72 Seconds of Heartbeats

Have you ever heard time’s heartbeat?

Not as a figure of speech. A real heartbeat, sounding deep inside your ears once every seventy-two seconds.

Sikong Shuo has heard it since childhood. The doctors called it tinnitus, so he assumed he was sick.

Until one day, in the lab, he converted an anomalous signal into audio

And heard three people breathing.

He looked through the records. Over the past three years, three people had vanished under mysterious circumstances. A pianist, a police detective, and a physicist.

All surnamed Sikong.

All identical to him.

He starts asking a question that chills him to the bone:

That heartbeat sounding once every seventy-two seconds…

Whose heart is beating?