The streets were empty, yet the sounds still echoed in his ears.
Each step he took felt like an echo returning from a time he had yet to live.
The further he moved, the more the colors around him faded.
The sky turned gray, the buildings petrified in place, and even the air grew heavy, as if time itself had frozen.
> [Temporal Distortion expanding...]
[Entering Chrono-Zone: "City of the Frozen."]
Eren gasped when he saw what lay ahead.
Hundreds, no… thousands of people stood in the streets —
some smiling, some screaming, some reaching toward something unseen.
Yet all were frozen in a single moment.
> "Are… they dead?"
A voice echoed from the void:
> "No one dies here, Timebound.
They are merely trapped between one second and the next."
Eren froze in place.
The voice came from behind him, but when he turned, there was no one.
Then a girl appeared before him.
---
She stood atop a broken clock in the middle of the street,
her silver hair swaying with a nonexistent breeze,
and her eyes carried the color of the last sunset — somewhere between gold and the end.
She wore a long black dress, adorned with tiny gears that moved slowly along its edges.
> "Who are you?"
She smiled faintly, her voice calm, as if it came from the depths of time itself:
> "I am the Keeper of the Lost Minute."
She stepped toward him slowly, and with each step, movement around them slightly returned —
a bird flapped, a leaf fell, a tear froze in the air.
> "Every lost minute, I keep here…
Every soul lost between one moment and the next resides in this city."
---
Eren raised his silver clock.
Its light flickered, as if reacting to her presence.
> "Do you know what's happening to me?"
She shook her head slowly:
> "You have been registered as a Timebound — a servant of time.
Anyone who wields the power of time becomes part of its fabric.
They cannot leave… unless they find the minute that was stolen from them."
> "A minute?"
She smiled quietly:
> "Yes. Every beginning in this world starts with a lost minute.
A minute that changed everything… death, betrayal, a decision left unmade."
---
He stepped closer and asked:
> "And how do I find it?"
She placed her finger on his chest.
In an instant, he saw a vision…
a city ablaze, a scream, blood, a shattered clock, and a voice saying: "You were just one second late."
He staggered back, gasping.
When he opened his eyes again, it was gone.
Only her shadow remained, and her voice whispered in the distance:
> "When your heart stops beating at the right moment,
you will find the minute you lost, Number 13."
---
A new text appeared in the air:
> [New Quest Unlocked: The Lost Minute]
[Objective: Retrieve the memory of the first distortion.]
[Reward: Access to Tier-2 Ability.]
He looked up at the gray sky and whispered to himself:
> "So… the beginning wasn't a mistake. It was punishment."
And in his eyes, the clock hand spun backward, reflecting the start of his journey.