Victor Coleman
Victor never remembered the room being this alive.
The air hummed with something thick and warm — the kind of presence that only came with people who loved each other too long to say it outright. There was no music playing, no chatter of screens, only voices. Familiar ones. Ones that used to echo through these walls before time did what time does: silence them.
He sat sunken into the old chair with the uneven leg, the one his wife always hated, though now she sat across from him, cross-legged on the couch, her hair wrapped in a lazy bun, knitting something — a scarf, maybe. She wasn't very good at it, never had been, but her hands moved like they remembered a rhythm the mind had long let go.
Their daughter leaned against the armrest, swirling wine in her glass with the lazy defiance of someone who still hadn't decided whether to forgive her childhood or not. And between them — on the carpet where toys had once been banned — sat the twins: a boy and a girl, a chaotic reflection of each other, building a castle out of cards, crayons, and stray buttons.
"Mom," the boy piped, "tell Grandpa what Dad did with the car."
The girl giggled before her mother could speak. "He tried to fix the engine with chewing gum."
"Oh come on," Victor groaned, grinning. "Even I wouldn't do that."
"No," said his daughter with a smirk, "you'd just rewrite the laws of physics to avoid an oil change."
"Sounds efficient," Victor said, raising his glass. "And dangerously innovative."
"You know," she added, tilting her head, "he's not all bad. He just had the misfortune of trying to marry into your DNA."
Laughter burst from the room like sunlight through old curtains. Even his wife chuckled, though she barely looked up from her stitching.
Victor laughed too — not the sharp bark of sarcasm he usually offered, but something gentler. A laugh with roots in it.
He looked at each of them in turn, and felt — not the tight, aching nostalgia that used to grip him when he was alone — but warmth. Real, stubborn warmth. The kind you get only when time forgets to be cruel.
"How is this even happening?" he whispered to no one.
His wife glanced up. "What's that, dear?"
He blinked. "Nothing. Just thinking."
"Don't," she smiled. "That's how trouble starts."
He leaned back. "Too late for that."
The evening moved slowly, like it didn't want to end.
They shared food. Told old stories. Mocked each other with a kind of reverence only the broken-hearted understand. Victor's daughter lit candles that flickered against the shelves, casting shadows that danced with memory. The twins passed out on the floor halfway through a board game with no rules. His wife kept knitting. Victor kept watching.
10:21 PM.
The fireplace popped softly. The wine bottle emptied. The silence that came was not hollow — it was full, heavy with things unsaid, but understood.
Victor stood, stretching the way old men do when pretending not to be broken. He wandered into the kitchen — same cracked tiles, same old stove. He reached for the kettle out of habit, then paused.
There was a smell.
Not sharp. Not bitter.
Just faint.
Off.
He turned the stove knob.
Click. Click.
No flame. Just sound.
He frowned.
When he returned to the living room, the scene hadn't changed. Except maybe it had.
His wife was still knitting.
His daughter still watching the candlelight.
The twins still curled together.
But something was different.
Too still.
Too quiet.
Victor opened his mouth. His tongue felt thick.
10:28 PM.
"I think—" he began.
And then, silence.
Not the warm kind.
Not sacred.
Not peaceful.
Just... gone.
His wife's hands stopped mid-stitch. Her shoulders slumped forward as if sleep had overtaken her in an instant.
His daughter leaned sideways, wine glass slipping from her fingers, shattering quietly on the rug.
The twins made no sound as they folded into each other, still breathing one moment — and not the next.
Victor didn't move.
Couldn't.
His limbs froze. His thoughts spun. The gas — the stove — the smell.
No. No. Not again.
He stumbled forward, knocking over the table. His knees hit the floor. He reached for them, each in turn, hands shaking, calling names he'd already mourned once before.
They didn't wake.
Didn't flinch.
Didn't laugh.
The room dimmed, the air thickening with invisible poison.
Victor gasped. Choked. Crawled.
He tried to scream.
But his lungs betrayed him, his throat closing with each breath he fought to take.
He reached the fireplace.
Collapsed.
Face against the rug.
Eyes wide.
Heart cracking.
He woke up.
Not slowly.
Not gently.
But like a drowning man breaking through ice.
Gasping. Soaked in sweat. Gagging on air.
The room was dark.
No fire.
No candles.
No family.
Just him.
Lying alone on the floor.
A bottle beside his hand.
Half-full.
Or half-empty.
And nothing else.
Just silence.
And the sound of a clock ticking toward nothing.
