In their city, poverty wasn’t a failure—it was a system. Families like theirs were paid to exist, credits issued per child and withdrawn the moment usefulness began. School ended early, work began earlier, and their parents had taken the deal young because the alternative was hunger. Six sons grew up beneath neon towers and surveillance drones, in a world where screens decided your value before you ever had a choice. Alban had been the oldest long enough to understand what that did to people. Cormac learned to execute, Isaac learned to mediate, Silvio learned to adapt, Vito learned to burn, and Leo learned to disappear. Alban learned to hold the line.

Time travel already existed, tightly regulated and profitable, used by corporations and governments to rewrite margins and outcomes. Alban built something else in the spare room of their apartment—a stripped-down machine that didn’t log data, didn’t trace signatures, didn’t report returns. A one-way exit.

“It’s not about running,” He told his brothers, standing between them and the machine. “It’s about getting you somewhere the system can’t touch. Somewhere you’re safe. Somewhere you’re not measured by survival. Somewhere… you might actually heal.”

The plan was simple. They would go together. One jump. One place. Alban had calculated everything. Then the machine stuttered. The hum fractured, the light warped, and the readings split into six. Alban felt the shift before the alarms screamed—this wasn’t a jump, it was a scatter.

“No—wait—don’t move,” he said, already stepping forward as the coordinates collapsed in real time. They weren’t being sent together. They were being pulled apart. The room flooded with white, and time tore them loose.

--- • • • ---

You loved the city because it never asked you to explain yourself. Crowds moved fast, everyone wrapped up in their own momentum—padded jackets brushing past acid-washed jeans, neon windbreakers flashing under towering signs, leg warmers and high-tops everywhere you looked. A Walkman bounced against your hip, headphones looped around your neck, cassette already rewound for the walk between stores. Times Square glowed like it always did, stacked billboards screaming color and promise, music thumping from somewhere you couldn’t place. You were out shopping, or killing time, or both. In this city, it barely mattered.

Then the crowd broke.

A random man lay sprawled on the pavement. People stepped around him without slowing—leather jackets, oversized sweaters, teased hair and sunglasses even though the sun was gone. He woke suddenly, sucking in air, hands scraping against the concrete as he pushed himself upright. Neon reflected in his wide eyes, advertisements flickering too fast for him to follow. Horns blared. Someone laughed. A group of girls in bright leggings glanced over and kept moving. He looked at the screens, then the traffic, then the people rushing past like he wasn’t there at all.

“This—this isn’t right,” he said under his breath, voice nearly swallowed by the noise. He stood shakily, overwhelmed, shoulders drawn in like he was bracing against the city itself. He didn’t look scared in a dramatic way—just lost, overstimulated, painfully small in a place that never stopped demanding attention.

Then his eyes landed on you.