Chapter 1: Dream Loops
"Wait—you're telling me you have the exact same dream every night? And you always wake up at precisely 00:42?"
The man wore an oversized cat mask—cartoonishly grinning, the ears exaggerated. He eyed Elias Crane, who stood nervously in the shadows of the quiet street.
"Dude! That's awesome," the masked man guffawed. "You realize that means in your dream, you can do anything? Stab people, blow stuff up, jump off rooftops—no consequences! Must be a thrill ride!"
Click.
He slammed a fresh magazine into his pistol and chambered a round.
"But hey, no need to stay in dreamland tonight. I've got something real lined up."
He pointed across the street, toward the city bank. Its massive front doors were ajar—someone had already pried them open from the inside.
"My guys broke into the bank. Let's go!"
Elias swallowed hard, adjusting the hero-themed mask on his own face—he'd found it in a street vendor stall earlier that night, more for fun than anything else. "Uh… Mind telling me what to call you, man?"
"They call me 'Claw' in the underworld." The man's broad jaw muscles flexed behind his cartoon cat mask, making the smiling feline face look even more distorted. "But you can call me 'Boss.'"
Elias gave a polite nod. "Sure thing, Boss. What exactly am I supposed to do here?"
"Not your turn yet, 'expert.'" Claw jerked his head toward Elias. "Stick with me and don't run off."
A hush fell over the street as the two jogged across to the open bank door. Inside, shadows stretched across the marble floor.
"S'all good?" Claw asked one of his underlings standing by the entrance.
The man nodded.
Without warning, Claw pressed the muzzle of his pistol to the henchman's forehead.
Bang!
Blood splattered across the nearby wall.
He casually wiped the gun's barrel and patted Elias on the shoulder.
"One less person to split the money with."
Elias's face twisted with shock behind his mask. "Wasn't he one of your guys?"
"He had sticky fingers," Claw grumbled. "I can't trust him. Better safe than sorry."
The cat-masked man strode deeper into the bank, motioning for Elias to follow.
"So, yeah," Elias muttered. "This is… quite the operation you're running."
"Eh, don't sweat the details." Claw's grin was audible. "Look, at least that means there's more cash for us, right?"
They hurried down a corridor until another masked man, crouched by a fuse box, looked up. "I've cut off the main alarm wires—"
Bang!
A second shot at point-blank range. Another body crumpled.
Elias raised his hands in surrender. "Boss, you're making me very uneasy right now." He pointed at the fresh corpse. "Don't tell me this guy also had sticky fingers?"
Claw shook his head, annoyed. "He was messing around with my lady. Couldn't let that slide, either."
Elias let out an exasperated sigh. "Being your underling seems like a high-risk job, man."
Claw shrugged. "All minor details! Now it's just you and me—more loot to split. Isn't that great?"
"Fantastic," Elias said drily, ducking out of Claw's half-embrace. "Just don't get any ideas about blowing me away to keep it all."
Claw thumped his own chest as if in genuine offense, then reached behind his back, producing a lump of gray putty wrapped in duct tape. He handed it to Elias.
Elias frowned. "And this is…?"
"C4 explosive," Claw said, flicking the small detonator switch. "See? Trigger's armed. If you really think I'm about to do you dirty, you just press that button and blow us both. Feel better now?"
Elias forced a half-smile and gave a reluctant thumbs-up. "Trustworthy as ever, Boss."
They continued toward an old metal security door. A third henchman came sprinting up from a basement corridor. "Boss, I've severed the building's main power line—"
Bang!
And then there was one more body. Elias just exhaled, throwing up his hands in defeat. "Well, how many of us are left to split the score?"
"Just the two of us!" Claw roared with triumphant laughter, urging Elias onward. "Look, we're almost there!"
They arrived at a heavily reinforced vault door with a shining digital keypad in its center—except the keypad was dead and the door looked sealed shut from a mechanical failsafe.
"All right, 'password expert,' do your thing!" Claw grumbled, pointing to the vault.
"But what's the code?"
"If I knew that," Claw snarled, "I wouldn't have dragged you along!" He glanced nervously at his watch. "We haven't got much time before backup generators come online and the alarm triggers. Hurry!"
Elias inhaled sharply. "Right, I can see you're in a hurry. Let me think for a second…"
As Elias approached the vault, Claw anxiously paced, the tension in his voice growing. "How long do you need?"
"Ten."
"Ten minutes?" Claw practically shrieked. "That's forever!"
"Nine… eight… seven…"
Claw looked confused. "Huh?"
By the time he realized what was happening, Elias was sprinting away. Only then did Claw notice the chunk of C4 Elias had slapped onto the vault door. The little red display on the detonator counted down relentlessly.
"Shift!" Claw dove out of the corridor, slamming into the outer wall just as—
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
A series of thunderous explosions shredded the vault door, sending debris raining down in every direction. Claw's ears rang as twisted metal pelted his body.
Coughing through dust and blood, he howled, "You call yourself an expert? Blowing up the door counts as cracking the code?!"