Victor lay still for a long time after waking, his breath ragged, eyes wide and unseeing. The silence that greeted him wasn't just absence — it was judgment. His head pounded with the dull throb of too many regrets and not enough blood sugar. Sweat clung to his skin like guilt.
No fireplace.
No laughter.
Just a cold floor, a warm bottle, and the slow realization that his body hadn't moved from the place where, in a dream too vivid to be fiction, his family had died — again.
He groaned, more out of disbelief than pain, and rolled to his side. His hand landed on the bottle like it knew the way. He didn't even look at it. Just drank. Long, deep, defiant.
"This," he muttered, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, "is why dreams should come with warning labels."
His voice rasped. He sounded like sandpaper and sarcasm.
He sat up. Tried to stand. Failed. Swore. Laughed at himself.
Eventually, he crawled toward the wall and leaned against it, letting his head fall back with a dull thunk.
The room was exactly as he remembered — because it had never changed. Time didn't touch this place. Not really. It just accumulated like dust, indifferent and infinite.
Victor, however, was touched plenty.
He looked like a ghost in reverse — too solid, too tired, too loud for a man who'd outlived his own patience. Hair like overgrown static. Lab coat stained with things no one dared to classify. Fingers twitching not from age, but from ideas trying to escape skin.
He wasn't drunk yet.
Not properly.
That would take more effort.
So he made it.
He poured whatever remained from the nearby bottles — wine, whiskey, something blue and probably illegal — into a beaker. Stirred it with a pen. Took a sip. Coughed. Took another.
"There we go," he said to the empty air, voice thickening. "Breakfast of champions."
Then, without invitation or logic, the laughter came.
Low at first, then building — manic, melodic, too loud for the size of the room. He laughed until his chest ached, until the tears came — not from grief, but from the absurdity of feeling anything at all.
"You manipulative bastards," he said aloud, as if accusing the universe. "You couldn't just let them stay dead, could you? No, no — let's throw in a dream with eye contact and sarcasm and knitting! Just to really twist the scalpel."
He threw the beaker across the room.
It didn't break.
It bounced.
"Of course," he muttered, "nothing breaks when you want it to."
The silence returned.
And stayed.
He moved eventually. Drunken steps through the remains of brilliance. Wires and tools and prototypes surrounded him like relics of a temple built by a mad god. Diagrams pinned to the wall beside unpaid bills and sarcastic sticky notes. Equations written in perfect, obsessive scrawl.
And in the center — dormant, humming, waiting — the device.
He didn't look at it.
He didn't mean to.
He just ended up there.
As if grief had given his legs directions.
Victor swayed in front of it, eyes red, breath shallow. His fingers hovered over the controls.
Not with intent.
Just... muscle memory.
Some part of him — the deep, core Victor — the one made of formulas and failures and too much genius for his own good — knew what this machine was.
What it could do.
What it had already done.
And what it wasn't supposed to be used for.
"You know," he slurred, tapping the edge of the console, "I never built you to go back. That was never the point. Forward, maybe. Sideways, definitely. But back? That's cheating. That's denial in a lab coat."
He blinked.
Paused.
Laughed again — but this time quietly, almost sweetly.
"But God... just once more."
His hand moved. Sloppy. Hesitant.
He flipped the first switch.
A whir. A click. A pulse of violet light.
The air around him thickened.
The console blinked to life — lights dancing like memories.
He didn't flinch.
Didn't think.
Didn't plan.
Not this time.
Because tonight — for the first time in years — Victor had seen them.
Not photos. Not projections. Not simulations or reconstructions.
Them.
Alive.
Laughing.
And then dying.
Again.
But this time, he'd been there.
And he'd stayed behind.
Alone.
And something in him, brilliant and broken and drunk beyond reason, whispered:
"No."
Not again.
He leaned forward.
His hand found the command line.
He didn't enter coordinates.
Didn't need to.
The machine knew what he wanted.
And for once, it didn't argue.
With a final press of his trembling fingers, Victor activated the machine.
The world around him began to shift.
Reality bent, gently — like it pitied him.
And Victor, too far gone to fight it, simply smiled through wet eyes.
And whispered,
"Let's go."
The world didn't explode.
No blinding flash. No thunderclap. No cinematic swirl of particles.
Just a blink.
And then... not here.
Victor stood, slightly crooked, slightly nauseous, in a space that didn't obey the basic social contract of reality. It was a corridor, but not really. A kind of non-place, too clean, too bright, too humming with invisible surveillance. The walls were smooth, reflective — but refused to show his face. The air had a taste — like disappointment and printer toner.
