---
Ten seconds.
That's all it takes for everything to fall apart.
But at 11:08 AM, Ren Saeki didn't know that yet.
He sat by the window, cheek resting against his knuckles, watching rain draw soft lines on the glass. The lecture floated around him—something about global economic reformation post-Collapse, but the words didn't stick. They hadn't in months.
He felt like a ghost taking up space in a desk.
Behind him, chairs creaked, pens tapped, digital notes pinged with quiet notifications. School hadn't changed. Not really. It went on pretending things were normal, even when the world outside was very clearly not.
A familiar voice cut through the haze.
"You're doing it again," Aya Himura muttered. Her seat was diagonally in front of his, third row from the door—top of the class, the kind of person who still believed the future was something you could fight for.
Ren didn't look at her. "Doing what?"
"Staring like you're not here."
He stayed silent. Let the moment hang. He knew she'd fill the space.
"You didn't answer my message," she added, more softly.
"I was asleep," he lied.
Aya exhaled through her nose. He could feel the disappointment in her posture, in the way her shoulder slumped just slightly forward.
"You always say that," she murmured, turning back around.
---
Ren glanced at the clock.
11:09 AM.
The second hand twitched.
Then again.
And again.
And then it just... stopped.
Ren blinked. No one else seemed to notice. The classroom buzzed on, the rain kept falling, and yet—
Something was wrong.
His fingers curled slightly on the desk.
He didn't realize he was holding his breath until the lights flickered.
Once.
Twice.
Then dead silence, as the entire room darkened. The holograms vanished, and every student looked up like animals just before the quake hits.
A second passed.
And then—
A scream.
From outside.
---
Ren's legs moved on their own. He reached the window.
What he saw didn't make sense.
The courtyard below—the place where students laughed, ate lunch, wasted time—was now soaked in red.
One boy was running—then suddenly jerked into the air, limbs flailing, his body twisting in a way bones weren't meant to. Blood sprayed across the ground like a snapped paintbrush. Screams followed. Dozens of them.
Ren's stomach turned. He couldn't look away.
"EVERYONE BACK FROM THE WINDOWS!" the teacher shouted, his voice cracking like it hadn't been raised in years.
Someone knocked over a chair. A girl was crying. Aya stood, frozen near the door, her hands trembling.
And then it came.
Something heavy slammed into the roof. Metal groaned. The ceiling split open in a diagonal scar, and through it dropped—
A thing.
Tall. Clad in black. Its face was a jagged steel mask, shaped vaguely like a human skull that had forgotten how to feel anything.
"Awakened detected," it said, its voice distant and disjointed, like a corrupted audio file.
"Extracting candidates."
It raised a hand.
Four students began levitating off the ground, choking on their own fear. Their bodies convulsed in the air like broken puppets.
Aya ran.
Ren saw her move and knew she was going to die.
His body followed before he could think.
---
Time fractured.
Everything cracked.
There was a sound—like glass shattering in his skull—and suddenly:
---
< SYSTEM NOTIFICATION >
> AWAKENING TRIGGERED
Trait: Chrono Binding
Temporal Type / Classification: Unknown
WARNING: Memory deterioration risk imminent.
---
Ren gasped. Air punched out of his lungs like he'd fallen from the sky.
And suddenly—
---
11:08:57 AM.
He was back in his seat.
His desk. His window. The rain.
Aya scribbled notes in front of him.
The lights hadn't flickered yet.
The courtyard was clean.
Ren's hands shook.
Not just from fear—but from the overwhelming, impossible realization that he had just rewound time.
He stood up so fast he nearly fell. His chair clattered backward.
Aya flinched. "What the hell, Ren?"
He didn't answer.
He ran to the window.
The courtyard—normal.
No screams.
No blood.
But the feeling—that awful knowing in his chest—was still there.
And in ten seconds… it would happen again.
His breath caught. His fingers dug into the edge of the window. And this time, when the lights flickered—
He was ready.