He was falling.
Again.
It was beginning to feel like a pattern—this free-fall through some unseen space, like time itself had a personal vendetta against him. Air rushed past his ears in deafening silence, and a strange pressure coiled in his chest. Familiar.
Too familiar.
Déjà vu whispered at the edges of his thoughts. Haven't I done this before? The memory pressed against him. Modern Earth. The fall. The collision into an unfamiliar world where nothing made sense. The little boy. The copy of him. The woman who looked like her, but wasn't.
This felt the same.
And yet… not quite.
Something was off.
Wait. A cold realization slid into place.
He hadn't picked anything this time.
Last time, he'd chosen. He'd stood in that place between timelines—had watched a thousand lives flicker past him, and he'd picked the one he wanted to change. After that, he was thrown out of the past and punished with a random world.
But this time? Was he again falling into a random world?
