Time roared around me. As I moved us back, a million times a million other possibilities, choices, and whole other universes churned around me.

Could I grab onto one of them and ride time to a different place? To a less death-tastic future?

It would be almost easy to—

As my focus shifted, the page slipped. I snapped all my attention back, but a wave of nausea rolled through me.

The images looping around me were pure temptation. If I took that road or lost hold…

I wasn’t sure how this all worked yet, but I had a feeling if I got creative now, we’d get spat out somewhere random or sliced up, or just straight killed.

The ugly way.

Focus. I could bring us back a few hours and anything more would be greed. Dangerous, deadly greed.

Time kept roaring as the seconds ticked back. I could only move in reverse, going with the flow as I pulled everything in the universe the opposite way it wanted to go.

The strain of it pounded in my head. Every moment hit between my eyes like a bullet.

The further I went, the worse the pain.

Back on the stretcher. Back down the hall. Back to holding hands with Tair.

It burned like the winds of time bit at my skin and soul, ripping off little bits and pieces. The longer it took, the more the other possibilities called.

It would be so easy to stop halfway. To change directions. Flip to another page and go somewhere else. Something to stop the searing hurt…

But instinctively, I knew I had to get back to that breakfast table. Back to the moment Tair and I had somehow bookmarked. When the healthy, living Tair had touched my skin and both of us had shivered—maybe unconsciously sensing the potential to rewrite it all. That was the only place we could go and survive this.

Achingly slowly, I pulled us closer, ignoring the flames, ignoring the possibility of failure. I focused on the scent of burnt bacon. The sweet taste of kiwifruit. Tair’s warm fingers. As the flames licked at me, they burned off the tissue paper layers. The closer we got to the right past, the clearer the moment looked in my head.

The white of my room. The charcoal elephant drawn on the wall behind Tair. Clouds shifting in the holographic window at the corner of my eye. The vanilla scent of warm pancakes.

I couldn’t fail. Not so close.

Even through the pain, hope rang out. This changed everything.

If I could just get through—

Finally, we punched past the last layer. The past and future snapped together for a dizzy moment. Then the double vision cut as we ricocheted into the present.

Tair’s fingers brushed mine and both of us gasped like fish thrown out of water. He staggered, bracing himself against the table.

We were back. Safe in my little, white room.