The engine was already screaming as Arty forced the Ute forward, the road ahead tightening into something unstable as movement began bleeding into places it didn't belong.
Not full chaos yet but close enough that every instinct he had was already warning him the window was closing faster than it should have been.
The kind of pressure that didn't need explanation anymore because he had already lived through the outcome twice.
Leah wasn't beside him this time, and that absence carried weight in a way he hadn't expected, not because he regretted it yet but because he understood exactly where she was in this moment.
He knew exactly how that timeline would unfold if he did nothing, and exactly how much it would cost him if he tried to change it without a plan.
"This is earlier," he muttered, watching the way movement began forming ahead of him, shapes crossing the road too quickly, too erratically, the edges of the world starting to fracture before the main collapse had even begun.
[Variable deviation detected]
"Yeah," he said under his breath, tightening his grip slightly on the wheel. "I can see that."
The viable location still pulled at him, steady and consistent, the only fixed point in a world that was already starting to shift out from under him.
Sitting just ahead like something that belonged to a different version of this timeline, one where he actually had enough time to reach it.
[Viable Location Detected — Distance: 17.9km]
He adjusted his line without hesitation, cutting around a vehicle that slowed too suddenly, then correcting again as a figure stumbled across the road in a way that didn't match normal movement.
The kind of wrongness that would have confused him before but now only confirmed what he already knew, this was where it started, not the outbreak itself, the fractures building towards the end.
The point where the world stopped behaving predictably and began collapsing in ways that punished hesitation more than mistakes.
"I'm still moving too slow," he said quietly, not with frustration but with the kind of cold assessment that came from seeing the same failure from multiple angles.
The road ahead narrowed further, vehicles angling badly, people reacting late, movement stacking in ways that made clean paths harder to maintain. Even though he drove better than before, smoother, sharper, more controlled, he could already see the same ending forming in front of him.
That was the difference now, he didn't need to reach the failure point to recognise it, he could see it building, he could feel it coming, and that changed the decision.
He took the next turn, not toward the viable location, toward the station, the choice settled immediately, not emotional, not impulsive, but deliberate. If he was going to test this variable, then he needed to test it properly instead of half-committing and losing time anyway.
"If I'm doing this," he muttered, "I do it cleanly and methodically."
The Ute continued forward, cutting through a narrowing stretch of road as the pressure increased, the environment shifting faster now as more movement appeared, more instability, more signs that the timeline was accelerating compared to the last loop.
The station came into view, still normal, still functioning, still completely unaware of what was about to hit it.
He pulled up next the bowser and filled his Ute up with fuel, then he immediately headed into the shop, moving inside with urgency that didn't match the environment, because pretending things were normal had already cost him more than once.
"Leah," he called, his voice controlled but carrying enough edge to cut through the routine.
She looked up from behind the counter, confusion settling in first, then mild irritation as she tried to place him and failed, because in this version of the timeline he was a stranger walking into her space acting like he belonged there.
"I'm sorry… But do I know you?" she asked.
"Crap… No she doesn't know me yet." he thought.
Stepping closer without slowing. "No, and that's not important right now… What is important is that something is about to go very wrong, very quickly, and if you stay here when it happens, you may die." He said.
She blinked once, her expression tightening slightly as she processed the words without accepting them, the reaction exactly what it should have been for someone hearing something that made no sense in a world that still felt stable.
"Right… And what… I'm supposed to just believe that?" She said slowly.
"No… I just need you to pay attention." he replied, shaking his head slightly.
He gestured toward the front windows. "Watch the road."
She hesitated, then stepped away from the counter just enough to look, her eyes scanning the outside where everything still appeared mostly normal. Where nothing obvious had broken yet, the first signs were too subtle for someone without context to recognise.
"That's what you're talking about?" she asked. "People driving?"
"That's what it looks like before it starts," he said, his tone tightening slightly. "Give it a minute."
She didn't move away this time, she just watched.
Arty stepped closer, lowering his voice slightly.
"In the next few minutes, people are going to start attacking each other, and not in a way you can reason with, not in a way you can talk down, and once it starts properly, you won't get a second chance to leave."
She turned toward him again, uncertainty replacing irritation, but not enough to commit, not enough to act.
"You're serious," she said.
"Yes." He replied.
"About what?" She asked.
He exhaled once, sharp. "About you dying if you stay here."
Then the first scream hit from outside, both of them turned, the moment snapped into place.
A man dropped near the pumps, another person moving toward him too fast, too aggressively, the movement wrong in a way that couldn't be explained away once it was seen clearly.