He blinked.
"Oh," he said aloud, "right. This place."
He threw his hands up in mock apology. "Silly me. Forgot about the galactic time police."
As if summoned by sarcasm, a voice descended — or maybe just occurred.
"Unauthorized temporal displacement detected. Subject: Victor Coleman. Violation of Section 14-B: Retro-Temporal Intrusion."
"Wow," Victor muttered, swaying slightly. "Fourteen B. I didn't realize we'd gotten that far. I must've missed the newsletter."
A shimmering panel opened on the far wall, revealing three figures in tight, forgettable uniforms. Clean. Efficient. Terribly boring.
They were exactly the kind of people who'd invent acronyms like [[T.I.M.E]] and think it was clever.
Temporal Integrity & Manipulation Enforcement.
Victor had met them before.
Well — been arrested by them, technically.
They stepped forward with the air of people who'd waited their whole careers to catch someone like him.
"Dr. coleman" the lead officer began, holding a sleek baton that looked like it had more buttons than a jet cockpit. "You are in direct violation of—"
"Hold on," Victor interrupted, raising a finger. "Are you seriously opening with that? After all this time?"
A pause. The officer blinked. "We—"
"No 'Welcome back'? No 'Nice to see you again, oh Master of Quantum Irreverence'? Not even a hug?"
The second officer raised a tablet. "You are currently in breach of—"
"Oh my God," Victor groaned, rubbing his face. "Is this your thing? Quoting regulations at emotionally damaged geniuses at four A.M.?"
He stumbled slightly, leaning against a console that didn't exist a moment ago.
"I get it," he continued, voice slurring in elegant spirals. "You're the guardians of causality. The priests of the paradox. You make sure nobody sneaks back to hug Grandma or kill Hitler, or — heaven forbid — see their dead kids smile one more time."
His tone darkened for just a beat.
Then he smiled.
Too wide.
Too knowing.
"Let me save you the monologue, boys. I'm not here to break history. Just to borrow it."
One of the officers stepped forward, baton raised. "You're not authorized to access this junction. Please prepare for temporal nullification."
Victor grinned, stumbling closer with arms half-raised in theatrical surrender. "Oh no," he gasped. "Nullification. My favorite."
And then he leaned in and whispered:
"Check your left boot."
The officer blinked.
Then screamed.
A sudden spark, a small explosion, a magnetic pulse triggered by some unseen sleight of hand.
Victor laughed as the room flickered. "You guys never change the footwear protocols. You're worse than government IT."
Sirens flared — or rather, light pulsed in bureaucratic disapproval.
Another panel opened. Backup? Reinforcements?
Victor didn't wait.
He was already moving — not fast, not strong, just correct. He knew exactly where to step, which wall to bypass, which console to ignore.
This wasn't his first dance.
Hell, he'd built half of this tech. Stole the other half. Improved both.
"Catch me and I'll teach you how to bend reality using duct tape and existential shame!" he called back, laughing maniacally.
He darted down a corridor of shimmering light, past doors labeled in languages humanity hadn't invented yet. One console beeped as he passed — a confirmation ping.
"Auto-authentication confirmed: Thorn-Class Signature."
"Oh, now you remember me," Victor muttered.
He rounded a corner and found it: the emergency tether pad. A backup device. Rare. Untested. Probably illegal.
Perfect.
He activated it without ceremony.
"No countdown?" he mused. "No dramatic pause?"
The pad began to pulse.
The air folded.
He felt the pull in his spine — the taste of memory on his tongue.
He glanced back, just once, as the officers tripped over each other in pursuit.
He winked.
"Tell the Board I said hi. And to eat a paradox."
Then he was gone.
The transition spat him out behind a row of dumpsters that smelled like old meat and wet newspapers. Not the worst place he'd ever landed, but certainly in the top five.
Victor hit the ground knees-first, groaned, and stayed there for a moment — half because of nausea, half because he didn't want to know where he was yet.
When he finally stood, the alley greeted him with the charm of a city that never asked to be remembered. Rusted pipes, flickering neon signs, the distant wheeze of a saxophone bleeding through cracked windows.
And trash. So much trash.
"Ah," he exhaled, brushing dust from his lab coat. "Civilization."
He staggered forward, boots echoing against the concrete. His eyes scanned the skyline — buildings lower, ads paper instead of holograms, cars still breathing gasoline. Good. Not too far back. Close enough to matter. Far enough to hurt.
He rounded a corner, muttering equations under his breath to stay awake.
