“In Every Timeline, You’re Mine”
“Some love is forever. Some forever is deadly.”
CHAPTER 1 — The Basement Went Quiet
The basement went quiet.
Sam stood completely still, listening to the drip… drip… drip in the darkness.
Only it wasn’t water. It had a rhythm—too slow, too deliberate.
He lifted the flashlight.
The beam landed on a wall covered in hundreds of Polaroids.
Every photo… was of him.
Sam at the grocery store.
Sam unlocking his apartment.
Sam asleep on his couch.
Some were taken from angles inside his home.
Sam’s throat tightened.
Then he saw the most recent photo—timestamped today.
Sam in this exact basement.
His hand on the doorknob.
His face frozen in confusion.
Someone had taken it seconds before he entered.
He backed away, chest tightening. The floor creaked behind him.
Sam turned—
Nothing.
But then he noticed something at his feet:
A notebook, opened intentionally to a page.
“ENTRY 197: He finally came downstairs.
He’s slower than I predicted.
But now the real game begins.”
The handwriting was calm. Precise.
Almost practiced.
Sam’s pulse hammered as he scanned the next line:
“Do not frighten him yet.
Let him think he is alone.”
A sound whispered just behind him.
Not footsteps.
Not breathing.
Something worse—
the soft click of a camera shutter.
In the reflection of the flashlight glass, Sam saw it—a figure standing behind him…
Out of focus.
Unmoving.
Watching.
The beam flickered.
The figure spoke in a voice that felt like it came from inside Sam’s own skull:
“Turn around. I want your picture to be perfect.”
Sam didn’t turn around.
He couldn’t.
His legs shook so violently he thought they might give out.
The flashlight trembled in his hand, the beam jittering across the floor—
—and stopping on something red.
A single dark drop.
Then another.
A thin trail of blood leading away from him… deeper into the basement.
Sam’s breath hitched.
The figure behind him didn’t move. Didn’t breathe.
He forced himself to follow the blood trail with the beam.
It curved around an old workbench…
…up the side of a cabinet…
…and finally ended at a handprint smeared across the wall.
Fresh. Wet.
Long streaks dragged downward, as if someone had been pulled away.
Sam swallowed hard.
Behind him, the figure whispered:
“Don’t worry. That isn’t yours.”
CHAPTER 2 — The Blood That Shouldn’t Exist
Sam snapped around—
No one.
Just the Polaroids rustling slightly, as if fingers had just run across them.
Sam stumbled backward, heart jackhammering, and his heel hit something soft.
He looked down—
A piece of cloth soaked in blood.
Not torn.
Not ripped.
Cut. Cleanly.
A shirt sleeve.
His shirt sleeve.
Sam’s breath left him.
He was wearing both sleeves.
He hadn’t lost anything.
The figure whispered again, this time right next to his ear:
“It’s from you… but not from now.”
Cold prickled up his spine.
He swung the flashlight wildly, and the beam hit the far wall.
New photos.
He hadn’t seen these before.
Sam leaned in.
And his stomach dropped.
They were pictures of him, covered in blood—
cuts on his arms, his face pale, eyes wide with terror.
But the timestamps…
…were from tomorrow.
Every single one.
Blood dripped somewhere behind him.
A slow, steady rhythm.
The voice spoke again, calm, almost pleased:
“Time is flexible down here.”
Sam’s flashlight flickered.
And the picture of “tomorrow Sam” began to drip fresh blood down the photo paper.
Sam stumbled back from the bleeding photograph.
That shouldn’t be possible.
Nothing in the physical world should leak.
But the crimson thread slid down the glossy paper, dripping onto the floor—
landing perfectly in line with the trail that had been leading him deeper into the basement.
As if the room were correcting itself.
Sam lifted the flashlight.
The blood trail now forked.
Two paths.
One thin, shaky.
Like someone wounded had tried to escape.
The other thick, steady.
Like someone had been dragged.
The air shifted behind him.
A warm breath brushed the back of his neck.
“Choose carefully.”
Sam spun, flashlight beam cutting the darkness—
—and stopped on a fresh message scratched into the concrete wall.
The scratch marks were so deep the concrete had chipped away.
Tiny flecks of blood dotted the grooves.
“LEFT: what you’ve lost.
RIGHT: what you will lose.”
Sam’s hands trembled so badly he almost dropped the light.
This had to be a hallucination.
Stress. Lack of sleep. Anything but—
A soft thud echoed down the left path.
Followed by a wet cough.
