Jon Gibson woke to the soft gray light slipping between the slats of his blinds, the kind of February morning that promised nothing special. His room smelled faintly of yesterday's laundry and the lingering ghost of microwave popcorn. He rolled over, groping blindly for his phone on the nightstand.
The screen lit up before his thumb even touched it.
A new icon sat squarely in the center of his home screen: a simple black square with a silver infinity symbol curled inside it like a sleeping snake. No label. No folder. Just… there.
He squinted, still half-dreaming. He swiped left, then right. Nothing moved it. He long-pressed. No delete option appeared. A tiny shiver crawled up his spine—not fear, exactly, just the uncanny itch of something that didn't belong.
He tapped it.
The app opened to a stark black background. Three elements dominated the screen:
A wide text box with rounded corners.
Below it, a glowing red ENTER button.
And beneath that, a digital timer ticking down in stark white numerals:
1:47:22 … 1:47:21 …
A small line of text hovered above the timer:
Time remaining until automatic adjustment. Make your mark.
Jon snorted softly. "Yeah, right."
He scrolled down. A section appeared under the heading Previous Changes, completely empty.
"Some prank," he muttered, though he couldn't remember installing anything like this. Malware, maybe? He closed the app. It vanished from view, but when he swiped back to the home screen, the icon was still there, patient and unblinking.
He dropped the phone onto his comforter and swung his legs out of bed. Whatever it was could wait. He had to survive another Monday.
He went through his morning routine as normal. Showering, getting dressed and brushing his teeth. He had a vague feeling that he was forgetting something, but it didn't linger.
Downstairs the kitchen was already alive with small chaos. Mikey was pouring cereal directly from the box into his mouth while his mother Linda, still in her robe, typed furiously on her laptop at the table. His sister Zoe slouched past in full black regalia—fishnets, chipped nail polish, the works—muttering something about "fascist bell schedules."
"Morning, sweetie," Linda said without looking up. "Lunch money's on the counter."
Jon grabbed the twenty and stuffed it in his pocket. "Thanks. See you later."
He glanced at his phone again as he stepped outside. The timer had continued counting down
00:28:09
He shook his head and started walking.
The route to Lake Point High was the same as always: down Maple, past the old brick houses with their sagging porches, across the park where the sprinklers would start hissing in a couple months, then up the long gentle hill that always left him slightly winded. Early spring air bit at his ears. He kept his hands in his hoodie pockets and tried not to think about Karyn.
He failed, of course.
She'd texted last night about some dumb meme, and he'd spent twenty minutes crafting the perfect reply - casual, funny, just enough self-deprecation. Then he'd deleted half of it and sent something shorter. Safer.
He never said it out loud, not even to himself most days, but the truth sat quietly in his chest like a stone - he had been in love with Karyn Black since sophomore year, when she'd punched Steve Farber in the arm for calling her "Goldilocks" one too many times. She'd laughed afterward, cheeks pink, ponytail swinging, and Jon had felt something inside him lock into place and refuse to move.
Today he would see her at their usual spot by the side gate. She would be leaning against the brick wall in that baggy green jumper that had to be older than both of them, blonde hair pulled back, probably complaining about trigonometry or her mom's latest health kick. He would nod and make a joke and pretend his pulse wasn't trying to climb out of his throat.
He checked his phone again as he crossed the last street before school.
00:02:44
Less than 3 minutes. He guessed he'd find out soon what it was counting down to, but for the moment he was focused on meeting Karyn.
He slipped the phone back into his pocket and rounded the corner.
There she was.
Karyn stood exactly where she always did, arms crossed, one sneaker tapping an impatient rhythm against the pavement. The wind tugged at loose strands of her ponytail. When she saw him she straightened, and her mouth curved into that familiar half-smirk that made his stomach flip every single time.
"Hey, Jonboy," she called. "You look like you fought your alarm clock and lost."
Jon opened his mouth to fire back—something about her jumper being a biohazard—but the words never came.
His pocket buzzed sharply.
He pulled the phone out on reflex.
The timer had frozen at 00:00:00.
Red text flashed across the screen in bold:
Time expired. Initiating automatic adjustment.
Reality rewrite commencing.
Jon's heart slammed against his ribs. Before he could even process the words, before he could shove the phone back into his pocket or yell or run...
The world lurched.
Not physically. Not like an earthquake. It was subtler, deeper, a ripple that passed through everything at once, refracting light, memory, matter, history. Colors brightened for a heartbeat, then settled into something almost the same but not quite. The air tasted different. Sweeter. Heavier.
Karyn was still standing there.
But she wasn't...
