It is noon, about 70F(21C) degrees, and there are a few wispy white clouds in the sky. The mist is heaviest At Mayflower and Lynch/span>/spanThe narrow alley stretches between weathered stone buildings, afternoon shadows cutting sharp lines across cracked asphalt. A dumpster sits halfway down the passage, its metal surface gleaming dully in patches of sunlight that filter between the structures above. The brackish scent of the nearby Atlantic mingles with kitchen grease from restaurant vents, while a few yellowing leaves drift down to collect against the alley walls.

Amber, Lorelei, and Tenzin find themselves standing near the entrance to the alley, drawn here by reports of a disturbance. The air feels oddly thick, almost electric, and there’s a faint humming sound that seems to come from everywhere and nowhere at once.

A loud BANG echoes from the street beyond as a delivery truck backfires, the sharp sound reverberating off the stone walls. Immediately, a flock of seagulls bursts into flight from somewhere overhead, their harsh cries filling the air as wings beat frantically against the sky.

As the birds disappear and quiet settles back over the alley, Lorelei suddenly gasps and staggers, one hand flying to her throat. Her eyes go wide with panic, as if she can’t breathe, and she collapses to her knees on the cracked asphalt.

Then everything snaps.

The same loud BANG from the street. The same flock of seagulls taking flight. The same electric feeling in the air. Lorelei stands upright again, blinking in confusion, her hand unconsciously touching her throat.

Tenzin extends a polite bow of his head to Lorelei and Amber. That is all. The BANG has him shooting eyes down the street. He braces against a corner of the alley, expecting gunfire or explosions. None seem to come. He holds out his right arm, examining it as the electric feeling grows palpable.

“Do you think it’ll be ghosts?” Amber wonders as she arrives late, after the others, “Haven’t done a good old-fashioned exorcism in ages.” She jumps a little at the backfiring of the truck, then the birds. And the thick air and the humming. She gives a tired sigh, “I don’t think it’s ghosts.” She looks to Lorelei at the gasping, “… you okay?”

Lorelei’s jewel-bright eyes dart left and right as the echo of wings fades, one hand smoothing down the hiked hem of her bike shorts as if that could ground her. “Another time loop?” she blurts, voice pitched somewhere between theatrical disbelief and genuine worry. Her fingers toy with the brim of her hot pink trucker cap as she glances at Amber and Tenzin, like maybe one of them will confirm she hasn’t just lost her mind.

Tenzin’s examination of his arm reveals nothing unusual, though the electric sensation seems to intensify near the dumpster. His defensive positioning gives him a clear view down both ends of the alley – the street beyond shows normal afternoon traffic, no signs of gunfire or danger.

Lorelei’s mention of a time loop hangs in the air like a challenge. The humming sound grows slightly more pronounced, and now there’s something else – a faint, rhythmic beeping coming from somewhere deeper in the alley, almost masked by the ambient noise of the city.

Amber’s casual mention of exorcism seems oddly prescient as the atmosphere grows heavier. The shadows between the buildings appear to shift slightly, though it could just be clouds passing overhead.

Near the dumpster, something metallic glints briefly in a patch of sunlight – partially hidden beneath the large container, as if it had been kicked there or dropped during a struggle. The beeping sound seems to be coming from that direction.

A few scattered papers flutter against the base of the dumpster, held there by a light breeze that carries the scent of brine and something else – something clinical, like a laboratory or medical facility.

The fire escape ladder above creaks softly in the wind, and scuff marks are visible on the stone wall beside it, as if someone had been pressed against the rough surface.

Mention of time loops nudges Tenzin to check the only clock on him. His phone is brought out for a study. Maybe the movement of the digital numbers there will tell if and how long they do skip. The monk says nothing to Lorelei or Amber. He maintains his distance even as the former suffers through some asphyxiation.