A voice—Sam’s own voice—whispered weakly:
“…help… it hurts…”
Sam froze.
That voice wasn’t ahead of him.
It was his exact voice, same pitch, same breathiness.
But broken. Barely conscious.
Bleeding.
A mirror version of him suffering in the dark.
Sam stepped backward, horrified.
Then from the right path came another sound—
footsteps.
Confident.
Slow.
Heavy.
Something walked toward him, not trying to hide.
The flashlight flickered as dust shook loose from the ceiling with each step.
A shadow grew at the end of the hallway—
tall, upright, familiar.
Sam whispered:
“…no…”
Because the silhouette…
moved exactly like him.
Same tilt of the head.
Same broad shoulders.
Same stance.
Except—
This version of him dragged something behind its leg.
A long smear of blood marked each step.
The figure spoke in Sam’s voice but lower, colder, wrong:
“Don’t go left, Sam.
He’s already dying.”
The bleeding Polaroids rustled behind Sam like leaves in a storm.
The weak voice from the left corridor cried out:
“Please—
don’t let him become me…”
Two Sam’s.
Both wrong.
Both waiting.
The room pulsed with a sickening sense of inevitability.
The voice behind him—the first presence, the watcher—whispered one last time:
“You can only save one version of yourself.”
Then—
CLICK.
A camera shutter.
And the light went out.
CHAPTER 3 — A Love That Shouldn’t Exist
Darkness swallowed everything.
Sam’s breathing roared in his ears.
Somewhere ahead, one version of him groaned in pain.
Somewhere behind, the other dragged blood across the floor like a signature.
Then—
A hand touched his face.
Soft.
Gentle.
Warm with blood.
Sam jerked, but the fingers cupped his cheek tenderly, like someone memorizing his skin.
A woman’s voice murmured in the dark:
“Shhhh… don’t run from me, Sam.”
The touch was too intimate.
Too familiar.
Sam’s heartbeat kicked hard against his ribs.
The woman exhaled softly, her breath against his ear like a lover leaning in to whisper a secret:
“You always run when we’re close.”
Sam froze.
“We?” he choked out.
She laughed quietly—a soft, broken, devoted sound.
Her thumb brushed blood across his cheek, smearing it like a lover smears lipstick during a kiss.
“Every version of you,” she whispered.
“I’ve loved them all.”
Sam’s pulse rattled.
She stepped closer, and Sam could feel her body against his—warm, solid, but wrong in a way that made his nerves twist.
Her heartbeat was too fast.
Too eager.
“Some of you loved me back,” she murmured.
“Some of you begged to.”
Her fingers slid along his jawline, leaving a faint, bloody trail.
“And some…”
She leaned her forehead against his.
“…some needed convincing.”**
Sam swallowed hard.
A soft light blinked on.
A small red camera light.
She was recording him.
Sam could finally see her silhouette: a woman with tangled hair, streaked with drying blood, her dress clinging to her like a shadow.
Her smile was tender—almost heartbreakingly so.
But her eyes were wide, shining with something too intense to be sane.
“You’re the last Sam left,” she whispered.
“The only one still unbroken.”
Behind her, in the faint light, Sam saw them—
versions of himself.
Dozens.
Some slumped, unconscious.
Some barely breathing.
Some staring blankly like puppets waiting for strings.
Blood marked the floor around each one, patterns that looked almost ritualistic.
Sam’s stomach twisted.
The woman gently grabbed his chin and forced his eyes back to hers.
“Don’t look at them,” she said softly.
“They were practice.
You’re the one I truly love.”
Her fingers tightened—not violently, but possessively, like she was afraid he might disappear.
“Choose, Sam.”
Her lips brushed his ear, leaving a whisper stained with devotion and madness.
“Will you love me willingly…
or will you make me break you until you do?”
Something warm trickled down his neck—her blood or his, he couldn’t tell.
The two paths still waited behind him.
Two versions of himself still called out.
But now there was her.
Smiling.
Loving.
Bleeding.
Waiting for his answer.
CHAPTER 4 — The Spiral Tightens
Sam’s lips parted, but no words came out.
The woman watched him with a kind of worshipful hunger, as if every tiny tremor in his breath was a love letter written just for her.
Her hand slid down his throat.
A slow, tender caress.
Her fingers left warm streaks of blood along his skin like she was marking him.
“You’re trembling,” she whispered.
“Good. Fear means you’re alive.”
Behind them, one of the other Sam’s—
the wounded one from the left corridor—
coughed violently.
