The Wrong Save

Elias Rane had one rule: don’t get involved.

Time travel was about precision. Observation. Minor nudges—never direct interference. But when he saw her fall, he moved before logic could stop him.

It was 2187. He’d traveled back to 2031 to prevent the assassination of world-unifier Dr. Mara Ellison, the woman who would one day end the Third Water War and unite fractured nations.

But as Elias rounded the corner of the subway platform, he saw someone stumbling toward the edge—a woman in a red coat. Without thinking, he lunged, grabbed her arm, and pulled her back to safety.

“Thank you,” she gasped, catching her breath.

Elias blinked.

She wasn’t Dr. Mara Ellison.

She was someone else.

He returned to the future the same night.

Something was wrong.

The sky was red.

The oceans were missing.

Skyscrapers had crumbled into graveyards. The air was thin and chemical.

The world was... ruined.

Panicked, Elias accessed the Central Historical Archive—what little was left of it. He ran every simulation, every record.

Dr. Mara Ellison had died in 2031.

Pushed in front of a train. Witnesses said a man in dark clothing had bumped into the wrong woman, saving someone else by mistake.

That was him.

He saved the wrong person—and doomed the future.

Elias broke every protocol he’d ever sworn to uphold. He jumped timelines like a madman, chasing fragments of the past.

In 2050, he tried to inspire young engineers.
In 2092, he attempted to create a stand-in Ellison.
In 2154, he begged a rogue AI to intervene.

Nothing worked.

Mara Ellison was a singularity—one mind, one life, one thread holding everything together. And he had cut it.

One night, alone in the ruins of the New Geneva ruins, Elias found her.

The woman he had saved.

Older now. Tired. Sitting on a cracked bench, watching a dead tree sway in acidic wind.

“You,” she said. “You’re the man from the platform.”

He nodded.

“I was never meant to live, was I?”

“No,” Elias said. “But you did.”

She looked away, silent for a moment. Then:
“I always wondered why my life felt... borrowed. Like the world didn’t want me here.”

“You were supposed to die,” he whispered. “But I couldn’t let you. And now... this.”

She turned to him. “So go back. Undo it.”

“I can’t.” His voice cracked. “Time resists resets. I’ve already gone back too many times. One more jump, and I’ll burn out. My body won’t survive it.”

Silence.

Then she stood, and did something no one had done in years.

She smiled.

“Then take me with you.”

Elias stared. “What?”

“Take me back to that platform. Let me die. If that’s what it takes to fix this.”

His heart twisted. She was just a stranger. A woman in a red coat. He didn’t even know her name.

But she was ready to give up her life for a future she’d never see.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

She nodded. “Some lives matter more than ours.”


The jump nearly killed them both.

But they arrived.

2031. Rain slicked the platform. The digital clock blinked: 7:41 PM—moments before the fall.

“Go,” she said, stepping back.

But Elias hesitated.

He had one jump left. One chance. A final ripple.

He bolted through the crowd.

This time, he didn’t save the woman in red.

He tackled Dr. Mara Ellison just before the killer’s push, sending them both tumbling to the ground.

The red-coated woman was lost to the train’s roar.

One life for another.

The future shimmered.

When Elias opened his eyes again, the sky was blue.

The world was healing.

People laughed. Cities thrived. Peace held.

He’d done it.

But he never saw the woman in red again.

He visited that station every year.

On a bench near the platform, he carved a name—though he never knew it:

“To the one who gave it all so we could begin again.”

And every year, someone left a red flower beneath it.

Someone who remembered.