Ethan crept silently through the sprawling corridors of the massive laboratory.
The only lights guiding his way flickered from intricate machines and computer screens, his sole defense against tripping over his own feet in the dark.
Nerves gnawed at Ethan. Fear of being caught clawed at his chest, but something deeper—a stubborn sense of duty—pushed him forward.
In the distance, he spotted the faint beam of a flashlight, likely a guard. He dove into one of the many human experimentation rooms, moving as fast as his shaky legs allowed.
Ethan crouched against the door, heart pounding, careful not to be seen through the small window.
He held his breath, not just to stay silent but to block out the rancid stench of the room. The guard's footsteps echoed on the other side of the door. Ethan waited, frozen, until they faded before daring to move again.
Before slipping out, he stole one last glance at the room. Human bodies, stacked like discarded trash, awaited the next scientist to carve them up.
"Gross…" Ethan muttered under his breath, then checked the lab's blueprints on his phone.
He was close to the heart of the laboratory.
He moved cautiously. Despite the heavy security outside, once inside, he only had to dodge the occasional guard.
Atlas Laboratories had ensured their most sensitive areas lacked security cameras—a handy way to erase evidence in a pinch.
Of course, that also made it easier for them to erase *him* if they caught him.
*Vrroom*
Ethan froze as his phone buzzed with a message from his assistant, Emma.
{I'm surrounded. Don't text, don't call, and don't move until it's safe.}
Ethan's stomach dropped. If they'd caught her, there'd be no "safe" moment to escape. She'd be killed if she didn't talk—and even if she did, it wouldn't take long for them to hunt him down too.
"No, no!" For a split second, he wavered, tempted to turn back, beg for mercy, and save his closest friend's life.
But that would make everything—every ounce of pain they'd endured to get this far—pointless.
Ethan clenched his fist until his knuckles turned white, took a deep breath to steady himself, and pressed on. It was too late to turn back.
Each step filled him with dread and fear, but it also brought him closer to his goal.
There it was: a reinforced steel door with a bulletproof glass window revealing what lay inside.
The culmination of years of research, experimentation, and breakthroughs.
Born from the theory that acceleration magic could be fused with a complex system to build constant velocity, feeding itself until it stored enough mana to rewind time.
The massive device, looking more like an industrial tunnel, stretched 30 meters long.
Glowing blue cables snaked across the walls and ceiling, with two turbines facing each other at the tunnel's start and end.
It was just the first step, but this colossal machine—dubbed the "Collider"—had proven their theories.
Time travel was possible.
It might demand an astronomical amount of energy and more mana than any human could wield in a lifetime without help, but it was possible.
And that's why Ethan had to destroy it.
He accessed the computer by the door, which ran constant calculations to stabilize the magic buildup.
All he needed was to overload the Collider, forcing it to accumulate more energy than it could handle. The machine—and the entire lab—would be doomed.
Everything would explode. And if Ethan had to go down with it, so be it. The thought of his bosses wielding such monstrous power made his own death feel like a small price to pay.
But just as he was about to press the final key to start the process, he was interrupted.
*BANG*
A gunshot.
Ethan felt the bullet tear through his back before he even registered the sound of the weapon.
He collapsed, gasping in pain, struggling to breathe, and turned to see the culprit.
"Kid, what are you doing?" asked an elderly man with a smirk. "That's not a toy. You've gotta handle it with care."
Standing before Ethan was William, his boss, flanked by four armed guards and Emma, her face bruised and bloodied.
"I-I'm sorry… I didn't mean…" Emma sobbed, blood trickling from her mouth. "My mom… they said if I didn't rat you out, they'd—"
*BANG*
Emma crumpled to the floor, convulsing for a fleeting moment.
Then nothing.
Her body lay still, blood pooling uncontrollably from the bullet wound in her head.
"Emma!" Ethan screamed, desperation tearing at his voice. "Damn it, no! Why?!"
He tried to rush to her, but despite the adrenaline surging through him, he could only stagger to his feet, leaning against the Collider's door for support.
"Kid, you're smarter than this," William said, twirling the gun he'd just used to kill Emma.
"You know why we're doing this. You could've been part of something bigger, stood by us in our mission. But no. You played the naive hero, tossing a bright future for some childish sense of justice."
He gestured at Emma's body with his gun, then pointed it at Ethan, who only now noticed the blood soaking through his white lab coat.
"Look where that got you…"
Ethan gritted his teeth. It was over. His best friend was dead, and he was next. His research, his discoveries, twisted to serve the selfish whims of tyrants.
"I… I saw you as a father…" Ethan choked out, blood making it hard to breathe.
"And I saw you as a son," William replied, shrugging with casual indifference. "But some things are unforgivable, even among family."
In that moment, Ethan made a choice. He was dying anyway—there was no point in playing it safe.
The computer could trigger a countdown to destroy the Collider, sure. But there was another way—one without a countdown, where no one would have time to escape.
He flung open the door behind him, taking another bullet in the leg as he did, then locked it from inside the massive tunnel.
"Ethan?! You little bastard! What are you doing?!" William shouted, pounding on the door. "Don't just stand there, help me!"
The guards tried to break through the steel door, even firing at it. But it was pointless.
They could only watch as Ethan, nearly bled out, dragged himself toward the center of the Collider.
He left a trail of blood across the glowing cables, crawling toward his target.
He glanced back at his former mentor one last time, regretting he hadn't acted sooner.
'If I'd known what would happen… I never would've sold my research to these monsters…' he thought.
With the last of his strength, he yanked out the cables storing the energy, unleashing all the magic the Collider had been accumulating.
William's screams were drowned out by the roar of the turbines and the deafening hum of the gathering magic.
Ethan stared, almost mesmerized, at the orb of pure mana above him, spinning faster and faster, reaching speeds that defied perception.
And then it happened. Just before the Collider imploded, Ethan glimpsed the fruit of years of work.
The mana orb began to spin in reverse, warping the space around it, swallowing everything like a black hole.