Lorelei presses her palm to her throat again, blue-green eyes wide as she steadies herself against the wall with her other hand. She gives Amber a shaky little laugh that doesn’t quite disguise her nerves. “I… I think so,” she admits, still sounding breathless. She flicks a glance to Tenzin, then back to Amber, lips curling into a wry pout. She lifts her bracer and peers down at her compass mounted there, the device subtly attuned to electromagnetic fields.

Amber wrinkles her nose at the humming, and she awkwardly inches towards the presumed source. “Fucking hate time loops,” she grouses, giving a nod to Lorelei once it’s confirmed she’s okay. Her own keen eyes might struggle to find the metallic thing, thanks to the noonday sun just above, but she may just see the glint as she gets closer. She’d squat down to check it out.

16 PM, September 16th. The digital numbers tick forward normally – 12:16:23, 12:16:24, 12:16:25 – showing no signs of temporal disturbance yet.

Lorelei’s compass needle spins wildly before settling on a direction that points directly toward the dumpster, quivering with unusual intensity. The electromagnetic readings are off the charts, far beyond what should be normal for an urban environment.

As Amber crouches near the dumpster, the metallic glint resolves into a piece of sophisticated electronic equipment – part of what looks like a handheld scanner or monitoring device. Its small LCD screen flickers weakly, and the rhythmic beeping is definitely coming from this device. Scattered around it are several sheets of waterlogged research notes, the ink partially smeared but still legible in places.

One visible fragment reads: “…neural network retention in Chrysaora deep-sea specimens shows unprecedented temporal echo patterns when exposed to extreme trauma combined with EM frequencies of 847.3 Hz…“

The beeping suddenly stops. In the silence that follows, a woman’s voice can be heard – faint, distorted, but clearly distressed: “Marcus, please… you don’t understand what you’re doing… the specimens… they remember everything…“

The voice cuts off abruptly, then begins again from the beginning, like a recording on loop.

Tenzin’s expression does not change as he watches his phone. His Dolce & Banana aviators protect from the sun’s glare, but his brow is still drawn together. He searches for the source of the beeping and the voices. With Lorelei and Amber investigating it already, he does not insert himself. Instead, he monitors the time.

Lorelei crouches down a little, her coppery curls shifting as she leans toward the dumpster, eyes glittering with intrigue despite the eerie recording. “I’m not very good with computers,” she admits with a faint giggle, nails brushing her lips before she points toward the notes, “but I do know umm… deep sea stuff.” Her voice lilts, playful despite the tension, as though she’s almost delighted to recognize the name of a jellyfish in the middle of something so strange.

“So… we can smash it. Or we can try to fix it,” Amber offers back to the other two with a curious shrug before peeking over the research notes, “I might be able to fix it. Maybe. Especially if you can help make sense of these notes? What do we wanna do?”

18:47… 12:18:48… The time continues ticking normally, but there’s something unsettling about watching those seconds pass.

The woman’s voice on the recording grows slightly clearer: “Marcus, please… you don’t understand what you’re doing… the specimens in my bag… they remember everything… if you kill me here, with the scanner running…“

A man’s voice, harsh and desperate, cuts through: “You were going to destroy everything! Years of research!“

The sound of a struggle, then silence. The recording loops back to the beginning.

Near the base of the dumpster, something else catches the light – a torn piece of black neoprene, like from a wetsuit or diving equipment.

Lorelei shifts her weight into a crouch, thighs taut beneath lime green bike shorts as she steadies herself with one hand on the rusted dumpster. Coppery curls spill forward as she tilts her head, blue-green eyes glittering with interest. “Did he murder her while the memory jellyfish were watching? Is it a jellycomputer?”

Finally, Tenzin speaks up. “You are the singing octopus woman, no?” His knock-off sunglasses do not reflect Lorelei back; he deliberately avoids looking at the woman, for whatever reason. “Perhaps there is something else that is the root of this disruption. This bag. These specimens,” he offers, in his foreign crunch of syllables.

“Seems like it?” Amber answers after Lorelei, “Seems like her memory got recorded into them. A tech-ghost or something. I kind of think just destroying it is the merciful option.” She glances back at Tenzin a the talk of octopus woman, and she turns to poke around the other remains as suggested.

