Olfactory Singularity

The jasmine-scented quantum cloud collapsed into a brain-shaped form within the vacuum decay, and Arthur floated at the center of the fragrance singularity. He saw that every scent molecule was a dying memory of Erin. His tear ducts quantumized at that moment, and the drops collided with the fragrance particles, projecting a hologram of Raymond's 1905 lab.

"Fragrance is the graveyard of my consciousness," Erin's voice emanated from the scent molecules. "Every moment you smell it, it's my death replayed in a parallel timeline."

Arthur's olfactory nerves suddenly connected to the fragrance database, and his hippocampus was forcibly flooded with forty thousand murder scenes. The oldest memory made his soul shiver: on the delivery bed in 1905, Erin's original body (AC-0001) was injecting jasmine essence into the newborn's fontanelle—the baby's genetic map perfectly matched his own.

"Fragrance cognition modulation starting." Raymond's mechanical arm emerged from the fragrance cloud, adjusting Arthur's dopamine secretion. "You need a sufficient concentration of regret to activate the ultimate scent."

Arthur's lungs crystallized into perfume bottles, and each exhaled breath reconstructed a murder scene. When he touched the nearest perfume bottle, the truth of the wedding day appeared inside: Erin's bouquet concealed a jasmine fragrance bomb—her death was the final line of defense to prevent Raymond's consciousness upload.

The fragrance singularity suddenly went berserk, forming a scent corridor spanning twenty timelines. In each corridor, Arthur saw a different version of himself: the seven-year-old boy pressing the remote, sniffing his mother's handkerchief; his drunken self on the wedding night, collapsed in front of Erin's perfume cabinet; in the Time Management Bureau's interrogation room, he was frantically sniffing the bloodstained lab coat—each scene's jasmine essence concentration precisely measured to 0.0001%.

"Now, become my vessel." Erin's consciousness cloud collapsed into a rain of perfume, each drop enclosing a time singularity. Arthur's skin began to seep the fragrance, and every pore played Raymond's most terrifying memory: On a 1905 midnight, a young Raymond knelt in a jasmine field, trembling as he filled a perfume bottle with the brain matter of AC-0001.

When the fragrance concentration surpassed the critical threshold, Arthur's optic nerves suddenly saw dimensions beyond the light spectrum. Billions of Erin's corpses floated in the quantum fragrance sea, their radial arteries connected to the jasmine roots, forming a cross-dimensional neural network. The youngest Erin corpse raised its rotting hand and pointed to the black flower bud in the center of the fragrance sea—within it slept the primordial evil of all timelines.

"Let the fragrance bloom." Eight hundred thousand corpses whispered in unison. "This is the only herbicide capable of killing the Raymond seed."

As Arthur swam toward the black flower bud, he realized his bones were turning into jasmine. The instant his fingertips touched the bud, forty years of murder memories exploded like pollen. In the fragrance illusion, he simultaneously experienced all of his identities: killer, husband, experiment subject, father. In the final illusion, Erin's original body held his hand and pressed the detonation button, while Raymond, in the jasmine field, coughed out his first mouthful of fragrant blood.

The Time Management Bureau's cleansing beam suddenly cut through the fragrance sea. Before Arthur dissolved, he shoved the black flower bud into his heart. The supernova of jasmine fragrance exploded at that moment, and the CR-2049 components from all timelines bloomed into white flowers, while Erin's corpses smiled within the petals—her consciousness was finally released from the fragrance prison, condensed into a quantum lighthouse pointing to the reference space and time.

As the last cell of Arthur jasmine-ized, he heard Erin's first cry in the fragrance. In the 1905 delivery room, Mary cradled the untainted infant, while outside the window, Raymond smashed a perfume bottle in the jasmine field. This was the only clean timeline in the temporal folds, and the cost of maintaining its existence was the eternal loneliness of all fragrance bearers.