Seconds Bleed: Time Ticks Backward, and You're Next

Elliot Voss held a grudge against digital files—they hid their flaws too well—but the unmarked drive begged him to grab it. He tapped his fingers—3-2-1-pause—a nervous tic from years of counting seconds. He’d spotted it at a flea market on a gloomy Saturday, half-buried under a tarp with warped VHS tapes and a busted Walkman, its scuffed shell buzzing faintly in his grip. The vendor, a haggard man with yellowed teeth, gave a lazy shrug. “Dug it out of a dumpster. Five bucks.” Elliot paid cash and brought it back to his apartment, a dim tangle of glowing screens, snaking cords, and the sour bite of old coffee in the air.

Elliot wasn’t always a scavenger, picking through tech’s bones. At sixteen, he’d stumbled on a cracked stopwatch in his grandfather’s attic, its gears ticking backward. One press, and the world froze—birds mid-flight, raindrops hanging like glass. He’d pause time to ace exams, sidestep bullies, or stretch a sunset’s glow. It was his secret edge until he tried to save Elva, who always ran faster. The watch jammed, time staggered, and Elva was gone—tires squealing, blood splashed on asphalt. Emerald hairpin flung at his feet. The only thing he had left of her. The watch died too; its gears fused. Elliot locked it away, quit school, and cut ties, haunted by the seconds he couldn’t save.

Now he lived alone, surrounded by droning relics—old radios, CRTs, anything that might whisper time’s secrets back to him. The drive felt alive, its purr a rush he hadn’t heard since that attic. Maybe it was a key. Maybe it could rewind what he’d lost. He plugged it in. One file waited: CROSSWALK_04.MOV. Four seconds long.

He pressed play. Shaky footage showed a crosswalk at dusk. Wet pavement pulsed with borrowed light, a glossy heartbeat under the streetlights. A girl in a red coat stepped off the curb, head down, unaware. Something about her stride tugged at him, like a memory he couldn’t place. A truck’s horn wailed. Tires screeched. The screen cut to black. It felt raw, unfinished. Elliot chewed his cuticle, tasting blood, and dissected the clip frame-by-frame. At 3:17, a single frame flickered—1/24th of a second. It was him. Hunched at his desk. Editing this clip. His thinning crown and gaping stare loomed out from a time he'd never inhabited.

Disturbed but unable to stop, he replayed it. The footage morphed in subtle, insidious fractures of itself. The girl’s coat turned blue, emerald jeweled hairpin sparkled. The truck lurked closer, grille reflecting. The hidden frame updated: Elliot, slick with sweat, his jaw carved by a silent snarl. On the third loop, the sky glowed sickly green. The girl’s shadow stretched like sludge. The frame froze him, fingers tangled in his hair, lips split wide in shock. “Elva? This has to be a glitch,” he groaned, voice wobbly.

The fourth loop warped the horn into a low growl. On the fifth, the clip grew to five seconds. The faceless POV figure charged at the girl as the truck roared near. Blackout. A new frame appeared: Elliot at that crosswalk, the girl mid-step, headlights raging.

Before he could process it, reality unraveled around him. He blinked. The apartment vanished. Cold air lashed his face as wet asphalt drenched his sneakers with an ominous sheen. The girl’s coat fluttered—red again. Her eyes held the stillness of a forsaken well, reflecting nothing. The truck’s horn gashed the air. It was seconds away. One of them wouldn’t make it. Time thickened like syrup, his pulse thudding in his ear. Shove her to safety or stand still? His legs chose before his mind could. He lunged, slamming into her. She tumbled to the curb. The truck grazed his shoulder. Pain searing through him.

Then he was back at his desk, gasping for air, monitor glowing.

The clip looped again, it showed him now, shoving the girl to safety. She hit the curb, rolled, and stood, walked offscreen unharmed. The hidden frame changed. The girl, older—maybe 20—peered through the screen. Her lips mouthed, Thank you. Relief hit him, he exhaled, rattled but alive.

His shoulder surged like a ghost ache. He reached for his coffee, hand trembling, and caught a fleeting glimpse in the mirror above his desk, his reflection staring back. His nose was crooked. Eyes too wide. Hairline off. He touched his cheek. The skin felt soft, like dough. Not his.

The drive whirred, loud and insistent. The grating buzz shook his desk. The clip restarted on its own. No crosswalk now. Just him at his desk, staring at himself staring at himself. A loop that lurched his gut. Elva’s voice cut in, distorted, layered like a shitty recording. “You didn’t save me. You fed me.”

The horn blared—not from his speakers, behind him, inside the room. He spun, chair scraping the floor. The drive’s casing cracked open, spitting like rotten fruit. Something oozed out. Black, slick, cables and sinew melded. It ticked backward with a wet vibration, like it was alive, 3-2-1. Then it stretched, forming a face. His face. His mouth erupted, jagged toothy peaks, eyes eerie with dampness.

“I’m the frame you missed,” it slithered, voice thick and guttural.

He stumbled back, knocking over a stack of DVDs. They clattered to the floor, useless. The thing crept closer, trailing flesh and wire. The monitor fluttered. The hidden frame shifted. Not the girl. You. Your face, now, reading this. The horn swelled. A wet clutch wrapped his ankles, frigid and strangling. The thing laughed, low and cruel. Elliot clawed at his desk, fingers slipping on metal, nails bending back. The clip rolled on—crosswalk gone, girl gone, just him and it and you. Elliot thrashed, his chair tipping as the thing’s cables snaked higher, coiling around his thighs, their slick heat burning through his jeans. He charged for the drawer, yanking out the watch’s husk—gears fused since Elva’s blood hit the asphalt. “I’m sorry, Elva,” he whispered, clutching it. “I thought I could save you—stop you before you ran.”

He smashed the watch against the desk, glass shattering, gears spilling like dead insects.

The entity mocked him, cables cutting off circulation. “Too late,” it hissed, Elva’s voice bleeding through. “You counted while she ran. Her seconds built me. Now yours will too.”

It hummed—a sick, off-key whine—mimicking the stopwatch’s old tick. His nails dig deeper in the desk, splintering wood. “No,” he rasped, but it grinned wider, eyes weeping black oil. Then it turned, staring out—at you. It knows you’re here, watching, waiting. “It’s not my decision anymore,” he choked, voice breaking as the cables scorched through skin.

The screen blinked. “You thought you’d save her with that watch. You thought I’d let you. You fed me her seconds—her blood—and I grew.”

The screen flashed again. Your reflection froze in the stutter—eyes like a hollowed skull, shadow spilling out, malevolent and malformed.

The horn screamed—not from the clip, now in your head. Your seconds are mine now.