The Warsaw night smelled of rain and ozone as I counted the stairs to the metro. As I held my breath, the world split into thin threads, trembling like fresh cracks of glass. I could see three, sometimes five possible versions of the next minute, each with a different shade and pace. I gave them names, memorised abbreviations, pretended in front of everyone that I believed in chance. I had kept this skill a secret since I was twelve, because I had learnt how loudly the crowd was silent. On the platform, the monitors flashed a symbol that no one but me could see. It was a spiral sign with a dot inside, identical to the one on a yellowed page from my grandmother's notebook. The murmurs of the crowd did not change the rhythm, but my threads trembled like a string that someone had touched. A simple message appeared on the screen, flashing between adverts like a system error: COLLECTION OVER THE ROOFTOPS, 22:22, SELECTORS. A boy in a black jacket looked at me from across the platform, as if seeking confirmation that he wasn't crazy. We met by the stairs, feigning the indifference that only the very young and very scared wear. - Can you see it too? - He asked quietly, still watching the screen, as if he was afraid it would disappear. I nodded and held my breath, letting three gentle paths unfold right in front of me. One led to the gate where the scrutineer asked for documents, another outside where rain and slippery steps awaited. The third led towards the technical lift, the existence of which no one but station staff should know. We chose the lift and, against all reason, the roof above the shopping centre, where the wind folded the neon lights into trembling waves. Someone had drawn the same spiral mark on the concrete with chalk, and a thin circle shimmered around it, as if light had escaped from a crack. In the centre lay a metal case with a panel and an erratic ticking, showing 22:21 and the ever-faster escaping seconds. The underground boy, who introduced himself as Miko, grunted and put out the sound of his own grunting, as if he had slipped it under the carpet. - 'This can't be a coincidence,' he said, and his words rested in the air like feathers. - Can you hear those drones? - He added, raising a hand on which compressed silence trembled, like an airless bubble. Headlights crawled up from below, scouring the edges of the roof, and a faint, familiar spiral mark lit up on my wrist. I held my breath and saw three threads: open the suitcase now, hide behind the shaft, or escape over the neighbouring building on the cables. Each ended in a black spot, like a plasma burnt into photographic paper, the meaning of which I could not decipher. The clock tapped 22:22 as a lock squeaked from the suitcase and a metallic message cut through the sky: - Code seven, anomaly on rooftop sector, prepare intercept. The spotlight signal nailed me in place, and Miko closed his hand, muffling the whirring of the drones so that it turned into a palpable silence. In the shadows, just outside the circle of chalk, stood a tall figure in a hood with a spiral on his sleeve and spoke in a calm, low voice. - 'If you put on the bands from the suitcase, everything will speed up, but not for you,' she said, and my threads lit up with a blinding whiteness. I looked at the panel, at Miko's hand and at my own wrist, feeling the world freeze. The drone speaker mouthed my name, pronouncing it like someone who has known it for a long time.