AN: Hi again, I'm back with a longer chapter. Mr. Sefer actually realized, the 'Timer' idea is from a video clip, and he wasn't wrong. The main idea about this story came from Nickelback's savin'me song. If you haven't heard it, you should definitely check it out with the videoclip. However, you'll see it's only the idea what's the same.
During the next few hours, Ryder didn't even look away from Marshall. He wanted to be ready, whenever he needed to jump for the rescue, but nothing happened except for the continuous countdown. The clock above Marshall's head kept on ticking down unforgivingly towards 0. It was a long 4 hours for Ryder, and when his phone rang, he flinched. He absolutely forgot he could get calls from anyone.
"Ryder, here, What's up, Katie?"
"Ryder, you need to hurry up, there is a huge fire destroying the city hotel. They already evacuated the building, but I'm worried that it's going to spread to the buildings next to it."
A fire… Ryder thought to himself and immediately felt worried. I can't let Marshall go there.
"Don't worry Katie, we will be there shortly," Ryder answered while thinking about an alternate solution, that contains Marshall not going there, and possibly stucking in a burning room.
"Paw patrol, to the lookout." He said and waited for the others to come. Meanwhile, a plan started to form in his mind. It's gonna be risky but if Marshall survives the whole incident, it will worth it. He saw everyone through the window, running inside the lookout. As soon as the elevator got up, everyone jumped in their places, and Chase said "Paw patrol, ready for action, Ryder, sir"
"Hi, pups. Katie reported a fire burning through the city hotel. They already evacuated the building, but the fire could spread to the near buildings. For this mission, I'll need Skye. You can help from above. Tell us where the wind blows, where is the most dangerous the fire, everything. Or in case someone stuck in the building, you can help by picking up them from the roof. Chase, you need to keep everyone away from the fire. If the building collapses, it could cause huge damage, let's hope nobody will be stuck under any debris. Everybody else, be ready, I might need you."
"Ummm didn't you forget something, Ryder?" Marshall asked confusedly. "I mean It's a fire. Don't you need someone who can extinguish it?"
"No." The short answer came. "It's too dangerous for you, I will do it myself. All right, Paw patrol is on a role!" with that, he slid down on the pole. Ryder always had emergency backups in his garage, so whenever he had to replace someone for on a mission he could do that easily. He didn't use the same technology as marshall, even though he made both of the water hoses, the one that Marshall had was more efficient and expensive in the same time, and he didn't need the backup water tank that frequently.
Long story short, he didn't want to spend a lot of money for a thing he might not use, so it had a much smaller volume. He attached it to his ATV and drove out of his garage. The others were already waiting for him, and when they spotted him they drove and fly as fast as they could. While on their way to the burning hotel Chase called Ryder, who picked it up almost instantly. "Yes, Chase?"
"Umm. With all respect Ryder, I never doubted your decisions, but don't you think that Marshall has… I mean…"
"He has more knowledge in fires than me?" Ryder finished the sentence.
"I mean You are probably good at it too, but… Don't you think we need him just in case? Yes, he might be a little bit clumsy, but I haven't seen anyone working so hard on missions than he, and..."
"No. I didn't want to bring him to this mission, and it's gonna stay like that." He said in a determined tone.
"Ryder watch out!" Skye interrupted, and Ryder knew why. A Car bypassed the red light with high speed, and they barely missed each other. "Woah!" Ryder shouted after the driver drove off and didn't even slow down.
"That was really close!" Chase said. "Are you okay, Ryder? do you want me to catch him?"
"We have more important things to do" Ryder claimed as speeding up again. "I'm gonna need you to keep the crowd away, remember?"
"Yeah… It just feels… Bad to let him go. He could have easily hit someone! What if he is gonna hit someone next time?"
"Keep focused. You can't do everything at once. If that makes you feel better, I'm gonna get him after we took care for the fire." Ryder calmed down his team member on the phone
"Well… Okay, If you say so." The unsure answer came. After this incident, nobody talked to the other, at least they didn't talk with Ryder. The boy was sure both of his pups were constantly talking to each other, maybe about his decision. But they don't know what he does... They were getting closer and closer to the fire, and finally, arrived to the burning hotel. As Ryder thought, a lot of people were standing next to the building.
"Chase, you know what to do. Try to push back the crowd. It's still not a safe distance from the building. Skye. Tell me everything that you can see from above. Be careful where you go, you might spread the fire in a new direction because of the wind caused by your helicopter."
