The night deepened around the clocktower, velvet and vast. The town had folded into slumber — its fires reduced to embers, its laughter and footsteps swallowed by the fog that rolled up from the coast like a ghost trying to remember its name. But Elias remained awake, a silhouette framed against the old window of the tower, watching the silence.
The room smelled of iron and old wood, a scent that clung to him now. The gears above, far up into the circular dome, had stilled hours ago — or so he thought. His hands were smudged with dust and time, the evidence of a day's work spent uncovering furniture wrapped in cobwebs and ghosts of memory. The walls echoed when he walked, not with sound but with something else — like forgotten words.
He had found a mattress of hay in the loft, barely more than a suggestion of comfort. A brass lamp flickered beside him, throwing golden shapes against the walls. Outside, wind tapped the shutters like a friend trying to be polite. He should have been tired. He should have slept. But something pressed on his senses like a whisper just out of reach.
Then… it happened.
A single, soft click echoed through the tower.
Elias turned sharply. The sound was unmistakable — not the usual creak of wood or sigh of beams, but mechanical. Intentional. He rose from the small bench near the hearth and looked upward, toward the clockface.
Then, the gear turned.
Only slightly. Just enough to catch the flicker of moonlight through the glass dome above. The gear—blackened brass carved with markings he hadn't noticed before—glinted like a star awakening after centuries of sleep.
"What the hell…" Elias whispered, but his voice didn't carry. It was as if the air itself refused to disturb the moment.
Another gear moved.
Then another.
The clock was alive.
But not ticking — not yet.
He stepped toward the spiral staircase that curved up the side of the tower like a spine. Each step he took creaked under his boots, as though protesting this intrusion. And yet, he felt pulled — like gravity had reversed itself and the very air beckoned him upward.
The higher he climbed, the colder it got. Not the cold of wind or rain, but something deeper. Timeless. Like standing inside a glacier and hearing the echo of centuries pass.
When he reached the upper floor, the heart of the tower greeted him.
And the heart… was breathing.
There was no other way to describe it. The clock's core — a massive set of interlocking gears, chains, and pendulums — was slowly moving, though the town bell hadn't rung. Each part hummed with a soft, rhythmic vibration that pulsed through the floor and into his bones. Like a heartbeat.
He stood transfixed.
Then he saw it.
The main dial at the center of the clockwork — a circular glass face inscribed not with numbers but with something older. Glyphs. Spirals. Ancient scripts folded into the shape of time. And at the center of it all… a faint glow.
Not bright.
But blue.
Familiar.
Because he had seen that glow before.
In the vortex.
In the place between places — the white canvas after the world had ended, before the divine voice offered him time like a blade held gently to the soul. Back then, he could barely recall the words, save for one echo that clung to his heart:
"Possess it kindly… or it will turn against you."
The same light lived here now — in the heart of the tower.
Then his left eye began to burn.
It wasn't pain — not quite. But a pressure. A heat rising from within, like a gear clicking into place inside his skull. His breath caught, and instinctively he closed his eye. When he opened it again—
—the room was unchanged.
And yet… everything felt different.
He saw the motion of time.
Not its passing, but its residue — like fog curling around a fire. The gear that moved bore a streak of motion behind it, a ghost-trail of every tick it had turned. The dust hanging in the air shimmered like frozen echoes. And when he looked down at his hand, he saw something stranger still.
A faint shimmer traced the veins of his left arm.
A hand clock.
It glows, while it's chains hugs — over his hands.
But only a glimpse. The vision faded as quickly as it came, swallowed back into his breath. The glow dimmed. The gear stilled.
The heartbeat stopped.
And silence returned.
He sat down on the edge of the balcony railing, trembling. His scarf hung loosely now, barely catching the breeze that seeped in through a shattered pane. He exhaled, long and slow, steam trailing from his lips.
"Still not dreaming…" he muttered.
A click behind him.
He spun — only to find nothing there.
Just the dusty floor, a few scattered tools, and a long rope that led down to the tower's great bell. He chuckled dryly to himself.
"Now I'm haunted by gears. Fantastic."
His voice broke the silence like a match thrown into snow.
He sat there longer than he meant to — watching the shadows shift and listening for more sounds that didn't come. The moonlight had moved, stretching across the floor like a sundial. By now it had to be well past midnight.
The city slept on, unaware.
Eventually, he made his way back down. Slower this time. More aware. The tower didn't creak the way it had before. Or maybe it was simply listening now.
Back at the hearth, Elias knelt and added wood to the embers, coaxing the flames back to life. He poured himself water from the small ceramic jug he'd found earlier and drank.
The taste was bitter.
But real.
He lay back on the hay mattress and closed his eyes, the memory of the blue glow still etched into his thoughts. The gears… they had moved because of him.
Or perhaps in response to something within him.
The power of time, the voice had said.
Not to witness it. To possess it.
He opened his left eye again, searching the room for something — a shadow, a symbol, a sign.
But the tower had returned to silence.
Only the faint ticking of a broken watch he had picked up from a shelf earlier reminded him that time, too, continued.
Unseen. Unheard.
But never unfelt.
And as sleep took him, Elias dreamed.
Of clocks.
Of stars.
Of a heart that beat in brass and memory.