Rain buffeted Kyra's car like airsoft pellets while the wind wrestled against her steering. She shouldn't have been driving so fast, but mistakes often follow one after the other. Her first mistake had been to think she could race the sun down the mountain. When it had become clear that she would lose, it was already too late to turn around in the narrow road.

  The twists and turns on that mountainside were harrowing during the day. But at night was when you really felt the absence of safety rails as your headlights peered over the asphalt's edge and never returned.

  With sundown came the rain, earlier than expected, blown in by a surging gale.

  At that point Kyra should have reconsidered her options. But her mind was already soaking in a warm bath at the mountainfoot inn, dreaming of soft sheets and a hearty fire.

  Thus a second mistake followed the first.

  The third mistake . . . can it really be called a mistake when it followed so naturally from the others? She misjudged a turn, her tires losing traction on the slick road, and skidded off the embankment. With no railing to catch her, she tumbled down the steep mountain slope.

  It was a miracle she survived, though gratitude was furthest from her mind. Only one arm still moved, the other surely broken. Her legs were pinned beneath the steering wheel, mouth filled with blood, body aching all over.

  Somehow she unclipped the seatbelt and was pulling herself free until the crushing pain in her shins forced her to stop.

  Rain slapped at her through the broken window. Her socks were sodden through. Even if she managed to free herself, how would she find her way in this weather?

  Still she harbored a faint hope of cozying up to the inn's fireplace. Freezing and wet and in great pain, she clung to that dream tighter than ever.

  Reaching beneath the car seat, she found the adjuster bar. A stroke of luck—it still worked! The seat pushed back just enough to free her legs.

  It was here that she met the limits of the human body. Strength of mind can't overcome frozen blood. As hard as she reached for the door handle, her arm didn't have the strength to raise that high.

  One miracle wasn't enough to save her from her mistakes.

  Then came the second miracle of the night. Metal groaned as the door was pulled away and tossed casually aside like a plastic toy. Strong arms—kind arms—reached in and lifted her off the seat like she was light as a child. A warm hand pressed against her chest and pushed all the cold and rain and pain out of her body.

  She grabbed the stranger's hand, wishing to thank them, and found her grip unexpectedly firm with all her strength restored. Her injuries were gone and her body was hers again.

  The stranger stepped away and tossed her a bundle of folded plastic. A raincoat just like he was wearing. It was too dark to see his face.

  "Can you walk?" His voice was gentle. Almost affectionate.

  She slipped into the raincoat. The warmth of his touch was already a distant memory, shaken out by her wet clothes and chattering teeth.

  "I'm parked nearby. Let's get you dry."

  She followed him without hesitation.

  This side of the mountain was heavily forested. Her car had curled around a thick tree and lit their way with the dying flickers of its headlights.

  They'd hardly taken ten steps before the man was opening a door and helping her climb in. She found herself inside a spacious offroader.

  While she warmed her hands against the hot air blasting from the vents, the man climbed into the driver's seat and twisted to face her. "There's a bag back there with some dry clothes and a towel. There's also a screen you can put up if you want some privacy."

  The bag in question was conveniently on the seat beside her. She toweled herself off and changed out. The new clothes fit her perfectly. Even the boots.

  By now enough of her clarity had returned for the eeriness of the situation to register. It was like this stranger had been waiting here specifically for her. There was also the matter of her injuries being healed like magic. Was she actually still trapped in the broken car, on the verge of death, and this was all one final, blissful hallucination?

  The man shifted the car into gear and started driving.

  "You're a hard person to find," he said. "I almost gave up bothering."

  "Why were you looking for me?" Though his words were troubling, her heart remained calm. Anyone meaning her harm wouldn't have gone to these lengths to save her.

  The glint of his eyes flicked to her in the rearview mirror. "I wanted to give you a chance to save the world."

  "Is that all?"

  "Think of me like a time traveler. I've seen the future, and it's terrible."

  She thought about everything going on in the world. "You don't have to be a time traveler to know that."

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  "It will be easier just to show you," he said. "In the seat pouch you'll find a document folder and a flashlight. Why don't you have a read?"

  Inside the document folder was a single piece of paper, smooth and expensive to the touch. Even without the light, the letters seemed to glow faintly. She shined the flashlight on it.

  "I don't recognize the language. It looks ancient."

  "Take a closer look."

  She continued to study the letters on the page, wondering if the man had sought her out for help deciphering this strange text. Hopefully he took disappointment well, as she couldn't make heads or tails of it.

  Not to be ungrateful, she redoubled her efforts. Could it be that the text read from right to left? If the language was something ancient, maybe she should start by looking for letters that resembled one she knew?

  Suddenly the paper disintegrated in her hands.

  Kyra jerked back in her seat. The words had appeared in her mind, not quite like seeing them and not quite like hearing them either, but a mix of both.

  The flashlight had slipped out of her hands and rolled under the seat. Before reaching down to retrieve it, she caught the man's gaze in the mirror again and found that she could see the many details of his face beyond what had before been dimly illuminated by the dashboard.