"On it." The short and straightforward answer came from her, as she raised the altitude.
Ryder saw in the corner of his eyes as both of his pups did what he said.
"That's why we need a fire department" He muttered under his nose as he pulled out the water hose. A green 100% showed how much water he had until he emptied the tank.
"The northern and the southern part of the hotel is still untouched, but it's only about time it's gonna reach it. On the west and the eastern side, it's already out of hand." Skye reported "It looks like the source of the fire is one of the rooms. on the second floor."
"Okay, thanks," Ryder said and turned the water flow to the sides.
"A man called the fire department, but it's gonna take a while before they get here. It's still 10-15 minutes before they arrive from the other town" Another voice, Chase claimed.
"Okay, thanks." Ryder tried to say but Skye interrupted again.
"There is a kid inside, on the 3rd floor! She is sitting on the floor. I think she is trapped there!"
Ryder stopped for a moment. He could wait for the firemen to arrive, but who knows how much time the kid had left in there. He had to go in there. He puts on the mask he brought with himself and walks inside.
"Skye, show me the way." He said in his distorted voice.
"You can take the stairs up to the 3rd floor, the fire didn't reach it yet. After that… Hold on." She said and moved her helicopter a bit. It wasn't easy to guide someone through a place, only by looking through the windows. "Give me a few minutes..."
"All right, going upstairs. Take your time." He said and took a fire extinguisher off the wall. As he reached the first floor it already started to get hotter. He got to the second one the third, and… Bamm. Right behind him, the stairs collapsed. Well, there goes my way down. he thought to himself. "I can't take the stairs anymore, it fell down. There is a smaller gap, but I doubt I can go through there."
"Yes, I saw it. I will pick you up from the roof. It's going to be hard but I can definitely do it."
"Good to hear. first things first, where is the kid?"
"Take the second door on the left. You need to take out the fire first if you want to go there. It' pretty bad."
"Don't worry, I have the solution here." He said and took out the fire in front of the mentioned room with the help of the extinguisher he brought with himself. He saw how big the fire was on the other side, and he didn't want to wait any longer. He opened in, into the room, and immediately saw the girl with the same golden colored numbers above her, that showed… 00:000:00:02:11. Ryder took off his oxygen mask and put it on the girl.
"Are you okay?" He asked. The girl nodded and hugged Ryder. She was probably happy, she can finally see someone.
"Okay, let's go." Ryder grabbed the girl's hand and called for Skye "We are on our way to the roof. Be prepared." They were running as fast as they could. Ryder couldn't help looking at the timer, that was now barely showed 1 minute and a half. They just got upstairs, when a distorted bang can be heard from the distance.
"What was that?" Ryder asked from the others, hoping someone can answer. He knew it was about the time, Marshall's timer reached 0.
"I don't know. It came from the lookout." Rocky said, Making Ryder more anxious. Don't let anything distract you. The mission first.
"Skye? Where are you? We need help here."
"Y-yes sorry." She said and immediately appeared above them. 40 seconds remaining. Ryder saw the girl's timer.
"Get her out of here first and then come back for me." Ryder gave the command, and Skye started to lower her helicopter.
"Tell me what's up with the lookout. Is everything okay?" for a few seconds no answer came, than…
"It collapsed! I have no idea what happened." Rubble's worried voice can be heard. "Marshall… was in there, and he is not answering."
"Oh no...nonono! It wasn't about the fire!" Ryder said, and every strength left him. He felt dizzy and almost fell down to his knees. "It's my fault. I should have..." But he stopped. He had no idea what he could have done to make things go in a different way
"What are you talking about? Ryder, come on I'm waiting!" Skye tried to pull him back to reality, but it wasn't effective "Come on, you need to put her up, so I can come back for you. RYDER!" He didn't hear anything. He was looking at the timer. 6...5...4… The building gave a huge screeching sound, signaling it was about to collapse. The wooden parts of the building on the second floor were so weak they didn't support the upper floors anymore. 3… the roof suddenly bent in. Skye was now shouting at Ryder to pull himself together, but she failed. 2… the building collapsed and a few seconds of free falling came. 1… the ground levels got closer and closer… a few more meters and… Nothing… All Ryder saw was total blackness. He was still falling in a dark tunnel. If he wasn't too upset because of the things that happened seconds ago, he would be more curious about what's happening right now. He is gone...Marshall is gone… Ryder thought to himself. I'm stupid. So stupid!
