NO TIME LEFT

THE COUNTDOWN BEGINS

The silence after the man’s death wasn’t just heavy—it was suffocating.

Elias couldn’t look away from the lifeless body sprawled on the grass. The man’s timer, once bright with the final moments of his life, now displayed a black, empty void. No numbers. No light. Just a dead screen, like a lamp that had gone out forever.

Someone had died—because their timer hit zero.

It wasn’t a coincidence. It wasn’t symbolic. It was real.

“What the hell is this place?” a man muttered near Elias, pacing back and forth with his hands in his hair. “Where are the cities? The roads? What is this timer thing? Who’s doing this to us?”

No one had an answer. But the fear, the panic—it was spreading like fire.

Kaia, a girl with sharp cheekbones and unsteady hands, leaned against a tree and stared down at her wrist. Her lips were pale. She was whispering numbers beneath her breath.

Elias stepped toward her slowly. “How long do you have?”

She blinked at him, her breath catching in her throat. “Three days,” she said, her voice small. “I… I woke up with three days. I thought it was a joke, but—” Her eyes flicked toward the dead man. “It’s not.”

“No,” Elias said quietly. “It’s not.”

Her hands trembled as she pulled her sleeves over the watch. “I don’t want to die in three days.”

“You won’t,” Elias said before he could stop himself. “We’ll figure this out.”

The words felt hollow, even as he said them. He had no idea what was going on—none of them did. But seeing the terror in her eyes sparked something in him. He didn’t want to see anyone else drop dead with a ticking clock on their wrist.

A voice broke through the crowd. “There’s shelter over here!”

Everyone turned. It was the teenager—Liam, he’d introduced himself earlier—waving them toward a small ridge in the distance. Behind it stood a long-abandoned cabin. Weather-worn, with broken windows and ivy creeping up the sides, but still standing.

“Better than staying out here,” Elias said.

The group moved slowly, carrying what few things they had—backpacks, purses, a coat or two. Elias kept glancing over his shoulder, half expecting the landscape to shift, or some bizarre force to show itself. But nothing happened. Just the soft wind in the grass.

They reached the cabin in silence. The inside was musty, filled with dust and cracked furniture. But it had walls, a roof, and a place to rest. That was enough.

People began sitting in corners, some curled up with knees to their chests. Elias wandered through the room, listening to fragments of whispered conversations.

“How much time do you have?” “Sixty-four years.” “Eighty-seven.” “Fourteen.”

He noticed something chilling—some of them had dozens of years left. Elias had only three. Kaia had three days. And someone else had already died within minutes. The timers weren’t equal. They were scattered, unfair.

As the evening went dark, someone lit a lantern they’d found in the cabinet. The flickering light painted long shadows across the walls.

Then, without anyone suggesting it, a circle formed around the lantern. A group of maybe twelve sat, eyes wide and nervous, glancing at each other’s glowing timers like numbers defined their worth.

Kaia sat beside Elias, arms crossed. She hadn’t said much since they arrived.

“I think we need to talk about this,” Elias said. “What happened to him. What’s happening to us.”

A man with gray in his beard—Leon, he’d said—nodded. “That wasn’t a heart attack. That was the timer. It hit zero, and he just… dropped.”

“Then the timers are literal,” someone whispered.

“But why us?” asked a woman near the back. “We were just on a plane. Why were we chosen? And where is everyone else?”

Silence.

“We're not dead,” Liam said. “Right?”

No one answered. It felt like the wrong question. Elias didn’t think they were dead—but he couldn’t explain this place either. The sky was too still. The air too perfect. It wasn’t natural.

“There has to be a way to survive,” Kaia whispered, almost to herself. “Three days can’t be all I get.”

Someone across the circle scoffed. “You think we get to choose?”

Kaia’s eyes flashed. “I think there has to be something. I’m not going to sit and wait to die.”

Leon leaned forward. “Then maybe the question is—can the timer be changed?”

That stirred the group. Several people looked down at their wrists, hopeful. Elias did too—but his time kept ticking down, second by second.

Kaia frowned. “You mean like… giving time to someone?”

Leon shrugged. “Or taking it.”

A pause. Elias could feel the temperature in the room drop a little.

“Maybe we’re not supposed to just wait,” Liam said slowly. “Maybe there’s something we’re meant to do to earn more time.”

Kaia looked up. “What if that’s not how it works?”

“What do you mean?” Elias asked.

Kaia swallowed. “What if it’s a trade? Like a transaction. Someone has to lose time… for someone else to gain it.”

That suggestion hung in the air like a storm cloud. No one spoke.

Until someone said, “You mean, we’d have to kill someone?”

“No,” Kaia said quickly. “Not necessarily. Maybe you can give time—”

“Or take it,” the voice interrupted again.

The group turned toward the voice. A tall, broad-shouldered man stood near the cabin’s broken window, arms crossed. Elias hadn’t noticed him before—his face was half in shadow. His timer glowed faintly: 1 Year, 19 Days.

“I was watching when he died,” the man said. “The one with the timer that hit zero.”

Elias leaned forward. “And?”

The man’s jaw tightened. “When he fell, I saw something flicker. His watch… something happened. A glow, then a pulse.”

“A pulse?” Kaia asked.

The man nodded. “Like… a surge. Like his time didn’t just disappear. It went somewhere.”

That gave Elias chills. “You’re saying… the time doesn’t vanish when someone dies?”

“I think it transfers.”

The cabin was dead quiet.

Kaia stared at her own timer again. “Then maybe… maybe if someone dies, their time can go to someone else.”

“And who decides who gets it?” Liam asked.

The man near the window didn’t answer.

But Elias noticed the way his eyes scanned the room—calculated, cautious, hungry.

Just as the tension in the room thickened, someone spoke up. “I think we need to meet in the morning. At 8 a.m.”

All eyes turned to the speaker—Liam.

“What do you mean?” Elias asked.

“We need to talk about what happens next. Who’s in charge. We can’t just wander around, waiting to die. We need some structure. We need to elect someone to lead—someone who can keep us safe. We need to ration the food, figure out a way to make it last. It won’t take long before we run out. And we need to decide what to do about the timers. What do we do if someone’s timer runs out?”

Elias nodded slowly. “That sounds like a good idea. But who decides what happens in the meantime?”

“I think we start by making sure we survive the first few days,” Liam said firmly. “We can’t waste time.”

“I’ll agree to that,” Leon added. “We can discuss who will lead tomorrow, but right now, we need to make sure everyone is fed and safe.”

The tension in the room began to ease as everyone murmured their agreement. But even as the conversation died down, a question gnawed at Elias’s mind. Why did they need a sheriff? Was it just for safety? Or was it for something more?

Tomorrow, they would figure it out.

As Elias settled down by the fire, he couldn’t shake the feeling that the world outside was watching them. The cold wind stirred the leaves, and the shadows around them seemed to grow longer, darker.

He wasn’t sure if it was the darkness or the dread of the unknown, but as he lay there, sleep creeping up on him, Elias knew one thing for certain: Tomorrow, they would find out who— or what— was controlling the timers.

And who would be left when the clock ran out.