25min Timer Novels & Stories

I thought, just to be sure, counting again. Wednesday, 21:05: Beep. 1.2..3..120. Thursday, 21:05: Beep. 1.2..3..120. Friday, 21:05: Beep. 1.2..3..120. Friday, 23:30: “Beep, hello 001. It's 23:50, the counting system will close in ten minutes, please complete the count from 1 to 120 if you want to continue”

“We need to move faster.” “We have like nine minutes.” “We don’t,” he says. “We have less than two minutes. I set the timer too soon. If we are still on this pass when that bomb goes off, we’re toast.”

“Thank you.” A loud blast sounds again and the front door almost gives out. I walk over to the panel and follow Ximena’s instructions, setting the timer on two seconds. That should be enough for me to exit and nobody to enter. I take a deep breath, readying all my power and press enter.

Two months to build this into something worth defending. The timer's running. The work begins now.

The timer on it was in its final thirty seconds. He moved.

His lip turns up a bit but he stops himself before actually smiling. "Fine. You get five minutes," he says and actually sets a timer for five minutes on his phone, but at least he lets me walk inside and sit down on his couch. It already feels like a win, "Time's ticking, Boss."

Set the timer for three minutes that feel like three hours. Please, I pray to whatever force in the universe decides these things. Please let this work. Please let my body do this one thing right. Please don't let me have survived surgery just to fail at the one thing I survived for. Two minutes pass. The test is still blank. One minute left. Still nothing. Thirty seconds. The control line appears. The test is working. Fifteen seconds. Still just one line. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. One line.

The time. 14-06-97-23-47. The screen flashes green. The temporal key generates, a stream of numbers cascading down the glass. A sixty-second countdown begins, pulsing like a heartbeat. I stare at it. "It works." Gabriel checks his watch. "We leave in twenty minutes." I nod. I try to lock the phone, but my hands are shaking. Fine, high-frequency tremors that I can’t suppress. He sees it. He takes my hands in his. His palms are rough, warm, steady.

She stared for several long seconds. "Five minutes!!"