  Infravision. A word she'd never heard before. Based on its roots, it must be the ability to see heat.

  It wasn't just the man. The rest of the car wasn't as dark as before, though the effect wasn't as pronounced. It fit her theory because people are warmer than objects.

  Her attention was drawn back to him, and he was smiling when he asked, "What do you think?"

  "Was this how you were able to heal me?"

  "Magic has been leaking into our world. It allows us to gain abilities like these, but it also brings with it some dire risks."

  She took a moment to mull over his words before asking, "How dire?"

  "Extinction."

  His smile was gone, replaced by a solemn expression.

  "Why me?" she asked.

  "You don't understand how lucky you are. In every other timeline, you died tonight. It was only by chance that I learned of your existence."

  His words sat heavy inside her. She knew that nothing came free in this world. Especially not miracles.

  "When is this extinction?"

  Her question was met with a long silence. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat. The mood had changed, and she didn't understand why.

  At last he spoke. "I know you don't care about the human race, Kyra."

  It was hard to deny it because it was true. As grateful as she was to the mysterious man, this sounded like a matter far beyond her.

  She swallowed hard. "You've got me at a disadvantage. We never exchanged names."

  "You can call me Benny. I know more than just your name, Kyra. I also know that your hair isn't naturally pastel pink. I also know that you're an intelligent woman, so you'll understand what it means when I tell you this: out of everyone I've given the chance, you've come the closest to succeeding."

  A chill returned to her bones. She took a deep breath to calm her nerves.

  "Your ability to turn back time," she said, "I'm guessing it resets the timeline like it never happened. You're saying I helped you before in a previous timeline. I suppose that means I failed back then too."

  Benny was smiling again. "You were this fast on the uptake the first time too. Suppose you understand why it's in your interest to help me?"

  Considering everything that had happened tonight, the answer was obvious. "Should I fail, you'll go back in time, pick someone else. You don't save me and I die."

  "My only goal is to save the human race. I can't afford to fret over individual lives. You weren't the only one destined to die today."

  His expectations were clear. Prove herself indispensable or he would let her die at the foot of that mountain.

  There was a ray of hope. Whatever she did last time had impressed him enough to give her a second chance.

  But something about this was bothering her. "The reason you traveled all the way back to this point in time, the fact you were working with another Kyra—something must have gone wrong. So wrong it couldn't be fixed with a shorter time jump."

  There was a flicker of emotion in his eyes, but it was gone too fast for her to read. Was it guilt or regret? Had she known him better, she might have been able to tell.

  He replied, "That isn't something you should concern yourself with. Apply yourself to the best of your ability and follow my guidance, and I'm sure you'll do better this time."

  Without giving her a chance to probe further, he stopped the vehicle. "Tonight I'm going to give you a taste of what's to come."

  She pulled the raincoat back over and followed him out into the rain.

  They'd been driving long enough to have made it back to a road, but instead they were even deeper in the wilderness than before. It looked like the reason he'd stopped was that the trees had become too dense to drive through. They continued the rest of the way on foot.

  With the raincoat keeping the rain off her back and the snug fit of the many layers Benny had provided for her, only her face felt the sting of the cold. What a difference the right clothing made.

  Benny stopped and reached for something in the air. She noticed a faint shimmering just beyond his fingertips. It didn't last long as it abruptly coalesced into a perfect circle radiating a faint red light.

  Stepping around the object, she tried to get a look at it from the back. From every angle it was identical. Such an shape should be considered a sphere, but it was so perfectly round and uniform that her eyes refused to acknowledge it as three-dimensional at all.

  "It's a portal," Benny said.

  "Where does it go?"

  "Step through and find out.

  It was at this point that she realized the difference between accepting his words and trusting this man. Talk of time travel and saving the world was easy when it was all just that—talk. But now he expected her throw herself into a mysterious red hole in the fabric of the world. A portal, he called it. But in her mind it possessed the same character as a black hole, and every fiber of her being reviled against any thought of getting closer to that thing.

  However she was keenly aware of the stakes. Should she disappoint this man, the timeline would reset and she would die. Refusal wasn't an option.

  But to blindly follow orders was to be a slave. Did she want to live like this?

  She didn't budge from her spot. "Answer my question first."

  The air around Benny suddenly grew heavy. "You're questioning my instructions?"

  She firmly held his gaze. "If you simply wanted someone to follow orders, you could have picked anyone. But you went to a lot of trouble to save me tonight."

  His expression didn't change, making it difficult to read his thoughts. But he did reply, "The portal leads to a magical pocket in space. You can think of it as a tiny, self-contained world."

  The explanation did nothing to quell her fear because she couldn't stop seeing it as a black hole.

  "You go first," she said.

  Benny chuckled as if she'd given away a game. "See you on the other side." He disappeared through the portal.

  Kyra was alone now.

  She wanted to run. The car wasn't too far away, and the keys were inside.

  But then she would find herself back at the foot of the mountain. And she would die.

  There was only one way to live.

  She steeled her nerves and stepped into the hole.