it was infected.
He told himself he was being careful, not paranoid.
At work, his focus suffered. He read the same paragraph repeatedly without absorbing it. Numbers blurred together. Conversations felt distant, like they were happening through glass.
His coworkers noticed. One of them asked if he was sick. Another joked that Elior looked like he had seen a ghost.
He laughed along weakly and said nothing.
The fifth day brought rain that lasted from morning until evening. It soaked the city and pressed everything flat. Sound dulled. Movement slowed. Elior felt a strange relief watching water stream down the windows. Rain made the sky harder to see.
That night, Aria cooked dinner while he sat at the table, hands clasped tightly together. He watched her move around the kitchen, the familiar rhythm of her steps grounding him more than anything else had all week.
"You're quieter than usual," she said without looking at him.
"I'm thinking."
"You've been thinking for days."
He nodded. "I know."
She set a plate in front of him and finally met his eyes. "You don't have to carry everything alone."
Elior wanted to tell her. Really tell her. Not about the end of the world, but about the way the memory sat inside him like a weight he could not put down. About how every normal moment felt borrowed. About how terrified he was of the exact second ticking toward them.
Instead, he said, "I'm trying."
She accepted that answer, but something in her expression remained unresolved.
The sixth day came and went without incident. No strange lights. No sudden silence. The world behaved exactly as it always had.
Elior almost let himself believe that maybe something had changed. That maybe his awareness alone had altered the outcome. That maybe the loop had been broken without him realizing it.
That night, he slept for almost four uninterrupted hours. When he woke, disoriented, he thought for a brief moment that everything was over.
Then he remembered the date.
Tomorrow.
The seventh day arrived quietly.
Elior woke before his alarm, heart pounding, breath shallow. The room was still dark. Aria slept beside him, turned slightly toward him, one hand resting against his arm as if anchoring herself there.
He lay still, listening to her breathing, memorizing the sound.
When the sun finally rose, it did so gently, casting pale light across the walls. Nothing about the morning felt special. That terrified him more than any warning sign could have.
He checked the time. Too early.
He stayed home.
He made breakfast he barely tasted. He washed dishes that were already clean. He organized drawers that had not been opened in months. Anything to stay inside. Anything to keep the world small.
Aria watched him move through the apartment with careful attention.
"You're acting like you're waiting for bad news," she said.
"I just want today to be normal," Elior replied.
She tilted her head. "Normal usually happens when you let it."
He did not answer.
As the hours passed, relief crept in again. Noon came. Early afternoon followed. The sky remained unchanged. The city hummed along outside, unaware of the deadline Elior felt looming over everything.
Maybe it had been tied to the exact circumstances of that first day. The exact path he had walked. The exact conversation he had been having. Maybe avoiding those things was enough.
He let himself sit down on the couch and breathe.
Then Aria's phone rang.
She frowned at the screen. "It's my sister."
She answered, her voice shifting into concern almost immediately. Elior watched her expression change as she listened.
"What happened?" she asked.
Elior sat up straighter.
After a moment, Aria covered the phone and looked at him. "She says she left some documents at the community center. The place is closing early because of the storm damage from yesterday. They need someone to pick them up before it closes or they get locked in over the weekend."
Elior felt his chest tighten.
"Can't she go herself?" he asked.
"She's out of town," Aria replied. "She asked if I could grab them."
Elior checked the time without meaning to. Too close. Still enough time to turn it down.
"I can go," Aria said, already standing. "It's just a few streets over."
The image of her walking alone through the city struck him harder than it should have.
"I'll come with you," he said immediately.
She paused. "You don't have to."
"I want to."
She searched his face, then nodded. "Okay."
They left the apartment together.
The air outside felt heavier than it had an hour earlier. The sky was still blue, but there was a subtle tension to it, like the calm before a storm that never arrived.
They walked side by side, their pace unhurried. Elior consciously avoided the routes he knew too well, guiding them through quieter streets.
"This way's longer," Aria noted.
"That's fine," he said. "We're not in a rush."
They talked as they walked. Small things. A show they had half watched. A restaurant they kept meaning to try. Elior clung to the normalcy of it like a lifeline.
The community center appeared ahead, a low building with lights on inside. Relief washed over him.
Almost done.
Aria went inside while Elior waited by the entrance, watching the street. People passed by without concern. A bus rolled past, splashing through a puddle.
Nothing felt wrong.
Aria returned a few minutes later holding a folder. "Got them."
Daniel smiled, a real one this time. "See? Easy."
They started back.
Halfway down the block, Aria's phone buzzed again. She glanced at it and slowed.
"It's my sister again," she said. "She forgot to mention one more thing. The original copies are at the records office. They close in fifteen minutes."
Elior stopped walking.
"That's farther," Aria added. "Downtown."
The word settled heavily in his chest.
"I can go alone," she offered quickly. "You don't look well."
Elior looked at her. At the concern in her eyes. At the trust.
If he said no, she would go anyway.
"I'm fine," he said. "Let's go."
They headed toward the busier streets. The closer they got, the more the pressure built, subtle at first, like a tightness behind his eyes.
Elior told himself it was anxiety. That fear could mimic anything if you let it.
The records office came into view. A familiar intersection. Too familiar.
They stopped at the curb, waiting for the light.
That was when Elior felt it fully.
The pressure expanded outward, filling the space around him. Not pain. Not sound. A presence that pressed inward from all directions at once.
He looked up.
The sky had not changed yet.
But he knew.
The seventh day had arrived.
And he was standing exactly where he should not be