Robyn Michaels

September used to be my favorite month. I loved how the scorching heat of summer finally began to relent, giving way to crisp mornings and golden afternoons. The way the light changed, becoming somehow both softer and more intense, painting everything in rich amber hues. The subtle shift in the air that carried promises of autumn, of new beginnings, of change.

That was before the Shift, of course. Before we learned about the temporal anomalies. Before September became something else entirely.

I remember the first time we noticed something was wrong. It was September 1st, 2147, and I was walking to work through Central Park, admiring how the leaves were just starting to turn. I passed the same hot dog vendor I always did, exchanged the same pleasant nod, and continued on my way to the Department of Temporal Management, where I worked as a junior analyst.

The first alert came at 9:17 AM. A minor temporal disturbance in the Bangkok sector. Nothing unusual – we dealt with small ripples in the timestream every day. But then another alert came from Sydney. Then London. Then New York itself. By noon, we had detected anomalies in every major city on Earth.

Dr. Chen, my supervisor, called an emergency meeting. Her usually calm face was etched with worry as she pulled up the holographic displays.

“The anomalies are synchronized,” she said, her voice tight. “They’re all… they’re all feeding into September.”

We stared at the data streams, watching as September began to loop. Not the whole month – just fragments of it, moments that seemed to stretch and repeat like a scratched record. A leaf falling from a tree would pause mid-air, drift upward, fall again. People reported experiencing the same conversation multiple times, even though they were saying different things.

Time was breaking, and somehow September was the focal point.

The next few weeks were chaos. The world’s leading temporal physicists worked around the clock trying to understand what was happening. They theorized that September had become a kind of temporal sink, drawing in fragments of time from other months, other years, even other possible timelines.

But it wasn’t until the Remembering began that we truly understood the horror of what was happening.

I was in the break room when my first memory hit. I remembered a September where I had married my college sweetheart – except I had never dated anyone in college. Then another memory: I was a successful artist in Paris, though I had never pursued art. Then another: I had died in a car accident five years ago.

We all experienced it. Memories from other timelines, other versions of ourselves, all centred around September. Some were beautiful, some mundane, some horrifying. But they all felt real, as real as my actual memories.

The researchers finally figured it out: September wasn’t just collecting temporal energy – it was collecting Septembers. Every possible September from every possible timeline was slowly collapsing into a single month. The fabric of reality was folding in on itself, using September as a crease.

We tried everything to stop it. Temporal dampeners, quantum stabilisers, even experimental time locks. Nothing worked. September kept pulling, kept growing, kept absorbing more possibilities.

That’s when the disappearances started.

First, it was small things – a coffee cup would vanish mid-sip, reappear full, vanish again. Then larger things. Buildings would flicker in and out of existence, showing different versions of themselves. People would disappear for hours, return with memories of lives they had never lived.

My colleague James vanished on September 15th. When he reappeared three days later, he was different. He remembered being married to me in another timeline. He remembered us having three children. He remembered a life we had never lived, but now, somehow, we had.

The temporal scientists now say that September has become a quantum superposition of all possible Septembers. Every moment contains every possible version of that moment, all happening simultaneously. Reality has become a probability wave that refuses to collapse.

Today is September 30th. I think. Time has become… difficult to track. My memories shift like sand in an hourglass, each grain a different version of my life. I remember being a doctor, a criminal, a parent, a ghost. I remember dying a thousand deaths and living a thousand lives, all in September.

The temporal readings suggest that tomorrow, when September tries to become October, something will break. The weight of all those possibilities, all those parallel Septembers, will be too much for reality to bear.

Dr. Chen has a theory. She believes that when midnight strikes, all of those possible Septembers will collapse into a single, definitive version. One timeline will become real, and all the others will cease to exist. But which version will become reality? Will we remember the others? Will we remember who we were before?

I sit in my apartment now, watching the sun set on what might be the last September any of us will ever know. The light is still golden, still beautiful, but it seems to contain shadows of other sunsets, other Septembers, other possibilities.

My phone buzzes. It’s a text from James: “I remember our wedding. The one that never happened. You wore blue.”

I close my eyes and I can see it – the ceremony in Central Park, leaves falling like confetti, the way he smiled when he saw me in my blue dress. It never happened, but it did. Somewhere, somewhen, in one of these countless Septembers, it was real.

Another text arrives: “Whatever happens at midnight, whatever September becomes, I’m glad I remember loving you.”

I look at my watch. 11:59 PM, September 30th. The seconds tick away, each one carrying the weight of infinite possibilities.

I used to love September because it was a time of change, of new beginnings. I never imagined it would become like this – a month that contains all possible changes, all possible beginnings, all possible endings.

The clock strikes midnight.

And I remember everything.

I remember why September was chosen.

I remember that I’m not just an analyst at the Department of Temporal Management.

I remember that I’m the one who started it all.

You see, in the original timeline, the one that came before all these others, I lost someone in September. Someone I couldn’t live without. So I built a machine, a temporal collider that would gather every possible September until I found the one where they lived.

I thought I could control it, thought I could pick and choose which September became real. I was wrong.

Now, as reality collapses around me, as all these Septembers fold into one final, immutable truth, I realize what I’ve done. In trying to change one September, I’ve destroyed them all.

And the worst part?

I can’t remember anymore who it was I was trying to save.