When Time Bleeds

Chapter 4

The Moment That Didn’t Sit Right

Mimi liked Saturdays because they didn’t ask questions.

No alarms blaring through her skull. No schedules clawing at her ribs. Just the soft agreement between her body and the morning that said: you may begin when you’re ready.

She woke up before the sun fully committed to the sky, that grey blue hour where the world felt unfinished. Her ceiling fan clicked unevenly above her, three smooth turns, one hesitant pause and she stared at it longer than necessary, waiting for the pause to annoy her.

It didn’t.

That was strange.

Usually, little things irritated her. Sounds that didn’t make sense. Patterns that broke where they shouldn’t. She liked order, even if her life didn’t always reflect it.

She rolled onto her side and checked her phone.

6:11 a.m.

Too early to be awake. Too late to fall back asleep.

Her chest felt… tight. Not painful. Just aware of itself. Like her body had woken up before her mind and hadn’t bothered to explain why.

Mimi sat up slowly, waiting for the feeling to pass.

It didn’t.

She swung her legs off the bed and stood, half expecting dizziness. Nothing happened. No spinning. No weakness. Just that same quiet pressure, like a held breath she didn’t remember taking.

You’re overthinking, she told herself.

She always did that.

Running usually helped.

The street was calm in that peculiar Saturday way empty without feeling abandoned. Shops still asleep. Windows dark. The air cool enough to sting her lungs in a way she liked.

She stretched near the entrance of her apartment building, earbuds dangling unused around her neck. She didn’t feel like music yet. She wanted to hear the city waking up. Shoes scuffing. Birds arguing. The distant hum of something important happening somewhere else.

She started jogging, settling into a rhythm that matched her breath.

One step. Two. Inhale. Exhale.

Her thoughts drifted, loose and unguarded.

She thought about nothing in particular. About how she’d forgotten to call her aunt. About whether she should cut her hair. About the dream she couldn’t remember but had woken from with a strange sense of loss.

That feeling returned.

Not stronger.

Just… noticeable.

Like someone had brushed past her thoughts without touching them.

Mimi slowed slightly, glancing around.

The street was empty.

Get a grip, she thought, annoyed at herself. You’re not a child.

She picked up her pace again.

That’s when it happened.

She turned a corner at the same time someone else did.

There was no warning. No moment to adjust. No instinctive sidestep.

She collided with him full force.

Her face slammed into a solid chest, knocking the air clean out of her lungs. The impact startled a sound out of her half gasp, half yelp as she stumbled backward, feet tangling, balance lost.

For a split second, just a split second everything stopped.

Not slowed.

Stopped.

There was no sound. No air. No sense of movement.

Just stillness.

Then reality snapped back into place.

Strong hands caught her arms before she could hit the pavement.

“Oh—God—I’m so sorry,” she blurted out, breathless, embarrassed, already pulling away.

Her heart was racing far too fast for something so ordinary.

She barely looked at him. Just a flash of dark clothing, the clean scent of something expensive, unfamiliar. Her gaze snagged briefly on his face, sharp lines, unreadable eyes but the moment felt stretched, awkward, like she was staring too long at something she wasn’t meant to study.

Something about him felt… heavy.

Not physically.

Existentially.

“I wasn’t looking—are you okay?” she asked quickly, words tumbling over each other.

He didn’t answer immediately.

That shouldn’t have bothered her.

It did.

The silence between them pressed in, thick and uncomfortable. Not hostile. Just full.

When he finally spoke, his voice was calm. Too calm.

“I’m fine.”

That was it.

No irritation. No humor. No warmth.

Just a statement.

Mimi nodded too quickly, cheeks burning. “Sorry again,” she said, already stepping around him. “I should—yeah. Sorry.”

She took off before he could respond.

It wasn’t until she was half a block away that she realized something was wrong.

Her heartbeat didn’t slow.

Her breathing didn’t settle.

And her thoughts felt… scrambled.

She stopped running, bending over slightly, hands braced on her knees.

“What was that?” she muttered to herself.

The street looked normal. Sound returned to its usual volume. A car passed in the distance. A bird fluttered off a wire.

Everything was fine.

Except it didn’t feel fine.

She pressed her palm to her chest, frowning.

The pressure was gone.

Replaced by something else.

A hollow awareness.

Like she’d lost a second she couldn’t remember having.

Mimi finished her run distracted, legs moving on autopilot while her mind kept circling the same point.

The collision.

It shouldn’t have been memorable. People bumped into each other all the time. She’d apologized, moved on, done.

But the moment replayed in her head with strange clarity.

Not the impact.

The pause.

That fraction of nothing.

She slowed to a walk outside her building, staring at the concrete as if it might offer an explanation.

You imagined it, she decided.

She always trusted logic over instinct. Instinct made you dramatic. Logic kept you safe.

She went upstairs, showered, and dressed for the day. Jeans. A loose top. Hair pulled back with minimal effort.

