The Prototype

Chapter 6

Ethan sat at the kitchen table, surrounded by the chaotic scrawl of Maia's notes, his eyes darting over each line as a gnawing sense of urgency grew inside him. He'd missed something before, something hidden in the technical details and emotional weight of her words. Then it hit him—time. Each stage of grief, each element of the prototype, was meant to process within an hour, designed to mirror the natural progression of human emotions. But in its fractured, corrupted state, the prototype would unleash the stages at devastating speeds. That meant... he only had five hours. Five hours until the final stage—Acceptance—would bring about something even Maia feared, something beyond destruction.

His heart pounded as he mentally counted backward. Hour five—Denial. An intoxicating fog, capable of disorienting millions. He had to act fast; there was no way he could do this alone. He grabbed his phone, fingers fumbling as he dialed the only person who might understand the stakes: his best friend and fellow scientist, Rowan Montoya.

"Ethan? Why are you calling at—" Rowan's voice sounded groggy but sharpened immediately when Ethan began explaining, words tumbling out as he relayed the impossible events of the last few hours.

"She's... transformed, Rowan," Ethan said, voice cracking as he paced the room. "I don't even know if she's still fully... herself. The prototype has overtaken her, fused with her emotions, and it's unstable. The stages—the grief—it's bound to her, and if I don't find the pieces in time, it's going to trigger a chain of natural disasters."

Rowan was silent for a beat, processing, then spoke with determined calm. "Tell me what you need."

Ethan took a deep breath. "There are five fragments of the prototype. We have five hours, Rowan—one for each stage. They've scattered across the world, and I don't know how they'll react once the countdown hits zero, but each one represents a catastrophe. I have to reach each piece before time runs out and find a way to neutralize them."

"Understood," Rowan replied, the steadiness in his tone grounding Ethan's nerves. "Let's do this. Where are the pieces located?"

"They went back to where we found them," Ethan explained, scanning Maia's notes again. "New York, Oregon, Australia, Romania, and Norway."

Ethan rushed to his lab and grabbed four small, sleek watch-like devices from his workbench. They were his latest invention—teleportation watches, each capable of transporting the wearer anywhere within certain states or countries, a project he'd been perfecting for years. He strapped one on his wrist, syncing the display with the timer on his phone, setting it for exactly five hours.

"Meet me here as fast as you can," he told Rowan, snapping his watch into place. "We don't have a second to waste. I'll send you the coordinates for the first piece."

Rowan agreed and hung up, and Ethan took a steadying breath, the weight of the mission pressing down on him. This wasn't just about stopping natural disasters—it was about saving Maia, pulling her back from the brink before the prototype's corruptive energy consumed her entirely. Each hour was a countdown to save her from the monster she was becoming, and to prevent the devastation she'd unleash.

With the watch's timer set, he pocketed Maia's notes, feeling the crushing responsibility settle over him. As the countdown began, hour five—Denial—loomed ahead, a silent warning of the chaos that awaited him. And with that, Ethan took a final breath, whispered a silent promise to Maia, and began his journey to save the world from mass destruction—and the woman he loved from herself.