The slam of the apartment door echoed in the sudden, profound silence, leaving Ethan standing alone amidst the chilling evidence of his descent. His heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic counterpoint to the insistent bubbling still emanating from the utility closet. Clara was gone, fled not just from the apartment, but from him, her face as she ran away, he knew he would never forget, no matter how many times the loop reset. He had crossed a line, not just in action, but in presence – becoming the source of her fear.
The acrid tang of ozone snapped him back to the current situation. The peroxide. He'd left it unattended during the entire confrontation. Shoving down the churning mix of guilt and adrenaline, he forced himself back into the cramped utility closet.
He snatched up the thermometer. 91 degrees Celsius. Creeping up. The bubbling within the clear liquid seemed more vigorous now, almost frantic, the surface agitated. Dangerously close. His hands, slick with sweat inside the rubber gloves, trembled as he reached for the hotplate dial. He couldn't just switch it off; a sudden temperature change could be just as risky. He eased the dial back, notch by painstaking notch, reducing the heat input gradually.
Simultaneously, he grabbed a pitcher of cool tap water he'd had ready nearby. With excruciating slowness, praying the thermal shock wouldn't crack the beaker or trigger a violent reaction, he began adding small amounts of water directly into the outer saucepan, cooling the water bath. Steam hissed as the cooler water met the hot pan. He watched the thermometer in the peroxide solution like a hawk. The temperature rise stalled, hovered, then, agonizingly slowly, began to recede. 89… 87… 85…
He continued the process, adding small amounts of cool water, adjusting the heat down incrementally, until the hotplate was off entirely and the thermometer reading dipped below 70 degrees. The vigorous bubbling subsided, returning to a calmer state, though the ozone smell lingered stubbornly. He let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding, the sound ragged in the confines of the closet. He'd pulled it back from the brink, but the margin felt terrifyingly slim.
He carefully removed the beaker of now-slightly-concentrated, still-warm peroxide from the water bath, setting it aside on a clear section of the drop cloth. Next came the neutralization and disposal. He worked methodically, pouring the peroxide solution into a larger container, diluting it significantly with water before carefully adding a catalyst – a rusty nail he'd procured, knowing iron ions accelerated decomposition – to break it down safely into water and oxygen. He dealt with the remaining acid and other reagents similarly, neutralizing, diluting, flushing, scrubbing, repeating the cleanup process he'd practiced in the previous loop, but this time his movements were driven by a frantic need to erase the evidence, not just of the experiment, but of the man Clara had seen.
As he worked, the adrenaline faded, leaving behind a hollow ache. Clara's terrified face swam before his eyes. His promise – "One hour. Go downstairs. I promise I will clean this up... and then we can talk. Properly talk. Okay?" – echoed mockingly in his mind. How could they possibly talk now? What could he say? The truth was impossible, unbelievable, the stuff of madness. Any lie would crumble under the weight of what she had seen. He had created a rift that felt irreparable within the confines of this single, damned loop.
He finished cleaning, meticulously wiping down every surface, scrubbing the beaker until it gleamed, packing the drop cloths away. He opened windows throughout the apartment, trying to banish the lingering chemical scent, replacing it with the indifferent noise and fumes of the city. He sprayed air freshener aggressively, a futile attempt to mask the underlying wrongness. The apartment began to look normal again, superficially at least. But the violation felt permanent.
He checked the time. 4:38 PM. Nearly an hour had passed since Clara fled. An hour he had bought with lies and manipulation, predicated on a promise he had no intention, no capability, of keeping. Where was she? Did she actually just go downstairs for coffee as he suggested? Or did she, more likely, flee further – to her sister's apartment across town, or to a friend's place, seeking refuge from the fiancé who had suddenly become a terrifying stranger?
He found himself pacing the length of the living room, the earlier cold resolve completely shattered, replaced by a jittery, anxious dread. He hadn't saved her. He hadn't even successfully executed the first stage of his chaotic disruption plan. All he had achieved was terrorizing Clara, pushing her away, and likely placing her somewhere completely unknown as the fatal deadline approached.
He picked up his phone, hesitated, then turned it back on. No new messages or calls displayed immediately; she must have taken his "phone off" statement literally after the initial failed attempts he knew she'd made. Should he call her? Try to smooth things over? Reiterate his promise to talk? The thought felt repulsive. More lies. More manipulation. And what if she didn't answer? What if she was already…
The minutes ticked by with agonizing slowness. 5:00 PM. 5:10 PM. He stood by the window, staring down at the street, scanning the pedestrians, the traffic, searching for… he didn't even know what. A sign? An omen? He listened intently, straining to hear sirens, but the city noise was a constant, undifferentiated roar.