A wet sound.
Pleading.
The woman didn’t even turn.
“Ignore him,” she murmured.
“He doesn’t love me.
He still thinks he deserves to live.”
Sam’s heart slammed painfully in his chest.
“Who… who are you?” he managed.
She smiled, and it made the room feel colder.
“I’m the one who stayed.”
Sam blinked. “Stayed?”
She stepped closer—
so close he could feel her heartbeat syncing with his, too fast, too desperate.
“You left me once,” she said softly.
“In every timeline, every version, you try to run.
But I’m patient.
I follow.
I learn.”
Sam tried to pull away, but her fingers tightened around his jaw—
not enough to hurt.
Just enough to remind him she could.
Her lips brushed his cheek, leaving a faint smear of blood like a twisted kiss.
“And this time,” she whispered,
“I made sure you wouldn’t leave.”
A sharp snap echoed behind her.
Sam looked past her shoulder—
—and saw one of the other versions of himself standing upright.
But not by choice.
His arms hung limp.
His eyes were glassy.
Blood matted his hair.
He moved like he was being pulled by strings.
The woman turned slightly, smiling lovingly at the Puppet-Sam.
“See?” she said.
“He didn’t love me… at first.”
The puppet-Sam’s jaw dropped open, but no sound came out.
His head twitched unnaturally.
A single tear of blood rolled from his eye.
Sam felt sick.
“Did you do this to them?”
She looked at him like he’d asked if water was wet.
“Of course.”
She cupped his face again, both hands this time, her thumbs brushing his cheeks, affectionate and blood-warm.
“But you—”
Her voice softened into something almost angelic.
“—you’ll be different.”
She leaned forward.
Sam froze.
Her forehead pressed against his.
Her breath shuddered.
“I’ve waited so long for the version of you who doesn’t break immediately.”
Her voice trembled with emotion.
“I love you, Sam.”
The lights flickered.
Every version of Sam in the room whispered in unison—
dead, alive, broken, bleeding:
“Run.”
She didn’t notice.
Her eyes were locked only on him.
“Choose me,” she whispered.
“Or I’ll make you choose me.”
The room pulsed.
The two paths still stretched behind him.
The broken Sam’s still begged.
The puppet Sam’s head twitched violently.
And she—
the only one untouched by fear—
waited for an answer with blood on her lips and devotion in her eyes.
CHAPTER 5 — “The Version That Remains”
Sam stood trapped between her hands, her breath, her impossible love.
The basement pulsed faintly around them, the walls expanding and contracting like a giant lung.
Every other version of Sam—broken, bleeding, hollow—watched with quiet, terrified eyes.
But none of them made a sound.
She had taken the sound from them.
Only Sam’s heartbeat remained alive.
Thudding.
Desperate.
Human.
Her fingers held his jaw like she was holding something precious.
“Choose me.”
Two words.
Soft.
Loving.
Deadly.
Sam swallowed.
“Why me?” he whispered.
Her eyes filled with something devastating, like longing carved out of madness.
“Because you’re the one who still believes you have a choice.”
The basement trembled.
From the left corridor, the wounded Sam collapsed.
From the right, the monstrous puppet-Sam jerked forward like a marionette.
Every photograph lining the walls bled in thin red tears.
The universe held its breath.
And Sam realized—
Running would break him.
Fighting would break him.
Refusing her would break him.
And choosing her…
would break him differently.
Her fingertips brushed his lips.
“Say it,” she whispered, trembling.
“Let me love you properly this time.”
Sam’s jaw tightened.
His pulse hammered.
Slowly, he leaned forward—
not in surrender,
not in love,
but in understanding.
Because some choices are only illusions.
His lips brushed her ear.
And he whispered:
“I choose…”
The basement lights snapped to black.
A single Polaroid dropped from the wall and fluttered to the floor.
When the lights flickered back on, the room was empty.
No blood trail.
No broken Sam’s.
No puppets.
No woman.
Just one photo lying face-down.
Sam picked it up with shaking hands.
It was a picture of him.
Standing alone in the room.
Expression blank.
No woman.
No others.
Just him.
On the back, in her handwriting:
“Every version of you ends up mine.”
And beneath that, written shakily in Sam’s own handwriting—
as if carved in a moment he couldn’t remember—
“But which version am I now?”
The light went out.
🖤 Final Thinkable Question
If every version of you can make a different choice…
then is the “real” you the one who chooses freely—
or the one who chooses what they believe they must?
_Yumi Fujikawa
