Nine Minutes Novels & Stories

Rule 3: 90 days. Rule 3: Gone. End

naz_mzf91 The End…

Toward whatever end is waiting. Twenty-three hours and fifty-nine minutes. I'll be there in four.

I said. She shook her head once. “That’s exactly the point.” The door behind us suddenly unlocked with a sharp click. Freedom—offered too easily. The screen went black. One final message appeared in white text: You have nine minutes. Choose wrong, and this ends forever. Sienna stepped toward the door. I grabbed her arm. “We’re not playing by their rules.” She looked back at me, a sad, knowing smile touching her lips. “We already are.” And then she pulled free—

You have twenty minutes. Jake.

“Buried in your system. She didn’t just poke you. She flipped a switch that was welded into your bones before you were old enough to spell your own name.” A new element bloomed at the corner of Lys’s internal vision, ghosting over the physical displays. A number. Bright, toxic red against the muted backdrop of her HUD. **90 : 00 : 00 : 00** It ticked. **89 : 23 : 59 : 59** “Is that—” “Days, hours, minutes, seconds,” Aria whispered. “It just started. Ninety days. That’s your fuse.” Her skin went cold.

“With what time exactly? You’ve got an hour and thirty minutes until nine, Dot.” Work. Shit. I’d completely forgotten.

Then another text came through, carrying his usual unquestionable certainty. [Once I’m done handling this situation, we’ll have the wedding. I promise. Just wait for me a little longer, okay?] I stared at the message for half a minute before blocking his number and deleting every way he could contact me. As the plane took off, I watched the city slowly disappear beneath the clouds. I touched the scar on my face that hadn’t fully faded, then looked down at the bandages wrapped around my hands. There was no reluctance, only relief. Ninety-nine canceled weddings were enough.

I gave a soft, bitter laugh and slowly slipped our documents back into my pocket. “This makes ninety-nine.” “What?” “This is the ninety-ninth time we’ve tried to get our marriage registered.” I turned toward the subway entrance. “And the ninety-ninth time you’ve left me hanging because of him.” I heard her heels stop on the pavement, then suddenly start running after me. “The first time, you bailed on our trip because he was on the night shift and scared of the dark. You took a red-eye flight just to be with him. “The second time, we were practically at the door of the courthouse. You heard he fainted from overwork and left me standing in the snow alone for an entire day.”