He thought about going downstairs, checking the coffee shop. But what if she wasn't there? What if she saw him coming? Would she run? Scream? He couldn't face causing her more fear. He was trapped here, in the sterile quiet of the apartment he had tainted, waiting for news he didn't want.
5:15 PM. The air felt thin, charged. He braced himself, leaning against the window frame, his gaze fixed on the digital clock across the room.
5:16 PM. Any second now. Somewhere out there, the loop was preparing its move. What would it be this time? Something utterly random? Or would it somehow connect back to their confrontation, to her flight?
5:17 PM. The minute turned. The apartment remained silent. No sirens grew louder nearby. No news alerts popped up on his phone screen.
5:18 PM. Still nothing. A fragile, ridiculous flicker of hope ignited within him. Could it be? Had the sheer emotional chaos of the day, her unexpected return, her flight, somehow disrupted the pattern? Had terrorizing her inadvertently saved her?
5:19 PM. He held his breath, hardly daring to move.
Then his phone rang, the sound jarringly loud, shattering the silence. He snatched it up, heart pounding. An unknown number. He answered, his voice catching. "Hello?"
"Is this Ethan Miller?" The voice was female, professional, laced with a practiced calm that immediately signalled bad news. A hospital social worker? A police liaison?
"Yes," he managed, his throat tight.
"Mr. Miller, I'm calling from the emergency dispatch coordination center. We received a distress call logged earlier concerning your partner, Clara Evans?"
"Yes? Is she okay?" He gripped the phone tighter, bracing himself.
"There was… some confusion," the woman continued carefully. "Ms. Evans apparently placed a 911 call from a coffee shop near your residence around 4:30 PM. She sounded extremely distressed, mentioning concerns about volatile chemicals and potential danger at her apartment, expressing fear regarding your behavior."
Ethan's blood ran cold. She had called. Not him, not family, but 911. After he'd promised her…
"Officers were dispatched to the coffee shop to assess the situation and speak with Ms. Evans," the woman went on, her voice losing some of its professional distance, becoming tinged with apology. "Unfortunately, due to a priority call shift involving a multi-vehicle accident uptown, there was a significant delay in their arrival…"
A delay. While Clara waited, terrified, alone.
"By the time officers arrived at the coffee shop," the voice hesitated, "roughly around… seventeen seventeen… there was no sign of Ms. Evans. Witnesses reported she seemed agitated, made a distressed phone call, and then left abruptly just moments before."
Seventeen seventeen. 5:17 PM. She left the cafe right at the deadline? Where did she go?
"Mr. Miller," the dispatcher's voice softened further, laced with unmistakable gravity now. "I'm very sorry to inform you. There was an incident reported at almost the exact same time, just half a block from that location. A pedestrian… struck by a delivery truck backing out of an alleyway. The victim matched Ms. Evans's description. Paramedics were on scene immediately, but… I'm afraid her injuries were instantly fatal."
Ethan slid down the wall, the phone slipping from his suddenly numb fingers, clattering onto the hardwood floor. The dispatcher's voice continued tinily from the dropped receiver, offering condolences, procedures, contact numbers, but he didn't hear it.
Struck by a truck. Backing out of an alleyway. Half a block from the coffee shop where she had waited, terrified, for help that came too late, because he had frightened her, lied to her, driven her to call 911 in the first place.
He hadn't controlled anything. His actions had simply changed the narrative arc leading to the inevitable. He hadn't caused the death directly this time, like the embolism, but his fingerprints felt all over it. His secrecy, his experiment, his dismissal of her fear – it had put her in that coffee shop, agitated, desperate. It had likely caused her to flee abruptly right at the fatal moment, perhaps panicked and regretful, running directly into the path of mundane, lethal chance.
He covered his face with his hands, pressing his palms hard against his eyes, but the image of her terrified face in the kitchen doorway remained, vivid and accusing. He hadn't just failed to save her. He had made her last hour an agony of fear and betrayal once again, then sent her out alone to meet her end. The cold rage that had fueled him felt like a pathetic, impotent folly. All his calculations, his attempts to seize control – they amounted to nothing but more sophisticated ways to fail, more intricate methods of compounding the tragedy.
He stayed there, curled on the floor beside the buzzing phone, the clean, sterile scent of the apartment mocking him, waiting for midnight