As Lena ran along the bridge over the river, the city breathed metal and fog. She knew the timing of the traffic lights, the rhythm of the trams and her own heart, which was sometimes the key to something strange. As it accelerated to the edge of pain, everything around her slowed down, as if someone had pressed a hidden pause. She then had only three beats of silence for quick decisions and movement. She didn't tell anyone about it because it sounded like a disease or a lie. A courier on a bicycle darted out of a side street, straight under a speeding scooter. Lena felt the pounding of blood in her temples and pressed her invisible pause. The air thickened, raindrops swirled and she shifted the bike a few inches. A third heartbeat brought the world back, the horn roared and the pair passed each other by a hair's breadth. The boy didn't even realise that she had just saved his knees and his life for weeks. In the evening, on the wall by her cage, someone had painted a black number: "3". The next day, the notice post whispered from the stickers: "Have you run out of time?". Lena feigned calm, but started checking the mirrors, the reflections of the windows and the shadows behind her. And then she received a text message from an unknown number: "Sunshine Pool, midnight. Come alone or your seconds will be gone." Someone knew her limit and the way she shouldn't have interested anyone. She checked the number's history, social media accounts, but came across dead leads and empty avatars. The pool had stood empty for years, overgrown with grass and posters of past competitions. At night the fence creaked and the inside smelled of chlorine dust and damp. Lena entered through a hole in the netting, the torch on her phone drawing a pale tunnel of light. At the bottom of the basin, someone had arranged three circles out of caps, each smaller than the last. From loudspeakers somewhere in the changing room played the quiet sound of a metronome, perfectly even and unsettling. The seats for the audience resembled the backs of large fish, stripped of paint and silence. The water had long since evaporated, yet the damp line remained on the tiles like an interrupted date. "I'm not alone," she said in a half-hearted voice, more to an echo than to someone. The lamps on the pillars went out suddenly, and the pool was covered by a thick, heavy darkness. Lena's heart broke into a sprint, so she pressed pause and entered her silence. The air stagnated, a drop ran down the railing half a millimetre and stood still. A metronome somewhere in the background slowed down, as if someone was playing with her pulse, against her will. Yet from behind the pillars came someone who moved with her, slowly, deliberately, with a smile.