That's when he heard them.
Voices. Loud. Confident. Intellectually malnourished.
A group of four, gathered near a convenience store, all leather and overcompensation. They didn't look dangerous — not in the world-ending sense. But Victor had a gift for attracting the wrong kind of attention. Usually with his mouth.
He tried to pass.
He really did.
But then one of them — tall, shaved head, sunglasses at night — made the mistake of barking:"Hey, Doc Brown. Lose your time machine?"
Victor stopped mid-step.
He turned slowly, theatrically.
"Oh," he said with a smile that belonged in a crime report. "A pop culture reference and an insult. In one sentence. Darling, I hope you didn't strain yourself."
The group shifted. The leader stepped forward.
"You lost, grandpa?"
Victor tilted his head.
"I was. But now I've found exactly what I was looking for — four evolutionary speed bumps pretending to be a conversation."
The shortest of the group scoffed. "You got a problem, old man?"
"No," Victor said. "I am the problem."
Another step forward. Tension rising. Fists tightening.
Victor, of course, grinned wider.
"I have a doctorate in metaphysics, a side degree in thermonuclear psychology, and a black belt in ruining lives before breakfast. So please, by all means — help me test the local healthcare system."
It escalated quickly.
A punch was thrown. Victor ducked. Barely.
A second followed — connected, unfortunately, with his shoulder.
He grunted, stumbled back, and retaliated the only way he knew how: with sarcasm weaponized to nuclear levels.
"You punch like your education level — loud, pointless, and misspelled."
Another swing. Another dodge. He threw a handful of chalk dust into someone's eyes — no one knew why he had it, including him.
Eventually, someone pulled a knife. Victor blinked.
"Really?" he said. "A knife? How retro. Should I duel you with a monocle and a glove?"
They didn't laugh.
He did.
By the time he limped away, bruised but intact, the group was still cursing behind him, one of them coughing up chalk.
Victor didn't look back. He just straightened his coat, adjusted the cracked goggles on his head, and muttered, "Idiots."
The adrenaline settled slowly, melting into the ache behind his eyes. The alcohol hadn't left his system. If anything, it had evolved — a new kind of drunkenness, equal parts grief and genius.
He walked for blocks. Through dim streets, across cracked sidewalks, past memories disguised as buildings.
And then, as if led by something older than thought — he turned down a familiar road.
The houses here were smaller. The lights dimmer. Fewer cameras. Less noise.
His feet slowed.
His breath caught.
He didn't need to check the address.
He knew the way.
The gate was still crooked. The paint still chipped. The tree in the yard still leaned a little too far to the left, like it was eavesdropping on the house.
Victor stopped at the sidewalk.
Looked up at the windows.
The porch light was off.
But the warmth... was there.
Just enough to sting.
He stood there, swaying slightly in the hush of the street. Hands in pockets. Mouth tight. Eyes distant.
And then, slowly, he walked toward the door.
The doorknob felt too familiar.
Victor stared at it for a long time, hand hovering inches away, as if the metal might bite or vanish or remind him he didn't belong.
But then, with a breath half-held and hope swallowed behind whisky and fear, he turned it.
The door creaked open into a light he hadn't expected.
Warm.
Soft.
Lived-in.
And there they were.
His wife — humming something tuneless as she folded laundry on the couch, her hair pinned up in that perfect mess she never admitted was intentional.
His daughter — feet curled under her on the armchair, flipping through a magazine, half-paying attention, half-pretending not to care, just like always.
The twins — sprawled on the carpet in a half-finished puzzle war, arguing about which piece belonged to what animal, their voices climbing in shared chaos.
No one looked up immediately.
No gasps. No cries.
Just presence.
Then—
"Oh, look who's finally decided to join us," his wife said, folding a shirt with a smirk that belonged in a love letter.
Victor stood in the doorway, eyes wide, mouth slightly parted.
His daughter glanced up. "You took your time."
He blinked. "You… you knew I'd come?"
She raised an eyebrow. "Of course."
The boy jumped up. "Grandpa!" he shouted, charging into Victor's ribs with the reckless love only children possess.
Victor staggered back half a step, arms catching him, heart catching something else entirely.
The girl followed. "Took you forever," she mumbled into his side.
He held them both, shaking.
And still—no one asked where he'd been.
No one asked why.
Only his wife, standing now, eyes shining in that way she always hated admitting to, walked over and touched his face.
"Welcome home, Victor."
He closed his eyes.
Just for a second.
If this was madness, let it be the kind that held him.
