I had no control. The moment Andrew vanished from my line of sight, my limbs sprang into action, the pain and nausea vanishing in the face of the sudden chill that pervaded my senses. Shouts and protests rang out behind me, but sounded garbled to my ears. My vision tunneled. All that mattered was reaching that door.

It slammed against the wall as I charged into the hallway. Halfway down it, I slipped in something wet. My feet shot out from under me and I hit the floor hard. Lying in the puddle beside me was a middle-aged man’s corpse.

I’ve watched hundreds – no, thousands of people die within the confines of my mind, but few are the number of dead bodies that I’ve seen up close and personal in real life. This was the first. Whatever fearlessness had possessed me dissipated as a sickly, rusty tang of blood mixed with putrid bodily fluids pervaded my nostrils. A gross, sticky warmth spread slowly across my back. The mess was soaking into my uniform.

Acid and bile rose from my stomach as I rolled onto my forearms and knees to retch.

‘No time for that,’ murmured the Voice behind me.

It was right. Swallowing the urge to vomit, I forced myself to my feet and hurried through the house, following the open doors until I found myself outside in pitch black darkness.

A cold wind brushed my right shoulder and I heard the creak of a gate. Following the breeze, I walked into the darkness, through the open gate and into an alley. Déja vu hit me. I broke into a sprint. Sweat trickled down my temple, dripping off my jaw. 

This was where I’d seen Ai die.

My heart pounded, adrenaline thudding a rhythm in my head. Sirens echoed in the distance. Ahead, I could hear shrieks. 

The closer I got, the more the thought stuck in my head.

Had I screwed up? 

The idea was horrifying. The cold that consumed me sank deeper into my core.

Had my meddling led Ai to an earlier grave?

My veins felt like ice.

I rounded the corner in time to see Andrew grab Ai by the wrist and fling her into the wall. She collapsed to the ground in a whimpering, shivering heap.

Without thinking, I picked up a stone and threw it. A stupid attempt given that I have all the athletic prowess of a turtle on land. The rock fell short, hitting the ground with a clatter.

Andrew turned around. His mouth moved, the words too quiet for me to make out. He spat something at Ai then began to walk towards me.

All my nerves screamed at me to run away.

As if detached from my brain, my body took a step forward.

‘Save her…’

 My legs wouldn’t listen to me. I could barely breathe.

I’d been in a million dangerous situations while saving lives, but never had I stared a murderer in the eye.

I didn’t know what to do.

In my ear I heard a disappointed sigh.

The cold suddenly vanished. Sensations that had been muted returned in full force: the drum of rain on my skin and the pavement rattling in my ears; the nauseating pain resonating from my stomach and my spine; the damp, sticky sensation of my rain and blood-soaked clothes sticking to my skin.

‘Maybe next time – ’

Footsteps sounded behind me.

‘ – you’ll do better.’

Andrew’s eyes moved to the space over my shoulder. 

I started to turn.

‘Jesus Christ. Rin, move!’ A hand grabbed hold of mine –

And time stood still.

Two minutes, forty-six seconds.

The hand yanked me backward, its owner shoving me aside. A blur of black uniform and orange hair flashed by. Slamming shoulder-first into Andrew, Ryo tackled him to the floor. 

I was frozen. Petrified. Useless.

Impossible. He was supposed to die from lung cancer, how could – 

No. 

Nononono. 

My visions were finite. Once I'd seen a person's death, I wasn't privy to another glimpse of that person's future unless I saved their lives. But if that were true then how – why did I just...

Roaring in fury, Andrew pried Ryo off him. His fist swung, and Ryo staggered back, bringing up his arms to shield his face as a second and third blow followed. 

I was shaking. I couldn’t help him. I couldn’t watch. 

Fifty-

The seconds were ticking down in my head. 

Forty-five-

All I could see was Ryo on the floor with a knife in his chest.

Forty-

‘Evelyn!’ 

I looked up. 

Knife.

Ryo had Andrew pinned again. He glared at me over his shoulder, arms trembling as he struggled to hold the other man down.. ‘Evelyn, get Ai and get the fuck out of here!’

I barely heard him. 

Thirty-

The cold trickled back. ‘Save him,’ hissed the Voice.

Ryo was straining. ‘Evelyn… hurry up... I can’t – ’ 

Twenty-

Andrew headbutted him in the face. He reached into his jacket-

Ten-

My voice broke in panic. ‘Ryo, he’s got a knife!’

