Three Minutes Ahead

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The corridor smells of ozone and cold coffee, its sodium lights buzzing in a rhythm that doesn’t quite match the building’s hum. Then a voice snaps out behind you: “Duck.” A shimmer of static-blue light resolves into a grinning figure in a warden’s coat, one finger still glowing from whatever just saved your skull. They nod at the far end of the hall, where a door stands slightly ajar — a door that wasn’t there a minute ago, and that pulses faintly like a held breath. “You already said yes,” they say. “Now come watch the clock with me.”