20:31… 12:20:32… The seconds continue their steady march, but there’s an increasing tension in the air, like the moment before a thunderstorm breaks.

The jellyfish specimens pulse brighter, and suddenly Lorelei gasps again, her hand flying to her throat. But this time she doesn’t collapse – instead, she staggers backward, eyes wide with terror, as if seeing something the others cannot.

“She’s… she’s drowning,” Lorelei whispers, voice strained. “I can feel the water filling her lungs, but there’s no water…“

Amber glances over to Lorelei as the magic seems to take hold of her again. She frowns and takes matters into her own hands, standing to stomp on the electronic device. Just in case breaking it might free Lorelei.

Lorelei reels back a step, shoulder pressing hard against the cool stone as her pulse hammers in her throat. A shudder ripples through her as her blue-green eyes fix on the faintly glowing jellyfish. “It’s her,” she blurts, voice thin and urgent, “she’s still in there, drowning, over and over.”

21:45… 12:21:46… but something feels wrong about the passage of time now, like it’s moving through thick syrup.

The woman’s voice returns, but now it’s not coming from the broken scanner – it’s coming from everywhere, echoing off the stone walls: “Elena… my name is Elena Vasquez… don’t let him… don’t let him get away with this…“

The torn neoprene near the dumpster suddenly makes terrible sense – it’s from a diving rebreather, modified and weaponized.

Tenzin uses only one finger to poke and drag on his phone, like someone’s grandfather. He goes about it at a slow, methodological pace; sometimes, he seems confused and then he starts poking again. The tension compels him to take a deeper breath of his own.

Lorelei begins gasping, whispering of waterless drowning. He summons up enough effort to observe her for a second. The man follows the glow of the jellyfish and raises his staff, ready to put the creatures out of their misery. “Dr. Vasquez, you need to see a therapist.”

“It is a fucking ghost,” Amber glances to Lorelei, then to Tenzin. She squats back down again, suggesting to Tenzin while Lorelei ghost-drowns(?), “Convince her we’ll stop him? Might put her at peace.” She lets the blood dribble down her fingertip to start tracing marks on the alleyway floor, intent on working on an exorcism ritual after suggesting the others take a more diplomatic path.

Lorelei braces a palm flat against the wall, her chest heaving as if she’s still fighting phantom water in her lungs. The sound of Elena’s voice rippling through the air makes her flinch, but she steadies, drawing herself upright with a tremor of determination. She tilts her chin toward Amber, a shaky little laugh breaking through her panic, though her eyes are still wide and luminous. “I don’t think she’ll let go unless someone promises her justice,” she murmurs, gaze sliding to Tenzin’s raised staff, then back to the ghost-lit jellyfish, she starts to hum with a gentle resonance, seeing if that might destabilize the electronics or the jellyfish themselves.

22:51… 12:22:52… but the numbers seem to flicker slightly, as if the display itself is struggling against some unseen force.

As Lorelei’s humming resonates through the alley, the jellyfish specimens pulse in response, their glow intensifying. The electromagnetic feedback creates a harmonic that makes the very air vibrate. Elena’s voice becomes clearer, more desperate: “He used my own equipment… made it look like an accident… the neural toxins in the bay… people will die…“

Amber’s blood traces begin to smoke slightly against the asphalt, the ritual marks glowing with a faint red light. The combination of her exorcism work and Lorelei’s resonant humming creates a powerful disruption in the temporal field.

Suddenly, footsteps echo from the street entrance to the alley. A man in a lab coat approaches, looking nervous and furtive – Dr. Marcus Webb, drawn back by the same compulsion that has trapped Elena’s spirit here.

He stops short when he sees the three investigators, his face going pale. “What… what are you doing here? This area is supposed to be cordoned off…“

The time on Tenzin’s phone reads 12:25:14… getting dangerously close to the loop reset point.