They sat together, eventually, all of them.
Laughter returned like it had never left.
Jokes tossed across the room with casual grace.
The twins fought. The adults rolled their eyes. His wife made tea. His daughter burned it.
It was perfect.
Terribly perfect.
Victor said little. He watched.
Memorized.
Devoured the moment with eyes he didn't know were starving.
And then he saw it.
The clock.
8:15 PM.
A tremor moved through his chest — gentle, but unmistakable.
He stood.
"Let's go for a drive."
His wife turned from the kitchen. "A drive?"
"Just us. The whole crew. Like we used to."
The kids lit up instantly.
The daughter frowned. "It's late."
Victor smiled. "It's life. Late is the point."
A pause.
Then — soft, amused nods.
The kind families give when they know they're not really being asked, just invited.
The keys were on the table.
The night was waiting.
And Victor, heart too full to explain, walked toward the door again.
But this time, they followed.
The road stretched ahead, painted in soft lamplight and fading daydreams. Victor drove without music, without words, just the steady hum of tires and the gentle rhythm of breath from the four souls he loved more than his own logic.
The twins argued quietly over constellations. His daughter leaned her head against the window, half-smiling. His wife sat in the passenger seat, her hand resting just close enough to his on the gearshift to remind him that he'd once been worth touching.
It was perfect.
Too perfect.
And Victor, who had solved equations no mind had dared to ask, knew what perfection meant: ending.
He glanced at the clock on the dashboard.
10:00 PM.
Something turned inside him — a knot, tightening.
His fingers gripped the wheel too hard.
His breath shortened.
"Victor?" his wife asked, gentle. "You okay?"
He smiled. Or tried to. "Yeah. Just… tired."
"You're never tired," his daughter said, more curious than concerned.
The boy giggled. "Maybe Grandpa's turning human!"
Victor laughed. But it was hollow.
They reached a bend in the road, headlights slicing through trees like memory through denial.
And then—
A shadow.
A shape.
A sudden voice, sharp and ugly:
"Well, well. If it isn't Mr. Lab Coat."
The gang.
The same group from the alley. Same boots. Same eyes full of glass and ego.
Blocking the road with a rusted van, swagger thick enough to taste.
Victor hit the brakes.
Hard.
The car screeched, veered.
The family jolted — startled but unhurt.
He opened his door.
"Stay inside," he growled, voice no longer tired — but sharp. Stone-edged.
He stepped out.
"Wow," he called across the road. "Do you just live out here waiting for protagonists?"
The leader stepped forward, smirking. "Thought we'd missed our chance for round two."
"You did," Victor said, stretching his neck. "But hey — I admire your commitment to redundancy."
The smallest one pulled a pipe from his jacket.
Another stepped around the side with something sharper.
Victor sighed. "Great. It's amateur hour at the apocalypse."
One of them moved — too fast, too dumb.
Victor kicked the door shut behind him, hard. His family inside.
He ducked. Pivoted.
A punch. A lunge.
He threw dirt, grabbed a branch, swung wide.
"You don't want this," he snarled, blood on his lip.
"We want you," someone hissed.
"Not the first time I've heard that," he muttered, then swung again.
A second car screeched up — backup.
They weren't just punks now. They were angry. Humiliated.
Victor backed toward his car, heart hammering.
His wife's voice called faintly, "Victor!"
Then tires.
Then screams.
Then chaos.
The gang's van roared forward — trying to box him in.
Victor leapt into the driver's seat, slammed the gear into drive.
The car bolted.
Children crying now.
His daughter yelling something — her hand on the dash, knuckles white.
His wife grabbing the seatbelt with trembling fingers.
Behind them — engines. Lights. Rage.
Victor drove like a man already in mourning.
Through red lights. Past corners sharp enough to break faith on.
The gang followed — shouting. Smashing.
The children screamed.
His daughter clutched them, eyes wild with fear.
His wife looked at him — searching his face for something he couldn't give.
10:26 PM.
A wrong turn.
A sharp one.
Too fast.
Too late.
The tires screamed louder than the people.
The car flipped.
Once.
Twice.
Then stillness.
Broken only by the ticking of metal trying to remember shape.
And then—
Silence.
Victor opened his eyes.
He was upside down.
Bleeding.
Alone.
His head throbbed. His bones protested.
He crawled from the wreckage — glass in his palms, fire in his lungs.
He screamed names.
Again.
And again.
No answers.
Only bodies.
Still.
10:30 PM.
Exactly.
