When Tare, a socially invisible university student, finds a cryptic journal in the campus library written by someone who predicts exact future events, his life begins to spiral. The journal leads him to Zara, a beautiful, intense classmate with a tragic past—and a connection to the impossible. As their bond grows, so do the bizarre occurrences: clocks freeze, dreams bleed into reality, and strangers seem to know them. Love becomes both a haven and a danger. Some truths should stay buried. Some hearts shouldn't open. And some love stories are written before you're even born.
*Chapter 1: The Girl in the Basement Library*
The third week of semester began the way it always did for Tare—silent, gray, and ordinary. He sat at the back of Room 403, a lecture on logic theory rolling over him like white noise. No one turned. No one noticed. That's how he liked it, mostly.
Until he found the book.It was late. The rain outside the faculty building sounded like it was trying to crawl through the windows. He was in the oldest part of the library, the kind of place students didn't go unless something was due at 8 a.m. and they were desperate.
The book wasn't even labeled.
It sat there on the lowest shelf, black leather, no title. Tare opened it without thinking.
The first line read: *"Tomorrow, Professor Yinka will collapse during his 10 a.m. lecture. He'll survive, but he'll never come back."*
Tare blinked. Weird. He turned the page. More strange, hyper-specific entries, all dated just days apart. And then one in red ink:
*"You'll meet her at the vending machine. She'll be wearing violet."*
The power flickered.
And the next day, everything started to change.
*Chapter 2* of *Beneath the Violet Sky*:
---
*Chapter 2: The Girl in Violet*
The vending machine in Block C always jammed on Tuesdays. Tare didn't believe in fate or signs or anything other than the quiet routines that made his life predictable. But there he was—Tuesday, 9:47 a.m.—standing in front of the clunky old machine, debating whether to waste ₦200 on a Snickers that might not drop.
He pressed B6. The machine whirred, paused, and the chocolate bar fell. A small, rare victory.
"Lucky," a voice said beside him.
He turned.
She was wearing a deep violet hoodie, the kind that looked soft and too warm for the weather, sleeves pushed halfway up her arms. Her braids were tied back loosely, and her eyes—God—her eyes were a shade between bronze and dark honey.
Zara.
He knew her name before she said it. Not because they'd ever talked—she was the kind of person who seemed surrounded by whispers, the kind that girls watched in class and guys tried to impress—but because the name was written on the next page of the black journal he hadn't let out of his bag since yesterday.
*Tare, this is Zara. Don't tell her about the book. Not yet. Let her speak first. If you interrupt, the shift begins early.*
"Tare, right?" she asked, tilting her head. "You're in Dr. Sanni's 403 class."
His throat caught. "Yeah."
She smiled like it was an answer to something. "You're quieter than I thought. I've seen you sketching in your notebook. You draw clocks?"
He blinked. No one saw that. No one ever looked close enough. His notebook was always closed before class ended. She saw?
"Sometimes," he said. "It's—uh, kind of a thing."
"Time's weird," she said softly, looking past him. "It's not always straight."
He wanted to ask what she meant, but something held him back. The journal's words echoed: *Let her speak first.*
And she did.
"There's something off about this place," she said. "Not in a haunted way. More like… time folds here. Certain corners. You ever feel like something already happened, but you're just catching up to it?"
Déjà vu.
"Yes," he admitted, too quickly.
Zara nodded like she expected that. "I'm doing my project on it. Temporal distortion in spatial memory. Fancy way of saying I think this school plays tricks on us."
He didn't know if it was her voice or the fact that he hadn't spoken this much to anyone in weeks, but Tare felt something loosen in his chest. She was weird, and sharp, and maybe—just maybe—she knew something about the journal.
Then she said something that made the air feel thin.
"Do you believe people can leave messages across time?"
He didn't answer. Not yet.
---
---
Tare's fingers twitched against the strap of his bag, where the black journal rested, heavy with warnings. Her question wasn't casual. She had asked it like someone who already knew the answer, like someone checking if he knew it too.
He studied her expression. Calm. Watchful. The kind of calm that wasn't really calm but quiet calculation.
"I don't know," he said finally. "Maybe."
"Good," she said. "That's the only honest answer."
The silence stretched, but it didn't feel awkward. It felt like something in the air was waiting for permission to crack.
"Can I show you something?" she asked.
He nodded, and she smiled—not like before. This one was smaller. Sadder. The kind of smile people give before they show you something strange.
They walked without talking, out of the building and past the back stairs. She led him to the old art block—abandoned since a fire ten years ago. Officially condemned. Unofficially, still full of strange echoes. He'd never been inside.
She stopped in front of the old sculpture room.
"Promise you won't freak out?" she asked.
"Freak out how?"
She didn't answer. Just pushed open the door.
The room was thick with dust, shafts of sunlight slicing through shattered windows. Sculptures still stood—half-finished clay torsos, abstract wire shapes, and crumbling plaster busts. But it wasn't the art that froze him.
It was the drawings.
Pinned across the far wall—dozens of them. Ink sketches, charcoal, faded paint. They were all of clocks. Every clock showed a different time. All were cracked in the same corner: 7:14.
"I didn't draw these," she said. "They were already here. I found them last year."
Tare stepped closer. The clocks were detailed—familiar. Too familiar. His fingers reached for his notebook. Page 17. He opened it.
There it was—his own sketch. A cracked pocket watch. Time: 7:14.
Exactly like the ones on the wall.