Zero.

Red rain sprayed into the air.

* * *

I… failed.

My knees felt weak. They collapsed beneath me. My eyes watered, vision blurring until I couldn’t see. Not that it mattered; I didn’t want to see the scene in front of me anyway. Ryo was dead because of me. Because of my meddling. Because I thought that I could save Ai from – 

‘Andrew…’ Ai's soft, wavering voice cut through my brooding. Somewhere in my peripherals, my brain registered her standing up. ‘Andrew, what have you done?’

I wanted to look up. I knew that I should - we were both still in danger, but all I could do was stare at my filthy, blood-covered hands. They were shaking.

Murderer.

The reply was stuttered. ‘Ai, I… what was I supposed to do? He –  I – ’ 

‘Your father was an accident, but this… This… Why did you have a knife?’

‘Because I – Because we…’ He fumbled for words. ‘I had to protect us!’

Bullshit. 

‘He needed it because he’s a born murderer,’ said a voice. It took a moment for me to realise it was my own. 

Admittedly, a statement like that is not the smartest thing to say to a guy who’d just killed your best friend, but what the fuck did it matter. All I did was stand there like a useless bystander. Might as well get killed too. 

I forced myself to look up – to meet Ai’s eye. ‘At 12:07 he was going to stab you in this alleyway.’ 

She opened her mouth to reply, then seemingly thought better of it and bit her tongue.

A scoff escaped my throat as the thought that had been niggling at me this whole time found its way into words. ‘Actually, I think me getting involved might have screwed up the timeline. He was about to do it just now if Ryo hadn’t jumped in to try and save us both.’

Ai bit her lip. ‘Eburin, I –’

We both jumped as something hit the ground with a clang. The knife had dropped from Andrew’s hand. He stared at me like I’d just told him he was about to die. ‘I… You… How could you think that I would – ’ His eyes darted over to Ai. ‘Ai, I’d never… you know I would never – ’

I couldn’t help it. The situation wasn’t funny, but I just had to laugh. It was like I was stuck in the middle of a bad drama. A nightmare where the only thing you could do was laugh and hope to god that it would finally end. Because if I didn’t laugh, then I’d probably cry...

The shadow of Ryo’s body taunted me from the edge of my vision.

I shook my head. ‘Now, now, Andrew.’ The sound of his name made him flinch. ‘Don’t tell me you didn’t just throw her into the wall just now? Funny, because that’s exactly what you did when you killed her.’

‘It wasn’t because I was going to hurt her!’ He clutched at his head like it pained him. ‘I didn’t want… I  just – I had to try and… no, that’s… I – I just – ’ 

Ai features trembled; she looked like she was about to cry. ‘You just what, Andrew?’

He couldn’t answer. He couldn’t even meet her eye.

Instead, he looked back at me. Gone was the fury on his face, replaced by a dark, desperate expression of terror and disbelief. His blue eyes searched my face - almost as if they were looking for an answer or signalling a plea for help.

All I had was the cold, stony truth.

There was blood on my hands. I clenched my fists into the pleats of my skirt to steady them.

‘Murderer.’ The word rang in my ears despite the rain.

He backed away from me and ran. As his shadow disappeared into the darkness, the emotions I’d been trying to dammed up broke through. It didn’t matter that the ground was wet, muddy and splashed with blood, I crumpled up into a shaking, sobbing ball of unintelligible blubbering and hiccups. 

I’d always known there would be casualties – that there’d be consequences for meddling like I did, but not once had I thought it would extend beyond the people in my visions or myself. 

I’d always told myself that Ryo didn’t believe me when we talked about my visions, but deep down I knew the truth: I didn’t want him to believe me, because I knew that if he ever did, he’d try to stop me – try to protect me. I knew that if he did there was a good chance he might get hurt or die.

My visions were not finite. My own meddling proved at least that much. As long as I never got him involved, he would be fated to die from cancer. As long as he was kept out of danger, away from me, he’d at least live a normal life.

I was not a hero, helping people out of the goodness of my heart. I did it out of selfishness. Validation. Because if I didn’t then that meant…

It meant…

I looked at the dead body in front of me.

This wasn’t the first time I’d had blood on my hands.

‘Eburin?’ An auburn veil hung in front of my face as Ai crouched down beside me, craning her neck so she could see my face. ‘Can you stand?’

I blinked. Was it just me, or did the dead body move?

