The clocktower in the Academy ticked a fraction of a second too slow today.
Zero noticed.
He always noticed.
Time didn't pass the same way for him. He felt it brushing his skin in streams — some flowing toward him, some away, some looping around his ankles like invisible fog. It whispered to him when others slept. It screamed when the timeline fractured.
And tonight, it whispered something worse.
"Seven days left."
The day after Reginald's funeral was no quieter than the day before.
Tension bloomed in every hallway. Diego accused Luther of being Reggie's puppet. Allison tried to keep everyone grounded. Klaus had stolen the old man's liquor. Vanya drifted around the mansion like a shadow, quietly carrying her grief like a familiar weight.
And Five — Five was restless. Agitated.
Zero watched him from the library.
"Shouldn't you be scribbling mad equations on walls?" Zero asked, appearing beside him with a soft blink of time displacement. Not teleportation. Just a tweak.
Five didn't even flinch. "I need a lead. A clue. Something to stop the apocalypse. I know it happens in eight days, but everything else is fog."
Zero tilted his head.
"Seven, now," he corrected.
Five glanced at him. "You saw it again?"
"I always see it. I just don't always feel like watching it. Every time I do, it gets more real."
"You don't want to stop it?"
"Oh, I do. But no one listens to me. They never have."
Later, as the sun dipped beyond the city skyline, Zero sat beside Vanya in the music room.
She had her violin again — she always did when no one was yelling. The bow glided across the strings, a low hum rising like a thought forming in sound. She didn't look up when she spoke.
"They still treat you like a ghost," she said softly.
"Ghosts are remembered. I'm treated like a… footnote."
She smiled sadly, still playing.
"You were always the one they feared most. Even more than me."
Zero didn't respond. He simply closed his eyes and let the music filter through him — through time itself. The notes hung in the air a second longer for him than they did for her.
"I saw you in the apocalypse, you know," Zero murmured. "You weren't afraid."
Vanya froze. Her bow trembled.
"Why do you keep watching it?" she whispered.
"Because I think this time… it's my fault."
Zero's RoomZero didn't sleep like others. Time bent in his dreams — bent too far.
So he meditated in the void between seconds. And tonight, inside that strange silence, he stepped into the world only he could reach.
His planet.
A smooth, floating sphere with no sky and no ground. Just stillness. It existed between timelines, outside cause and effect. Here, Zero was free. Here, he was the only god.
He floated above the shimmering surface and summoned the timeline.
Hundreds of branches unfurled like nerves, sparking with light and color. One thread pulsed dark red — the prime timeline, the one leading toward the apocalypse.
He touched it.
Visions flashed:
Vanya screaming in white light.
The moon shattering.
Klaus begging Ben for help.
Luther alone in a crater.
Five bleeding in the rain.
And him. Standing in a field of fire. Laughing. Crying. Falling.
"You can't stop what you are."
Zero gasped and let go.
Back in Reality
He snapped out of the trance, his body drenched in sweat. One use left for the day — and he had just wasted it chasing answers.
From the hallway, Klaus wandered in, humming a tune.
"Oh hey, Mister Untouchable," he grinned. "You look like death."
"I saw it again," Zero said, voice hoarse. "It's getting worse. This time, I was the one who ended it."
Klaus blinked. "Well. That's... metal. Want a drink?"
Elsewhere — Five's Investigation
Five had found the mannequin — his companion from the post-apocalypse. He was spiraling.
Zero watched him from afar. He knew what Five was about to find: the burned journal page, the date of the world ending, the time loop. He could step in. Could help him figure it out faster.
But Zero had learned something in all his lifetimes:
If you interfere too early, the timeline breaks faster.
So he waited.
But he couldn't wait forever.