Normal.

But little things kept slipping.

Her phone froze for a second longer than usual before unlocking.

The microwave reset itself halfway through heating her tea.

She checked the clock twice in the span of what felt like one minute and somehow five had passed.

By noon, her unease had turned into irritation.

“Get over it,” she told her reflection in the mirror.

Her reflection stared back a heartbeat too late.

Mimi blinked.

It corrected itself instantly.

She stepped back, pulse quickening.

“Okay,” she whispered. “That’s enough.”

She left the apartment shortly after, deciding she needed noise. People. Something grounding.

As she walked down the street, her thoughts drifted again unwillingly to the man she’d collided with.

She couldn’t remember his face clearly.

That bothered her.

She remembered impressions instead. The weight of him. The way the air had felt wrong. The odd sense that she’d interrupted something she wasn’t meant to see.

A shiver crawled up her spine.

You’re projecting, she told herself. He was just a stranger.

But the word stranger didn’t fit.

It implied distance.

Whatever that moment had been, it hadn’t felt distant at all.

That night, Mimi dreamed of clocks.

Not ticking ones.

Broken ones.

Faces without hands. Hands spinning without faces. Numbers bleeding into each other, melting, reforming.

She stood in the center of it all, barefoot, watching time move around her without touching her.

When she woke, her pillow was damp with sweat.

Her phone read 2:00 a.m. exactly.

She lay still, listening to her own breathing, a strange certainty settling into her bones.

Something had shifted.

Not in the world.

In her.

And she had no idea why.

Mimi stayed awake longer than she meant to.

The room felt different at night, not threatening, just… attentive. As though it had learned her shape and was waiting for her to move wrong.

She turned onto her side and checked the time again.

2:07 a.m.

Seven minutes had passed. She was sure of it. She hadn’t moved. Hadn’t even blinked long enough to lose track.

Her throat tightened.

“Stop,” she whispered to herself, the sound oddly loud in the quiet room.

She swung her legs off the bed and stood, padding softly into the kitchen. The floor tiles were cold, grounding. Real. She welcomed the sensation.

She poured herself a glass of water, watching the way it filled, how the surface trembled, then stilled.

For a fleeting moment, she had the irrational urge to dip her fingers in, just to prove that time still responded to her touch.

She didn’t.

Instead, she drank slowly, counting each swallow.

One.

Two.

Three.

Halfway through, a sharp wave of fatigue hit her so suddenly she had to brace herself against the counter.

It wasn’t normal tiredness.

It was the kind that settled into your bones, heavy and immediate, like she’d skipped a night of sleep she didn’t remember missing.

Her brows furrowed.

“That’s ridiculous,” she muttered.

She hadn’t even done anything strenuous that day.

She returned to bed, but sleep didn’t come easily this time. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw that moment again not the impact, but the space between seconds. The unnatural stillness that had wrapped around them like a held breath.

And something else.

A feeling she hadn’t wanted to name before.

Loss.

Not dramatic. Not painful.

Just… quiet.

Like misplacing a word you used often, only realizing later how much you needed it.

Sunday morning arrived without ceremony.

Mimi woke feeling oddly refreshed, which annoyed her more than exhaustion would have.

She sat up slowly, scanning herself for anything out of place.

Nothing hurt.

Nothing felt wrong.

And yet, she had the distinct sense that if she stopped paying attention even for a moment something would slip past her again.

She went about her morning carefully. Brushing her teeth, she counted the strokes. Washing her face, she watched her reflection closely.

Everything behaved.

Too well.

She dressed and stepped outside, letting the sun warm her skin. The city had fully woken now, voices overlapping, traffic humming, life moving forward in its usual messy way.

She should have felt comforted.

Instead, she felt… separate.

Like she was walking a half-step out of sync with everyone else.

At a crosswalk, the pedestrian light flicked from red to green.

She stepped forward and hesitated.

For no reason.

A second later, a cyclist sped past where she would have been.

Her heart slammed hard against her ribs.

“Okay,” she whispered, shaken. “That was just instinct.”

But her instincts had never been that sharp before.

She continued on, unsettled.

Later that afternoon, she passed the corner where it had happened.

She hadn’t planned to. Her feet had simply taken her there.

The street looked ordinary. Sunlit. Innocent.

She stood there longer than necessary, replaying the moment again, trying to extract meaning where none should exist.

“Who were you?” she asked the empty space.

No answer came.

But the air felt… aware.

She hugged her arms around herself and turned away.

As she walked home, a thought surfaced soft, uninvited, and deeply unsettling.

What if that moment hadn’t just happened to her?

What if it had taken something with it?

The idea frightened her enough that she laughed it off immediately.

“Get a grip, Mimi,” she said aloud, forcing lightness into her voice.

Still, when she reached her apartment and locked the door behind her, she leaned back against it for a long moment, breathing hard.

Because for the first time in her life, she felt watched

Not by eyes.

But by time itself.