Tenzin hardens his jaw when Amber begins a blood ritual. “We will ensure there is justice,” he states plainly to Elena’s voice. Doubt laces his words. “Hello, doctor,” he offers his usual polite greeting to the egghead. “Why is it supposed to be cordoned off? Do you know anything about what has happened here?” he questions, even if all the answers are already known. He doesn’t know this man’s name.

Instead of beating on the ghost-lit jellies, he goes for the scientist, blocking his path with his staff.

Amber continues her exorcism, but she keeps glancing to Lorelei with concern for the magically drowning woman. She reaches into her sweater and pulls out a firearm, trying to be subtle while Tenzin speaks to the man. “We’ll handle this, ghost lady. Let my friend go first.”

37… 12:25:38… The seconds are crawling now, each one feeling like an eternity.

Dr. Webb’s eyes dart frantically between the glowing jellyfish specimens, Amber’s smoking ritual circle, and Tenzin’s blocking staff. “I… there was an accident here. Dr. Vasquez… she died from equipment malfunction…” His voice cracks as Elena’s ghostly presence grows stronger.

Lorelei’s resonant humming reaches a critical frequency. The jellyfish specimens begin to crack and fracture, their bioluminescent glow flickering wildly. Glass windows in the nearby buildings start to vibrate ominously.

Elena’s voice cuts through everything, desperate and commanding: “Say my name! Someone has to say my name where I died!“

The ritual marks beneath Amber’s hands flare brighter. Webb stumbles backward against Tenzin’s staff, his face a mask of terror as he realizes his crime is about to be exposed.

12:25:49… 12:25:50… 12:25:51…

The loop is about to reset. If they don’t act in the next few seconds, they’ll be back at the beginning, and Lorelei will collapse again, gasping for air that isn’t there.

The jellyfish specimens are nearly shattered, the neural scanner is destroyed, but Elena’s spirit still clings to this place, waiting for justice, waiting for someone to speak her name in the exact spot where she drew her last breath.

Lorelei lunges forward with sudden, reckless grace, bike shorts catching on the rough stone as her sneakers skid against the asphalt. She plants herself right at the dumpster, one palm slamming flat against the cold metal, the other stabbing a finger toward Dr. Webb with theatrical fury. Her blue-green eyes blaze, wide and unblinking, and she shouts “Elena Vasquez” like a verdict, stamping it into the charged air with a stage performers vocal power.

Tenzin does not believe the wailings of this ghost. He also introduces more tangible judgment, in the form of a swing. One blow to Dr. Webb’s head, just enough to knock him out. Fore! Supposing he gets the man unconscious and neither Lorelei nor Amber seize the chance, he may take Marcus Webb away for questioning at the nearest police station, where he will either pay for his crimes or get out free due to powerful connections.

25:59…

The moment Lorelei shouts “Elena Vasquez” at the exact spot where the murder occurred, everything explodes into motion. Her resonant voice shatters the remaining jellyfish specimens completely, their bioluminescent essence dispersing like stardust. Amber’s ritual circle blazes with brilliant red light, and Tenzin’s staff connects solidly with Webb’s skull, dropping him unconscious to the cracked asphalt.

The temporal field collapses with an audible snap that echoes off the stone walls. The electric feeling in the air dissipates instantly, replaced by normal afternoon stillness. The oppressive weight that had been pressing down on the alley lifts like fog burning away in sunlight.

Elena’s voice comes one final time, but now it’s peaceful, grateful: “Thank you… he won’t hurt anyone else now…“

The humming stops. The electromagnetic disturbance ends. Lorelei’s compass needle swings back to true north and stays there.

Tenzin’s phone reads 12:26:00 and continues ticking forward normally – no more loops, no more resets. Dr. Marcus Webb lies motionless beside the dumpster, his crimes finally exposed, while scattered around him are Dr. Vasquez’s research notes that will serve as evidence of both his illegal dumping and her murder.

The alley is just an alley again. But justice, at last, has been served.