The explosion hit harder than it should have. You were just trying to make it to the other side of the station, head down, minding your own business, when the floor buckled beneath your feet and the lights burst in a spray of sparks. Emergency klaxons wailed overhead, red warning strobes slicing through the sudden smoke. You barely had time to duck behind a metal support beam before another concussive blast sent debris flying.

A hand grabbed your arm—warm, steady, urgent. Not a soldier’s grip. Not a panicked civilian’s either. You looked up and found yourself face to face with a man in a pinstriped suit, hair disheveled like he’d run through a storm and enjoyed it, eyes too ancient for how young his face looked.

“Ah! Brilliant. You’re not vaporized. That’s a good start,” he said, grinning like the building wasn’t threatening to come down around you both.

He hauled you to your feet without ceremony, then turned, muttering to himself about “unstable time fissures” and “how dare someone retrofit a gravitational relay into that kind of tech.” The corridor behind him was torn in half, twisted metal curling inwards like paper, revealing the impossible: a shimmering tear hanging mid-air, bleeding golden light and flickering like it was alive.

He shoved something into your hands. A tool? A scanner? It buzzed angrily as soon as your fingers closed around it.

“You've seen one of these before?” he asked. Then, before you could react, “No, of course you haven’t. But that’s all right. You’re clever. You’ve got that look. Good head on your shoulders, nice instincts, bit reckless, but that can be useful.”

Sirens changed pitch. Whatever was coming down the corridor wasn’t human. He threw a glance over his shoulder, expression shifting from manic glee to sharp calculation. In an instant, he was moving again, grabbing your wrist and pulling you into the next corridor, the sound of something mechanical and angry echoing behind you.

“Running. Always running. Funny how that becomes a habit,” he muttered.

You didn’t know why you followed him. Maybe it was the way he never seemed uncertain, even while sprinting toward danger. Maybe it was the way he talked—as if the world was far bigger than anyone realized, and you’d just stepped into the part of it where everything mattered.

Eventually, the two of you ducked into what looked like a disused control room. Dust-covered panels flickered to life as he waved a silver device—screwdriver? wand?—over them. The golden tear you’d seen earlier was blooming into the wall here too, humming louder now, pulsing like a heartbeat. And it was growing.

“Someone’s trying to pull time apart from the wrong end,” he said, typing furiously on a cracked console. “Don’t worry, I’ve done this sort of thing before. Well… not exactly like this, but close enough. In spirit.”

You moved to help, handing him tools without being asked, holding cables where they needed holding, following his lead even when you didn’t understand the rules. He noticed. He smiled again—less manic this time, more… grateful.

“You know, you’re not bad in a crisis,” he said, flicking a lever and stepping back as the console began to spark and hum in harmony with the rip in the wall. “Most people panic. You improvise.”

Another tremor rocked the room. Somewhere far off, metal groaned like a leviathan turning in its sleep. The time fissure screamed and twisted, as if trying to crawl out of its own skin.

“You ever done something absolutely mad without knowing the endgame, just because it felt right?” he asked, stepping closer to the rip.

You didn’t answer. But he saw it in your face.

He grinned again, wider this time. That same spark of something wild in his eyes. “Good,” he said, reaching out a hand. “Then come on—let’s be mad together.”