The fog clung to Elias like wet cloth as he stumbled toward the town square.The air was heavy, full of that strange electrical hum that always came before something shifted.
The clock tower loomed in the distance, its outline fractured by the mist. It rose higher than any building in Hollow's End, an ancient monument of brick and steel that looked more like a tomb than a tower.
Each of its four faces bore the same frozen time — 11:55.Always five minutes before something that never comes.
Elias's breath came shallow, his heart still racing from Mira's disappearance. Her final words looped in his head like a curse: Remember her before they do.
He reached the square, the cobblestones slick beneath his boots. The faint sound of dripping water echoed through the emptiness.
At the tower's base, he found the door slightly open. It shouldn't have been. The townspeople said no one ever entered the clock tower. No one ever needed to.
He hesitated only a moment before stepping inside.
The air was thick, stale, full of dust and old metal. The walls were lined with gears taller than he was, their teeth still glistening with oil despite not having turned in decades. Every step he took sent a ripple through the silence, like the building itself was listening.
His lantern flickered weakly as he climbed the spiral stairs.
He counted each step to keep his mind anchored.Forty-one. Forty-two. Forty-three—
Halfway up, he stopped.
Something had changed.
The air was colder now, carrying a faint sound — whispering, almost like a conversation.
He held his breath, listening. The voices were faint, distorted, as if echoing through the metal.
"…he keeps forgetting…""…the hour must never strike…""…she's still waiting…"
Elias gripped the rail tighter, the iron biting into his palm.
"Who's there?"
The voices stopped instantly.
Then a soft creak above him.
He lifted the lantern, its glow illuminating the gears that framed the next landing — and something hanging between them.
A photograph.
It dangled from a string tied to one of the motionless gears, swaying faintly in the draft. Elias's heart pounded as he reached for it.
It was old — the edges burned, the ink faded — but the image was unmistakable.
Lena, again.Standing in front of the clock tower, her smile gentle but distant.
Except now, behind her, he could see himself again — Elias, a few feet back, looking at her through the lens of a camera.
And written along the bottom in black ink:
"Five minutes to forever."
Elias's hands shook. His breath came fast. "What does that mean…?"
He turned the photograph over — and froze.
On the back, in the same handwriting, another line appeared, fresh as if written seconds ago:
"You promised to stop the clock."
The lantern flickered violently, shadows spiraling across the walls. Elias stepped back, heart hammering.
"I don't understand!" he shouted, voice echoing through the gears. "What are you trying to tell me?"
The clock answered.
With a deep, guttural grind, the gears shuddered — metal against metal, waking from a long sleep. Dust poured from the ceiling as the entire tower groaned to life.
Elias stumbled as the staircase shook beneath him. The sound grew deafening — an ancient rhythm of turning wheels and slamming levers.
And then… a voice.
Not whispered this time, but clear and booming, carried by the vibration of the metal itself:
"Time remembers what you tried to forget."
The tower's pendulum, still and dead for years, began to swing.Slowly. Relentlessly.
With each movement, Elias felt something in his chest tighten — like his heart was being wound by invisible hands.
He turned to run, but the stairs behind him had disappeared. In their place was a solid wall of gears, moving in impossible directions, each one engraved with faces — his faces — screaming silently as they turned.
"Stop it!" he shouted. "Stop—!"
The pendulum struck once.
The sound tore through him.
For a second, the world flashed white — and he was no longer in the tower.
He stood in the rain again, on that forest road. Headlights blurred through the downpour. The smell of gasoline and fear filled the air. Lena stood in front of him, her face pale with panic.
"Elias, don't—!"
Then the sound of the clock again.11:55.
Everything froze.
Lena's face blurred. The road vanished. The world folded back into the dark interior of the tower.
Elias collapsed to his knees, gasping for breath. "What… what was that?"
The whisper returned, low and close this time — right beside his ear.
"You remember in fragments because you chose to. Five minutes before truth. Five minutes before her death."
He turned sharply, but no one was there. Only the ticking heart of the clock, the pendulum swinging like a blade.
He backed toward the exit — or where it should've been — but the tower was no longer made of walls. It was corridors now, endless and shifting, lined with hundreds of clocks all frozen at the same time.
11:55.
Each one ticked once as he passed. Each one whispered his name.
And beneath their voices, softer but unmistakable, came another sound — a woman's quiet sobbing.
Elias followed it despite himself, the sound drawing him deeper into the mechanical maze until he reached a small, hidden door beneath the gears.
He pushed it open.
A narrow stairway led downward — into the foundations of the tower.
And carved into the wall above it, in fresh black letters:
"Remember her before midnight."
To be continued…
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