Love me a bit of Voice Over.

Great vibe to this. A very Memento/Tenet feel to it, (I'm a fan of the former, not the latter) crossed with a Noir detective feel. Well done with that.

I think you need a way to get the Info Dump across better.

LOTTIE
Thank you for coming, detective. I’d
invite you in, but I’m on my way to an
appointment. The reason I called you is
that one of the people in my counseling
group, Monica Santos, left a very strange
message on my phone a while ago.

It sounds too shopping list and not very natural dialogue.
Perhaps have Tony prompting more - he's the detective, after all. Love the name Lottie.

Talk. Conversation, maybe, instead?

She dies.
I think you need a bit more there visually.

NEW SCENE ??

Loved everything vanishing.
The ending was a bit anti-climactic for me, and a bit too flippant that last line tonally in particular ( though amusing) for what's happening.

The setup is terrific, loved the humorous touches you interweaved.

The Janson machine kicks your “clock”
into reverse. Then you die and disappear.

Why, though? That's my question? Needs a stronger motivation. Was it just a bad/lethal side-effect?

I love so much of this and it doesn't have to be crystal clear what's going on in a mind-bending tale, it just needs to be satisfying.

Btw, if you're going with that Voice Over (which like I said, I'm a fan of) you need to top n tail it, imho.

Overall, I loved it.
I think it needs tweaking to be more satisfying.

The big thing to elevate the story for an audience (imho) is that Tony nerds to be emotionally connected with one of these disappearing characters - Monica or Lottie, maybe? That would raise the emotional stakes.

That aside, another entry that's up there in the scoring for me.

I like a time-travel concept but it needs to be simple to follow and I’m not sure there’s enough space here to flesh out the rules and do this justice.  I read it twice and though I see the little connective threads here and there I’m not putting it together enough to create a satisfying whole - if that makes sense?

Doctor Jansen creates a machine that inadvertently reverses time for those who touch it.  Tony gets called out by Lottie to investigate the strange voice-mail left by Monica Santos (a tough sell for a detective) and finds her just as she dies.  He then goes to the Jansen place, finds Lottie and Jansen dead and kick starts the whole reverse time thing for himself.  Did Future Tony then go back to Monica’s place to find Past Tony to warn him?  Was it a warning?   Didn't the other characters die before fading away but Future Tony just fades away?  Feels like there’s pieces of the story missing that tie it together and I just can’t make the jump.

Nothing against the use of VO, but maybe better to set it up from the start than part way through.

Writing is fine but the dialogue feels too OTN in places.  Not so much with Tony, his is pretty good in places, but Lottie’s in particular is mostly exposition.  Again, a tough call for such a short.  It’s an interesting concept and maybe one to elaborate on with more space but it missed the mark for me.  Interested to hear the writer's intent.

Writer,

Some big ideas here, too big for a 5 page short IMO. I think this can be expanded. I really like the idea of time flowing backwards, really cool, gives you a lot to work with. Some of the description I had a hard time visualizing and some of the time jumping was awkward, V.O. was out of left field. It could be a really cool sci fi story with more work put in, keep at it!

Nice work.

I love the advice that one Tony gives to the other Tony: Don't do anything that I wouldn't do. If I ever encounter a future version on myself, that is precisely the advice that I will give.

This is a little all over the place.