The endless fall continued for at least a few minutes when he spotted a glowing dot in the middle of his ring. He didn't remember when he put that on his fingers, but it was definitely before he went on the rescue mission. The dot became a line, that followed the shape of the bronze infinite symbol. The curiosity slowly took over Ryder, and now he was looking at the golden jewelry. The glowing line slowly took a turn and another one. In the end, the entire infinite symbol was glowing. The end of the fall was coming, Ryder saw the ground. He tried to shout, but no sound came out of his mouth. Right when he was about to hit the ground, the ring fell off his finger and…
"Nooo! Take it away from me! Destroy it! It's evil! It's cursed!" The man was standing in front of him, as frightened as before. He was in the cave again with… Marshall… He was there in lifesize, and right now he was trying to calm the man down.
"Oh, I'm so glad you are okay." He blurted out and hugged the dalmatian, who gave a nervous laugh.
"Erm… Thanks, Ryder I really… Appreciate it, but can we discuss this outside of this creepy cave?" Marshall asked and turned back to the man. "All right, let's get you outside."
Ryder meanwhile looked back at the tiny ring lying on the floor. How is that possible? Did I just… Restarted the whole afternoon? But how? As he was wondering, he picked up the ring again and ran towards the man.
"Sir! Please tell me something! What is it about the ring?"
"Didn't I told you to take it away from me?" He was mad, but Ryder didn't care.
"I just need answers, please."
"Ryder, don't." The warning came from Marshall
"What is that ring? How does that work?" Ryder kept on pushing making the man in front of him angrier
"Ryder, please…" Marshal stopped him from making any more questions. "You can ask him later. He is not in shape to answer any question. Come on!"
Even though Ryder wanted answers, he admitted it's not a good idea to keep on doing what he did. "Okay. Sorry." He closed the conversation and followed Marshall, who still had the worrying and cruel countdown above his head, with less than 6 hours. But as they arrived at the surface he had to realize something changed and not in the good direction. Now Skye's 8 years turned into a much shorter duration of time. It showed exactly the same amount as Marshall's and both counted down at the same time. Ryder froze again. He thought he had to worry about only one of his pups. Now it was two of them.
He spent the next hours searching through the lookout for any weak parts, but he didn't find anything, that could collapse any time. No surprise since he was the one who designed the whole layout so in order to just fall down multiple things had to fail at the same time. He did a 'Random' checkup on Skye's helicopter too, but everything seemed okay. Her aircraft was in perfect shape, and Skye made sure about that too. She checked it every day because she knew it can be dangerous if something goes bad. In the end, he decided to make a visit to the man. It was probably a better time to ask those questions he wanted than right after the rescue. Going to the hospital was his life's longest half hour. He knew how small amount of time he had, but he also knew the man had experience with the ring, and Ryder wanted to know everything he had to. When he arrived, he went straight to the door and knocked.
"Come in." A voice said. As Ryder opened in, he saw the man and his family sitting next to him. He was definitely in better condition, and he was smiling. Last time Ryder saw him, he was a wreck.
"You are Ryder, right?" The woman asked, and without waiting for the response, she hugged him. "Thank you for saving him! I don't know what I would've done If I lost him."
"Yeah… It's nothing, Ma'am. I did what I had to." He took a fast look above her. He couldn't see the whole timer in that short amount of time, but there was a big 23 in the front, so she was safe… for now.
"Yeah, kid thanks for saving me from insanity." The man said with a smile. "Oh sorry for my attitude back there. I was a little bit… lost and scared. My name is Roger by the way. She is my wife, Melinda, and my lovely daughter Nelly."
"Hi!" The shy voice was heard from the kid. As Ryder turned to the table he saw the girl, who seemed really familiar to him. She was the kid he had to save from the fire, before the rewind. He tried to keep his smile but it was definitely a forced one that took over his natural one. "Do you stay in the city hotel?" He asked like it was a normal question.
"Yes. Is it that so obvious?" Melinda asked with a laugh. "We are on a travel around the world. My husband said it's a good idea, and he wasn't wrong. We've been in different places, but it's about time we go home."
"And what made you come here to adventure bay?" Ryder asked. He knew it was a good tourist place, but only because of the mountains, since It was a perfect place tor the skiers. Other than that… there wasn't anything that other towns can't show.
