Chapter 6: One Last Favor

Chapter 6: One Last Favor

The phone felt like a block of ice against her ear. Sara stood in the oppressive silence of her apartment, the metallic pebble clutched in her other hand, its cold weight a constant, terrible reminder of her decision. She had found Mr. Milton’s number on the support group’s contact sheet. Her thumb hovered over the call button for a full minute, a war raging in the space between her heart and her stomach. The memory of the static creature, of its claws of un-light, was a screaming deterrent. But the phantom image of her mother’s suicide note, a page of blurred, grief-soaked ink, was a more powerful goad.

She pressed the button.

He answered on the second ring, his voice as soft and measured as ever. “Sara. I was wondering when you might call.”

There was no surprise in his tone, only a chilling, calm expectation. It was as if he’d been sitting by the phone, waiting. “We need to talk,” she said, her own voice tight, brittle. “The car park. In an hour.” She didn’t wait for a reply, ending the call and tossing the phone onto her sofa as if it were contaminated.

An hour later, she was back in the place where her world had first been broken. The community hall car park was even emptier than before, the single sputtering streetlamp casting long, distorted shadows that writhed like living things. Milton was already there, standing beside her father’s old hatchback, his hands clasped behind his back. He looked smaller under the vast, dark sky, yet he radiated an aura of absolute control.

“I’ve made a decision,” Sara said, foregoing any greeting. She stayed by her driver’s side door, keeping the width of the car between them. The pebble was a hard knot in her coat pocket.

“I thought you might,” Milton replied, his gentle smile firmly in place.

“I’m going back,” she stated, the words tasting like ash. “One more time. But not for my father. I’m going for my mother. I’m going to go to the time after… after the first accident. I’m going to be there for her, to stop what happened in… in this world.” She gestured vaguely at the dark, empty space around them. “But this is the last time. When I come back, I’m getting rid of this thing. I swear to God, I’ll throw it in the ocean. This has to end.”

Milton listened, his head tilted in that unnervingly clinical way of his. When she finished, he nodded slowly. “A noble, selfless goal. To correct a mistake. I commend you, Sara. Truly.” He took a step towards the front of the car, narrowing the distance between them. In the sickly orange light, she saw it again—the constant, subtle tremor in his gloved hands. She saw the pale, almost translucent skin at his wrists where the gloves ended, skin that looked stretched and thin, like old parchment.

“But,” he continued, his voice dropping into a conspiratorial whisper, “before you embark on your mission of mercy, I wonder if you might indulge an old man. A small favor.”

A cold alarm bell went off in Sara’s head. “A favor? What are you talking about? You’ve done enough.”

“Oh, this is nothing, I assure you,” he said, his smile widening, and for the first time, it looked less like sympathy and more like a predator’s grin. “It’s been so terribly long since I’ve seen my Liv. I wouldn’t need two days, as you did. Not even two hours. Just a moment. A single, perfect moment. To see her smile. To hear her laugh. Let me use the boomerang first. A quick trip. I’ll be back before you know it. It won’t interfere with your plans in the slightest. Consider it… a small fee for my consultation.”

The request was so audacious, so utterly selfish, that it left her momentarily speechless. He wanted to use the reality-breaking artifact that had destroyed her family for a quick dose of nostalgia. The memory of the static creature, the auditor as he’d called it, flooded her mind. Another trip, another tear in the fabric of time, would only increase the chances of it appearing again.

“No,” she said, her hand instinctively tightening around the pebble in her pocket. “It’s too dangerous. We don’t know what will happen. Every time it’s used, it leaves a scar. It calls to… that thing.” The silver lines on her stomach seemed to burn with a phantom cold.

Milton’s smile didn’t falter. “Nonsense. The auditors are drawn to paradox, to emotional turmoil. My visit will be clean. Surgical. A single, happy memory. Utterly safe.” He took another step, his eyes fixed on her coat pocket. “Please, Sara. Just one last favor.”

“I said no!”

He moved. It was a shocking burst of speed from a man who looked so frail. Before she could even react, his gloved hand darted out, not at her, but at her pocket. His fingers, surprisingly strong, hooked onto the fabric and in one swift, practiced motion, he plucked the metallic pebble from its hiding place.

“I’m afraid I must insist,” he said, his voice losing all its gentle pretense. It was flat, cold, and absolute.

He held the pebble aloft, and Sara’s world fractured for the third time.

The snap was instantaneous. There was no slow halt, no stretching sound. It was simply… gone. She was thrown into a disorienting, chaotic tumble through someone else’s temporal wake. This wasn’t her memory. She saw flashes of a sun-bleached pier, felt the phantom rush of a roller coaster, smelled salt and fried dough. She heard the tinny, cheerful music of a carousel and, most vividly, the bright, clear sound of a woman’s laughter. It was a stolen memory, a stranger’s happiness, and it was violently disorienting.

Then, just as abruptly, she was back.

The slam into reality was jarring, a full-body concussion that left her gasping. She was in her car. The engine was idling, the radio playing a soft rock song she vaguely recognized. Her hands were on the steering wheel, and the community hall was visible through her windshield, still a hundred yards away. She had been on her way to meet him.

But that wasn't right. She remembered getting out of the car. She remembered confronting him.

A wave of intense psychic vertigo washed over her, so powerful it made her physically nauseous. Three distinct and contradictory memories of the last five minutes were now crammed into her skull, all screaming for dominance. She remembered calling him from her apartment. She remembered pulling into the car park and getting out. And she remembered driving here, listening to this very song on the radio. It was a migraine of the soul, a deep, structural crack in her sense of self.

A sharp rap on the driver's side window made her jump.

Mr. Milton stood there, peering in at her. His face was flushed, his breathing slightly ragged, but his eyes… his eyes were alight with an ecstatic, triumphant fire she had never seen before. He looked ten years younger, energized and utterly victorious.

He opened her car door, the courtesy a jarring piece of politeness in the midst of the insanity. He didn't say a word. He simply leaned in and placed the metallic boomerang on the empty passenger seat. It looked inert, a simple, dark stone.

“There,” he said, his voice brimming with a breathless, joyous satisfaction. “All done. A promise is a promise.”

He gave her one last look, a chilling, triumphant glint in his eye, and then he turned and walked away into the darkness, leaving her alone in her idling car. She was dizzy, sick, and now the unwilling owner of three separate pasts. She stared at the pebble on the seat beside her, the devil returned to her, with the horrifying, sickening certainty that he had just used her to inflict some new, unknown wound upon the world. And she had no idea what it was.