The Elixir of Time

The dusty room of an old house, inherited from a long-forgotten relative, evoked no emotions. Everything smelled of dampness, and the walls seemed on the verge of collapsing under their own weight. The house was marked for demolition, and the protagonist, dissatisfied with such a useless inheritance, barely mustered the will to visit.

As bulldozers and a wrecking ball crane approached the building, he climbed to the attic more out of curiosity than any desire to save something. Amid piles of rags, old books, and rusty junk, his eyes caught a strange object—a vessel resembling an alchemist's vial, wrapped in dense cloth. The vessel's shape seemed unusual, so, absentmindedly, he tucked the find into his coat pocket and left the house forever.

Back in his rented room with an old landlady, he forgot about the find for a while. However, one evening, overwhelmed by despair, he stumbled upon the vial, which had been lying in his coat pocket all this time.

His beloved was terminally ill. Her days were numbered, and he could do nothing to help. In an attempt to dull the pain, he decided to drink, but upon opening the fridge, he found it empty. Exhausted and broken, he collapsed onto a chair, absently rummaging through his coat pockets, and found the vial.

Examining it closely, he struggled to pull out the cork. A sweet, intoxicating aroma hit his nose. He closed his eyes and thought of his beloved—how little time they had left and how he wished to stretch their remaining moments of love. Without hesitation, he took a sip and, feeling slightly dizzy, fell asleep right there on the chair.

The next morning, he received a call from the hospital. The doctor's voice sounded surprised: his beloved had gone into remission. The protagonist couldn't believe his ears, attributing it to a miracle.

Although he hadn't yet realized the cause-and-effect connection, thoughts of the vial wouldn't leave him. He returned to the hospital, and each day spent by her side brought a strange sensation, as if time had become fluid and malleable. Each moment of their happiness seemed to stretch into hours, while the pain and suffering of her illness passed more quickly.

He began to suspect the elixir was somehow involved and decided to try it again. He took a small sip, wishing to slow down time to prolong her relief. This time, the effect was obvious. Time seemed to stop around them, though it continued normally for everyone else. Her face glowed with a smile, and her words sounded as if recorded on slow motion.

But this situation couldn't last forever (the mechanism of wishes didn't allow their effects to be permanent), and time inevitably resumed its course, along with the progression of her illness. The protagonist wanted to preserve and "conserve" these moments forever, to relive them again and again. Remembering one of the happiest moments of their lives, he drank the elixir, wishing to fix that moment in time. He wanted to keep their first walk in the park, their laughter, the sunlight streaming through the trees, forever within him.

At first, it felt like a miracle. Closing his eyes, he could relive that moment in every detail, feeling the warmth of her hand each time. But with each repetition, the moment grew dimmer until it became a dull, lifeless copy. Soon, he realized he was trapped in this loop, a kind of "Groundhog Day," and it frightened him. He was torn between the desire to help his beloved and the need to escape the cycle—the closed loop of conserved time.

Frightened, he decided to stop using the elixir for a while, but her condition quickly deteriorated, and in desperation, he tried a different approach. Moreover, the people around him began to look strange: nurses grew anxious, patients complained of fatigue, and a deep sadness appeared in his beloved's eyes. Manipulating time seemed to drain energy from others.

Desperately trying to restore the vividness of the moment, he drank more of the elixir. But now he noticed that time around him began to accelerate. People aged faster, flowers withered within minutes, and he himself felt a surge of energy.

The protagonist realized that every action he took was stealing time from those around him, adding it to himself. This realization filled him with horror.

Seeking answers, he took what he thought would be his final, largest sip. A wave of knowledge overwhelmed his mind: he saw how time connected everything in the universe, how each moment intertwined with another, how his life was synchronized with his beloved's. He understood that his actions had damaged the delicate fabric of time around him.

Returning to the vial, he noticed an inscription etched on it: "Time is wounded. Heal it if you dare." He realized that time itself was in a state of pain, and all his attempts to manipulate it only worsened that wound.

At the bottom of the vessel, a little of the intoxicating liquid remained. He took one last sip to "heal time." His consciousness shifted into a temporal "knot," where he saw all his mistakes. To restore balance, he gave up his love, their shared time, erasing everything that bound them together. In doing so, he gained wisdom in a short span—wisdom that would have taken others decades or even a lifetime to achieve.

When he awoke, the vial was gone. The hospital was empty, and her room too. No one remembered her, as if she had never existed.

The protagonist realized that time is not an enemy to be conquered. It simply exists. Now he lives, remembering her, but he knows that even memories are not eternal.