"It's a nice place." Roger said "Plus Nelly really likes dogs, and guess what? the world's most famous rescue team of pups is here. We were about to make a visit on the last day of our trip."
"Oh, I see. Well. If you still want to do that visit, feel free to come to the lookout at any time." He said while looking at Roger. He knew that man had another reason to come here. Maybe the ring.
"Thanks for the invitation, we will make it sometimes later today," Melinda said and stood up. "Well, it's time we leave. It was a pleasure to meet you but I still have to pack my things before we leave the town."
"Are you hurrying me?" Roger asked with a smile
"Well, our plane leaves whether we like it or not so, yes… a little bit." She gave a kiss to her husband turned to the door with her daughter behind him.
"Have you tried Mr. Porter's restaurant? I haven't eaten a better meal anywhere else" Ryder tried to convince them to be away from the hotel. He didn't want to tell them the reason why. They would probably think he is insane
"Yes, we did. But thank you for the recommendation." Melinda smiled before disappearing behind the door.
"So? What's the reason you came here, to visit me?" Roger asked in a neutral tone while looking at Ryder. Remembering why he got here in the first place, Ryder took off the ring of his finger. "I'd like you to tell me more about this thing."
Roger, seeing the ring became pale again Ryder thought, the man will freak out once more but to his surprise, he answered in a lowered voice. "I told you to get that thing away from me."
"Please, sir I need to know. How does it work? how Can I stop the countdown?"
the man gave out a laugh. "Do you think if I knew I would be here right now? I tried MANY possibilities, and neither of them ended with everyone alive."
"How many possibilities exactly?"
He gave a shrug. "I stopped counting after the 500th. Everything I did… resulted in somebody dying. One thing is for sure. this timer here" He pointed above his head "Shows the end of the book. It doesn't matter what you do, the outcome is fixed."
"No, it's not!" Ryder shouted he didn't want to believe it. "I already changed the timer!"
"In what direction?" Roger asked with narrowed eyes. "Did you manage to reduce the time for someone else too, or the one you wanted to save will die sooner? Look, kid, I'm sorry but you can't save everyone."
"It's all about what I do right? I could easily save them!" He kept on arguing. "what is this ring anyway? Why is does it..."
"Have this power?" Roger finished the sentence. "Well... There is a myth I've heard of. It's just a stupid story, but... According to it, at the start, there were 3 gods. The god of life, the god of death, and the god of time. The god of life made various living beings, spread across the universe. The God of time connected all points from the beginning to the end. He gave meaning to life, paths that everyone can choose from, decisions and outcomes. and finally there was the god of death, who waited for everyone after their long journey, and finally leading everyone to the afterlife. Those 3 lived in total understanding up to the point where the god of life had enough. He said the time and death ruins his work, no matter what happens the life ends, and he didn't like it. Death said he has to do more and more work because life is making more and more souls to lead to the afterlife. Time, however, found this argument of theirs hilarious and stated that anyone else would be better at judging life and death decisions, so to prove his point he made a ring that can rewind time, making any changement possible it's user wanted to do, and revealing everyone else's remaining time before death. The other two were furious. They coursed the ring so anyone wanted to use it would only see the death of their loved ones over and over again, and the only way to break the curse is accepting all three gods true power. I personally never believed this story, but there were signs pointing toward a certain golden ring with supernatural powers. At the start, I had a bigger team helping me finding it. We had a language professional too, who helped us decoding the writings. But time has passed and everyone started to doubt there is anything like a superpowered ring. The only man kept on searching with me was my friend, but he got scared. He said It's too dangerous and maybe it's better if we don't even look for that thing. He was so desperate to stop me back then, but in the end, he gave up and disappeared. I haven't heard of him since."
"So you are telling me… I need to let my pup die?"
"Look. I'm really sorry, but I've been there. You can't stop the countdown. You need to accept, everything is happening with reason. Go back to whoever you want to save, give him the best day of his life, and try to accept it."
"No… You are insane… I won't let this happen… I will save him and you will see you were wrong!" Ryder said and ran out of the room. Marshall can't die… He won't. while running he could still hear Roger's voice. "The countdown is the end of a book. You can't change it."
AN: This is it for now. I tried to write above 2k+ words and ended up with almost 4k+ I mean... I'm getting better right? Right?
