That night, Ava watched the holotape at her mother’s old workbench. The video replayed the same scenes: the ruined town, the rebuilding, the smiling people. But something caught her eye.

The apothecary.

Unchanged. Every year. Every frame. Its windows whole, its sign untouched.

She checked the Hall of Records. Every photo of Harper’s Ferry—Year One, Year Ten, Year Twenty—showed the same thing. The apothecary, identical.

She found ledgers of employees. Every missing person she’d ever heard of had worked there.

Then she noticed something worse. She couldn’t remember her own past. Not last year’s harvest, not her first day of school. Nothing before one year ago.

It was like her life had only existed for twelve months.

Her vision blurred. Her head pounded. The last thing she saw before she collapsed was the apothecary, standing untouched through time.