Leah froze. "…what is that?"
"That's how it starts, We need to go. Now." Arty said. ""
She didn't move immediately.
Her brain was still catching up, still trying to reconcile what she was seeing with what she believed was possible, and those few seconds stretched longer than they should have, longer than he could afford.
"Leah… We need to move." he said, sharper now.
"I—" she started, then stopped again, her eyes flicking back outside as more movement followed, more bodies reacting, more instability spreading outward.
They ran for the Ute, but Leah didn't move cleanly or decisively the way someone would if they fully trusted what was happening, her steps hesitating just enough that Arty had to physically grab her arm and pull her forward.
When another scream tore across the forecourt and something slammed into the glass behind them hard enough to crack it.
"I don't—" she started, resisting for half a second as she looked back toward the station, toward normality, toward everything her brain was still trying to hold onto.
"You don't have time," Arty snapped, dragging her the last few steps as movement exploded properly behind them.
Arty didn't wait for the door to fully close before the Ute surged forward, tyres biting hard as he forced them back onto the road, already knowing they were late, already feeling the difference in how quickly everything was collapsing compared to before.
"You weren't lying," she said, her voice tight, still trying to process what she had just seen.
"No… I wasn't." he replied.
[Critical Variable Preserved]
The route tightened almost instantly, vehicles blocking lines that had been clear before, movement spreading faster.
Pressure building in a way that made it obvious he had pushed the timeline into a worse configuration by interfering without enough speed to offset the cost.
Every second he had spent convincing her had cost him, every hesitation had compounded.
"I lost too much time," he muttered.
"What?" she asked.
"It doesn't matter, just hold on." he said quickly.
The Ute clipped a stalled car as he forced a line through a closing gap, the impact throwing them sideways just enough to destabilise the rear before he corrected, pushing harder, faster, trying to outrun something that wasn't behind him but already everywhere.
Then a truck that had ignored a stop sign slammed into them from the side. The impact tore control away instantly as the Ute snapped sideways, metal screaming as the frame twisted under force, glass exploding outward in a violent burst that turned the world into fragments and motion.
The vehicle rolled.
Once.
Twice.
Then slammed hard into a tree with crushing force.
Everything stopped.
[Compensatory deviation detected.]
[Causal instability increasing.]
The cab had collapsed inward, the structure folding just enough to trap rather than kill outright, metal pressing into space that used to be empty, turning the inside into something too tight to move in properly.
Arty tried to breathe, the first inhale came shallow, the second hurt him even more.
His chest tightened as pressure built slowly, the kind that didn't end things instantly but made it very clear that it was going to, the weight of the crash settling in around him as the vehicle locked into its final shape.
Leah was beside him, he could hear her, a broken sound, her breath ragged and the air didn't come to her properly, each attempt more feeble than the last.
His body tried to draw a breath too and failed.
Long enough for the understanding to settle in without panic, without denial, just a clean, brutal clarity.
It wasn't the crash, it was the time he didn't have after it, his vision narrowed the edges collapsing inward, his thoughts slowing as the need to breathe became something his body could no longer answer.
And then… Everything stopped, there was no impact, no sensation, no body.
Arty existed in a space that had no direction, no weight, no sense of distance or time, awareness held in place without anything physical to anchor it, the memory of the crash still sharp even though the reality of it was gone.
The system was there.
[Cycle Terminated]
[Cause of Death: Structural Collapse / Asphyxiation]
[Cycle Efficiency Increased]
"Instability?"
[Every significant alteration increases uncertainty within the current cycle.]
"Because I changed things… I saved her?"
[Confirmed.]
Arty exhaled slowly, or at least the idea of it, because breathing wasn't something he needed here.
"This is where I choose."
[Reset Options Available]
Option 1:
Return — 1 Day Prior to Outbreak Penalty: +10% Debt
Option 2:
Return — 7 Days Prior Penalty: +25% Debt
Option 3:
Return — 30 Days Prior Penalty: +50% Debt
The options hung in front of him, clear and unavoidable, and for the first time he actually understood the weight behind them, not just the time but the cost attached to each decision.
Thirty days would fix this, he knew it would, he could feel it, it was the only option that gave him enough room to change anything in a meaningful.
His jaw tightened. "It's too expensive at the moment, I need to know more first."
The debt was already out of control so there's no point worrying about it, taking that option now would push it into something he wasn't sure he could ever recover from.
"Option 1."
[Confirmed]