Ren adjusted the dials on the ChronoRing, the device humming softly against her wrist. She’d only ever used it for minor adjustments—skipping traffic jams, fixing a botched presentation, reliving a perfect date. But tonight, she was breaking all the rules.

She stood in the alley outside her apartment, heart pounding as she replayed the memory. Her brother’s face, pale and lifeless, the screech of tires, the sound of glass shattering. The accident had taken him two years ago. And tonight, it wouldn’t.

Ren took a deep breath and pressed the button.

The world around her shimmered, a wave of distortion washing over the alley. The air grew thick, her vision blurred, and for a moment, she felt like she was drowning in static.

Then it was over.

She stood on the same street, but it was daylight now, two years earlier. Across the road, she spotted her brother, Elias, headphones on, walking toward the crosswalk. She froze as the memory unfolded in real-time—the truck barreling toward the intersection, its horn blaring, Elias unaware.

“Elias!” she screamed, sprinting toward him.

He turned, startled, as she tackled him to the ground. The truck roared past, missing them by inches.

“Ren? What the hell?” he gasped, pushing her off.

Tears streamed down her face as she clung to him. “I had to save you. I couldn’t let it happen again.”

But Elias didn’t hear her. His face twisted in confusion as he stared at something over her shoulder. Ren turned and saw herself—another version of her—standing frozen on the sidewalk, watching them.

“No,” Ren whispered, her stomach dropping.

The ChronoRing on her wrist began to glow, emitting a high-pitched whine. Her double stared back at her, horror in her eyes, before collapsing to the ground.

Pain shot through Ren’s chest like lightning. She gasped, clutching at the ring, which now burned her skin. The whine grew louder, her vision blurring as reality itself seemed to buckle.

“Ren!” Elias yelled, his voice fading.

She fell to her knees, her body dissolving into fragments of light. She had broken the one rule of time manipulation: never create a paradox. By saving Elias, she’d unraveled her own timeline.

Her last thought before she disappeared entirely was of her brother, alive and confused, standing in a world she could no longer exist in.