03:17

The moment the first rift appeared. From then on, a string of overwrites and rifts stayed locked again and again to this stretch past 3 in the morning, drawing tighter and tighter by the second—that hole in the brick wall existed from 03:15:40 to 03:18:20, 161 seconds.

From 03:00 to 04:00 is this city's single most dangerous hour. Inside the rift zone, within this span, reality's rules loosen; what happens leaves no evidence, and afterward no one remembers.

Past 04:00, everything looks normal again—so normal it's as if nothing ever happened.