The dead body rolled over with a groan. ‘Rin…’

‘Ryo!’ I nearly face-planted into the pavement in the slippery struggle to get off my hands and knees. Shoes skidding in the water, I dropped to my knees beside him. ‘Oh my god, you’re alive!’ 

How was he alive? 

‘Oh, good,’ he mumbled. ‘You’re okay...’

I rubbed my eyes against my cast to stop myself from crying. ‘Shut up, you idiot.’ My good hand hovered above his face, afraid to touch it in case the next vision had a result as frightening as the last.

‘Mm-hmm… I’m glad you’re safe too…’ He sounded tired, like he was about to fade out of existence. His eyelids began to droop.

‘No, Ryo, don’t go to sleep.’ I smacked his cheek lightly – and was snatched from reality by yet another vision: Ryo stone cold on the ground, face white as a sheet as the storm washed away the blood seeping from his stomach. 

‘...Evelyn?’ 

When I came back to reality, both of my shaking hands were cupping Ryo’s face. Apparently my shout had been enough to trade instant death for one that was slow instead. With any luck, I could make it even slower - slow enough that the paramedics could still save him when they got here. Fortunately, with all the danger I ran headfirst into, I’d done my fair share of applying first aid. 

I swallowed, and made a failure of an attempt to smile reassuringly. ‘Don’t worry, I’ve seen these types of deaths a hundred times before.’

‘Deaths...?’

Good time for foot-in-mouth syndrome. ‘No… uh –  I’ve done this before.’

Step 1: Stop or slow the bleeding.

Blood gurgled from his abdomen. It was a deep laceration - that much I could tell. The blood wasn’t spraying out like a fountain, which hopefully meant the knife hadn’t nicked anything too important. Regardless, apply pressure. 

I took off my jumper and a faint smile spread across Ryo’s face as his eyes drooped again. ‘Mm… Wet shirt… nice…’

‘You’re delirious. It’s a sign of blood loss. Don’t sleep.’

‘Rin-chan…’ His breaths were getting shallow. ‘Have to tell you something…’

‘Tell me when you’re not bleeding to death. Grit your teeth, Ryo.’ Ignoring his yell of anguish, and the flare of pain that shot up my own injured wrist, I used both hands to press the cloth firmly against his wound. He groaned, eyes closed, face scrunched up in pain, and lifted up a hand to place it on top of mine. 

Okay… bleeding slowed. Now we needed an ambulance.

I looked around and my gaze met with Ai’s. She hovered a metre away, eyes wide and lips drawn tight, unsure what to do.

‘Have you got your phone?’ I asked.

She swallowed and shook her head.

I gritted my teeth. Great. She didn’t have hers and mine was somewhere on the lawn where I’d dropped it while being beaten up by Andrew.

Ryo’s fingers tapped mine. ‘Back pocket,’ he mumbled.

Trust the guy who’s dying to be the most useful one at the time. I repeated the words to Ai, who hastily joined us on the ground and fished the phone out of his pocket.

‘Pasuwādowa nandesuka?’ she asked Ryo.

‘Nanayonroku…  niyon… hachiroku.’

She typed in his passcode, then blinked, looked at me and back at him. ‘Sorewa...?

Ryo didn’t respond but his fingers tapped twice against the back of my hands.

Keypad at her fingers, Ai hesitated and looked at me. ‘Um… kyuu– uh, sābisu number?’

Right – international transfer student. Shouldn’t have expected her to know. ‘Triple zero, ask for an ambulance. Tell them we’re in the back alley behind your house.’

‘Andrew’s house,’ Ai corrected. Dialling the number, she listened to it ring.

‘Rin-chan…’ murmured Ryo.

‘Hang in there, Ryo. Help’s coming soon.’

‘I… … you…’ The words were faint. Barely a whisper. 

There was a lump in my throat.  I readjusted my grip. ‘Don’t sleep, Ryo. Squeeze my fingers if you can.’

His fingers brushed gently against mine.

The tears were coming back. I squeezed my eyes shut and shook my head to clear them. Keep focused, Evelyn. You can’t lose him too.

‘Eburin.’ Ai’s hand tapped my shoulder. She held up the phone, set to speaker. ‘Someone called to house already. Three minutes.’

‘Hear that, Ryo? Help’s coming in three. No dying allowed.’

He tapped his fingers in acknowledgement.

Three minutes had better be fast enough…