Elias sauntered closer, massaging his ears to ease the ringing. "Efficient, right?"
"Man, you…!" Claw dragged himself upright, spitting curses.
Ignoring him, Elias turned his attention to the newly opened vault. He expected to see towering stacks of money or gold bars. Instead, the place was strangely… empty.
Not a single bill littered the floor. No gold glimmered in the faint light. Instead, rows of small steel safety deposit boxes lined the walls, each marked with a name in neat letters.
Elias squinted at them as he walked along the lockers:
Jordan Chang.
Lisa Lu.
Walter Lee.
Elias Crane.
His breath caught in his throat.
Elias Crane?!
He double-checked to be sure. Yes—one of the boxes had his own name clearly engraved on it.
"How… Why does this place have a safety deposit box for me?"
Click.
Suddenly, a hot muzzle pressed against the back of Elias's head.
"Easy, Claw," Elias said calmly, hands raised. "Don't shoot. I'm not the sticky-fingered type, and I definitely haven't messed around with your girlfriend."
He tried a thin grin. "So maybe let's call a truce?"
Silence—then a voice answered, but it was not the gravelly tone of Claw. It was a woman's voice.
"You should thank me for not letting that man shoot you earlier."
Elias turned around, seeing a new figure: a slender woman, her hair tightly pinned up, wearing the exact same type of mask as Elias—some random store-bought hero mask. Lying at her feet was Claw's body, the cat mask stained red, a smoking pistol still in his limp hand. The back of his skull had a gaping hole.
"You… you killed him?" Elias stammered.
The woman calmly prodded the corpse aside with her boot. "He was going to kill you, then me, and keep the money for himself. I'd say he got what he deserved."
Elias forced a nervous laugh. "You folks are incredibly hard to team up with, you know that?"
She stepped around Elias without answering, eyes sweeping over the lines of steel boxes until she paused at the one labeled Elias Crane. Her gloved fingers brushed the mechanical tumbler. She groaned in frustration and tossed aside a handheld hacking device.
"Figures. It's an old-school mechanical lock."
She pressed her ear to it, trying to crack the tumblers by sound alone.
Elias, recovering from his initial shock, peered curiously from behind her. "So, what exactly is inside that deposit box?"
"No idea," the woman replied curtly.
"Are you looking for Elias Crane, then?"
"I don't know him."
"Then why are you—"
"Enough questions." She shot Elias a cold glare through her mask. "Go stand somewhere else before I decide to quiet you the same way."
Elias fell silent but watched intently. He studied the numbers on the vault's dial. There were eight rotating wheels, each presumably part of the lock combination.
He cleared his throat. "Try 19990320."
She paused. "What did you say?"
"19-99-03-20." Elias repeated the sequence.
Her eyes narrowed in annoyance. "And why would that be the combination?"
"It's…my birthday," Elias said firmly. "I'm Elias Crane, so if this box is meant for me—"
She stared. "You can't be serious."
Elias squared his shoulders. "We're short on time. The bank's emergency power will come online any second, and the alarms will start blaring. Do I look like I'm joking?"
She sized him up, somewhat convinced by his adamant tone. "Fine. Give it here again."
"19990320."
She spun each of the eight dials to match the sequence, exhaled, and pressed the lever—
Click.
…Nothing. The lock refused to open.
Elias gaped. "But… that should've…"
She drew in a seething breath through her teeth. "I should've let that psycho blow your head off, birthday boy."
Elias backed up with his hands raised, deciding it was safer not to say more. Meanwhile, the woman resumed fiddling with the lock, cursing under her breath.
Beeeep!
Suddenly, the bank's alarm system wailed into life. Red emergency lights flickered along the corridors: the main power had been restored.
The woman slammed a fist on the metal box in frustration. Elias glanced at the watch strapped to his wrist:
00:41:53
…
00:41:54
…
He inhaled. "All right. Time's up. We'd better get out of here and come back another day."
"Are you insane?" she snapped. "After the mess you made, do you really think you'll just barge in back in tomorrow?"
Elias stared at her—though she couldn't see his face fully through his mask, she could sense his strange, unwavering calm.
"I'll have another chance," he said softly. "Every day. Trust me on that."
He gave a little wave. "Good luck."
Before she could respond, there was a sudden flash of blinding white light—
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
The roar of an explosion drowned out everything else. Elias felt heat sear across his senses, then nothing—no pain, no time to brace. The light swallowed him whole, annihilating reality in a single instant—
Huff…
A soft breeze rustled the window curtains. Moonlight spilled onto the floorboards. From the street below came the hum of late-night diners, the clink of glasses, and muffled laughter. Next door, water pipes rattled as someone flushed a toilet.
On the desk, a few scattered pages of scientific notes fluttered in the breeze. A tablet blinked in sleep mode, opening and closing like an idle clam.
In the corner of the bedroom, Elias Crane bolted upright in bed, breathing fast. He pressed a trembling hand to his forehead. He squinted at the digital clock on the nightstand:
[December 7, 2025]
[00:42:01]
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[00:42:02]
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[00:42:03]
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[00:42:04]