He stared at the clock through the shattered dashboard.
Its numbers glowed like mockery.
His knees buckled.
He dropped beside them — wife, daughter, children.
His mouth opened. No sound came.
Not again.
Not again.
Not again.
The night around him was still.
No sirens.
No help.
Just ash. Smoke. And grief made of wire and memory.
Victor knelt in the wreckage of a life he wasn't allowed to keep.
For the fifth time?
The fiftieth?
It didn't matter.
They always died.
He always lived.
And the clock always read 10:30 PM.
The crash site was quiet now.
Smoke whispered out from the wreck like an apology too late. Moonlight filtered through cracked windshields and dust-smeared glass, illuminating the bodies with gentle cruelty.
Victor didn't move.
Not anymore.
He sat at the edge of the wreck, legs drawn up, arms slack around his knees, head resting against metal still warm from fire. Blood ran down his temple in lazy rivulets, forgotten. His mouth hung slightly open, as if mid-question, but the question had long since burned away.
A bottle rested near his shoe. Half-empty. Or half-finished.
His eyes were blank.
Not weeping.
Just... done.
And then — without sound, without warning — space beside him folded slightly.
Just a shimmer, like heat off desert pavement.
And a man stepped through.
Simple suit. No insignia. Tie loosened. Sleeves rolled. Tired eyes. Hands in his pockets like someone too polite to interrupt grief.
Michael De Monro.
"The Kairum."
Victor didn't look up.
Michael didn't speak, at first. He just sat down beside him, close but not too close, shoes crunching softly on broken glass.
They sat like that for a long time.
Two men. One server-thread torn open behind them. A new timeline bleeding from it like ink in water.
Finally—
"I warned you," Michael said softly.
Victor exhaled something like a laugh. "You did."
"You created a split."
"Wouldn't be the first," Victor muttered. "Probably not the worst."
Michael nodded slowly. "Still—took us half a protocol suite to locate this breach."
Victor's head lolled sideways. "Congrats. Gold star."
Michael looked at the wreck. At the faces inside it. His expression didn't change, but something old flickered behind his eyes. Pity? No. Recognition.
"They died again, huh."
Victor winced.
"Yeah."
A pause.
Michael reached into his coat, pulled out a small silver case. He opened it, offered a cigarette. Victor stared at it, then took one with a bloody hand.
They smoked.
Shared silence like a ritual.
Then Michael said, almost too gently, "You knew you'd break the structure, Vic. You knew what this would do. To the threads. To the whole server."
Victor's lips curled into something bitter. "I didn't do it for the server."
Michael nodded. "I know."
Another pause.
The wind shifted.
Then, without ceremony, Victor whispered, "They were smiling. Before it happened. All of them. They smiled at me like they knew."
Michael swallowed something hard. "They probably did."
"You think this version of them was real?"
Michael shrugged. "Everything is, somewhere."
Victor leaned back. The cigarette burned low.
"Why does it always end at ten-thirty?" he murmured.
Michael didn't answer.
Because he didn't know.
Because sometimes, even timelines can't explain the ache in one man's clock.
Victor blinked slowly.
His eyes glassed.
"I'm tired, Mike."
Michael stood. Dusted off his trousers. Looked down at the man who had broken history more times than he could count.
"I know."
Victor tried to rise. Failed.
Michael held out a hand.
Victor hesitated, then took it.
He stood. Wobbled. Reeked of ash and blood and whiskey and memory.
Michael reached into his pocket, pulled out a flickering orb — a tether beacon. He tapped it once.
The world around them began to unweave — the wreck, the road, the bodies, the night.
All pixelated. Softly.
Erased with grace.
Victor looked at him.
Not angry.
Not pleading.
Just tired.
"You're not logging me, are you?" he asked.
Michael smiled — tired, fond.
"Officially? No. Personally?" He clapped Victor's shoulder. "I'm just walking an old friend home."
The portal opened.
Bright. Warm. Familiar.
Victor squinted at it.
"Server root?"
Michael nodded. "You need sleep."
Victor stared at the light.
Then whispered, "It won't bring them back."
Michael didn't pretend otherwise.
"No. But you already knew that."
Victor stepped through.
Without ceremony.
Without hope.
But with something like... peace.
Behind him, Michael stood alone.
The timeline split still smoldering beneath his shoes.
And above, somewhere in the code of existence, a new thread began to spool — imperfect, unauthorized, irreversible.
Because even gods, when drunk enough and grieving deeply enough, will choose love over logic.
And even broken men still remember the way home.