Matthew Zhang had almost died on March 26, 2022 at 7:26am, nineteen different times.
It had been absolutely terrifying the first time he’d felt it. Matthew had been walking to the campus library, mentally revising his thesis presentation the next week, when his vision blurred. Then came the horrible, horrible headache—the kind that felt like something was reaching through his skull and scrambling his brain with the same violent dedication with which NaiNai attacked scrambled eggs.
He’d Jumped back in time immediately. Thankfully, his Set Point—the day he had last Jumped back in time and therefore the furthest back he could now go—was three months prior. The day after Christmas. December 26th.
The first time through, Matthew had tried to prevent his death. He’d seen doctors. But getting appointments and diagnoses takes time. Three months just wasn’t enough. He’d almost died again no that same day and had to Jump back.
Near the end of his third time through, he’d finally gotten a diagnosis: a brain aneurysm. “No way to know when, or if, it was rupture,” the doctor had said, though Matthew now knew exactly when it would, down to the minute. “If it does, there is a very small chance of survival, unfortunately.”
The fourth and fifth time, he’d tried to prevent the aneurysm from rupturing. He started working out. He’d gone on a diet. He stopped smoking. But three months of changed behavior wasn’t enough, evidently. No matter what Matthew did, he would still almost die on March 26, every time.
The next three times he Jumped back, Matthew drained his life savings and traveled the world. Those were the best and worst times. Best, because when he was traveling, he could experience summer again and he could almost forget that he was trapped in the coldest parts of winter for however much longer he prolonged his life. The worst, because each time he left to travel, he’d had to deal with terrible guilt. NaiNai had raised him when his mother had left. She’d been the one to stay up late with him for homework assignments, even when she hadn’t spoken enough English to actually be helpful. She’d tried to help pay for his college, giving the little she had, even when she couldn’t afford it. She’d done everything for him, and it broke her heart each time when he left school to travel, so close to finishing his master’s program.
Once, Matthew had told NaiNai about his upcoming death. She was the only one who knew about his gift. That had been the worst few months, and he’d vowed never to do it again. However bad it was to know he was doomed to die, it was ten times worse hearing NaiNai crying every night about it.
Eventually, Matthew decided to stay home during those few months. He worked on his master’s thesis, which he knew he would never present. He talked with friends about plans and holidays that he knew he would never experience. He spent more time with NaiNai than he would have. He tried not to be bitter. Other people would have just died, he thought.
He tried to do good. He never helped anyone win the lottery or anything like that. Jumpers had a code—to not overly enrich or overly prolong a life—and he was already breaking part of that code. But he helped whenever he could. He was infinitely familiar with the three months he’d inhabited for so long, and when he was supposed to be studying for his master’s thesis, he looked for people to help instead.
On his twelfth Jump back, he found Emma. Emma Chen worked for Vorin Labs, down the street from the university. That was where Matthew met her, that first time. She’d dropped a pile of books on the streets, Matthew had picked them up for her, and that was that.
She was thirty, three years older than Matthew. Her parents lived in Shanghai, and she missed them. She liked cats and dandelions, but was allergic to both. She’d fought cancer and won. The only time she swore was when she played Mario Kart and Monopoly. She had a nervous habit of picking at her fingernails. NaiNai loved her almost as much as she loved Matthew. Emma was stubborn. She was witty. She was a terrible loser. She was kind. She was absolutely beautiful and became even more so each time Matthew Jumped back.
Dating Emma made the three months move by even more quickly. It was absolutely exhausting to start over, to pretend he didn’t already know her favorite restaurant or the name of her family’s dog. It was exhausting to pretend that he didn’t love her immediately. He’d come on too strongly two different times, and she had never texted him back after the first date. Those months had been the hardest to finish out, though he still had. Jumping in time unnecessarily could change his Set Point, and he didn’t want to risk that.
He never told her about his ability, or his impending rupture. He felt guilty for that sometimes, but what could he say? I can Jump through time, and I’m destined to die in a few weeks was a lot to dump on someone at the beginning of a relationship.
Finally, around his 16th time Jumping back, he fell into a rhythm. He figured out how to meet her within the first week of January, long before she dropped her books outside the lab. He’d perfected their first date. Things were better the next few Jumps. Not ideal, of course—not even close. But better.
Then, on the nineteenth Jump back, on March 25th, Emma came to Matthew with a pregnancy test.
“I’d like to keep it,” she’d said, picking nervously at her nails. “The baby, I mean. I never thought I’d be able to have one. With all the cancer treatments, you know?” She looked up at Matthew, then down again, her face turning a violent shade of red. “I know that puts you in a terrible position, and I want to make sure you know that I don’t expect anything of you. We’ve only been dating a couple of weeks…I’m willing to raise the baby alone, of course.”
“I want it, too,” Matthew said.
So on March 26th, 2022 at 7:26am, Matthew Zhang did not Jump back. The terrible headache came, as it always came. He blacked out and fell on the ground.
And three weeks later, with Emma and NaiNai sitting in the hospital room beside him, Matthew Zhang opened his eyes once more.
Promptly Keenan 