Joey found the time capsule on a Tuesday, buried under the old sycamore tree behind his grandmother’s house. The tree had been struck by lightning the night before, splitting open like a book, and there it was: a rusted metal box with "JOEY 1997" scratched into the lid.

"How do I stop it?" he whispered.

The carnival music swelled. The mirrors flickered. And Joey—1997—felt himself folding backward through time, becoming the boy in the photograph, the writer of the letter, the ghost at the bottom of the slide.

He slid for too long. Minutes. Hours. The mirrors on either side didn’t show his reflection—they showed other Joeys. A Joey with a black eye. A Joey holding a gas can. A Joey crying in a parked car, 1997 written on the license plate. At the bottom, he landed in a pile of dried leaves and ticket stubs from a summer fair decades old.

The Slide of Mirrors was a garish purple tube at the far end of the midway. No line. No attendant. Just a sign: "One rider at a time. No refunds."

He pried it open with a tire iron. Inside: a cracked Polaroid of a boy who looked exactly like him—same cowlick, same gap-toothed grin—but wearing baggy jeans and a Spawn T-shirt. Beneath the photo, a handwritten letter:

"You opened it early," the man said. His voice echoed like a tunnel. "I buried that box when I was twelve. The carnival comes every year on August 17th. It takes one of us. I tried to warn you—but you're me. And I never listen."