"I don't know what it means," Zara said, softly. "But I think we're part of something. Some kind of loop. Or test. Or curse. I don't know. But we keep finding each other."
"We?" Tare asked.
She looked at him. "You and me."
The black journal in his bag burned like fire.
He was about to tell her everything—but then the lights in the room flickered. Once. Twice.
And all the clocks on the wall shifted—clicking in unison to *7:15*.
---
---
The sound was faint—just the softest tick, like fingernails against glass—but Tare heard it in his bones. All the clocks had shifted. Every one of them, synchronized, as if the room had taken a collective breath.
Zara didn't move. Neither did he.
The minute hands had crept to *7:15*, and in the sudden stillness, the air felt denser—like the room itself was watching them.
Then, from somewhere behind the old storage door in the corner, came a knock.
Just one.
A clean, deliberate sound.
Zara stepped back, but her face didn't show fear. It showed recognition.
"This has happened before," she whispered.
"What?"
"I mean not here—not like this. But… the knock. That specific moment. It's part of the shift. When the clocks change, it begins."
Tare's heart kicked against his ribs. "The shift?"
Zara glanced at the door. "Reality bends a little. You might see things that don't fit. Memories you've never had. Places that don't follow logic. You'll feel stretched. Like time forgot its shape."
"That's—"
"I know how it sounds."
He didn't finish the sentence. Because the door opened.
No handle turned. No force pushed. It just opened on its own—slow, smooth, silent.
Inside was only darkness. But not ordinary darkness. This one felt layered, almost three-dimensional, like if you looked too long, something inside it would look back.
"Don't go near it," Zara said quickly, grabbing his arm. "Not unless it calls you by name."
Tare swallowed. "What happens if it does?"
"Then you're in the story."
Before he could ask what that meant, the temperature in the room dropped. Dust floated in slow motion. And from the shadowed doorway, something emerged—
—not a creature or a person—
—but a memory.
His memory.
Tare saw himself—sitting in his childhood room, sketching clocks, crying quietly. The image was flickering like an old projector reel. A detail stuck out: his drawing. The time on the clock? 7:15.
The memory vanished like steam.
Zara let go of his arm.
"It's starting earlier this time," she muttered. "That means someone interfered."
Tare opened his bag and pulled out the journal. Her eyes locked onto it like she'd seen a ghost.
"You have one," she said. "I didn't think—no one's had one since Elias."
"Who's Elias?"
Zara stared at the clocks again. "The first person who tried to break the pattern. He didn't survive the second shift."
The journal flipped open on its own.
A new line had appeared in fresh black ink:
*"Zara won't remember this by morning."*
Tare's voice caught. "What does that mean?"
But Zara was already turning pale, her eyes blinking like she was waking from a dream.
"Where… where are we?" she whispered, confused. "What were we doing?"
Tare stared at her.
She didn't remember the clocks. Or the door. Or the knock.
Just like the journal said.
And now, he was the only one who knew what was coming next.
---
---
Tare didn't move.
Zara stood a few feet away now, blinking rapidly like she'd woken up in the middle of a sentence. Her eyes darted to the clocks on the wall—blank confusion. No recognition. The second hand on one ticked twice, then stopped again.
"What are we doing here?" she asked. "Wait—how did I even—why are we in the old art block?"
He wanted to tell her everything. About the journal. About what she'd said. About the knock, the memory, the door—but his instincts, the same ones that kept him alive by staying invisible, screamed at him to hold back.
"Just exploring," he said quietly. "I didn't think anyone used this place."
Zara frowned, slowly adjusting to the moment like someone climbing out of a fog. She glanced at the door to the hallway. "I feel… weird. Light-headed."
"We should get you some water," he offered.
She nodded. "Yeah. Okay."
They left the room, and the second the door shut, every clock behind it stopped ticking again.
—
They sat under the fig tree near the abandoned garden on campus, sipping from a shared water bottle Tare had in his bag. It was Zara's idea to stay there "just for a second," but she hadn't spoken since they sat down. She kept rubbing her temple with the heel of her palm.
"I get memory blackouts sometimes," she said at last. "Stress. Lack of sleep. I don't know. It just goes blank."
Tare looked at her. "Do they always happen in the same place?"
"No. But I always feel like I lost something important. Like someone whispered a secret and I forgot it before I could react."
The journal was still in his bag. He hadn't dared open it again.
He knew now what the pages meant. Not just predictions. Warnings.
Rules.
If he broke them, people forgot. Maybe worse.
And Zara was part of it all, but something—or someone—was wiping her mind clean when she got too close.
His phone buzzed. A new notification.
*1 New Message*
*From Unknown: "Page 39."*
His skin chilled.
He opened the journal slowly, flipping through to page 39.
One sentence, scribbled in shaky handwriting:
*"She dies at 7:14 p.m. unless the loop resets."*
He looked at the time: 3:42 p.m.
His throat tightened.
Four and a half hours.
And Zara was humming beside him, completely unaware she was living on borrowed time.
---
Zara tossed a pebble across the dry grass, watching it bounce once before stopping short of a cracked pavement line. The garden around them had once been lush; now it was a memory with weeds.
"I used to come here when I needed to disappear," she said softly. "People are so loud. Even when they're not talking."
Tare stared at her like he was memorizing the outline of her face. He'd only really met her that morning, and already the thought of her dying—tonight—felt like a thread pulled too tight inside him.
"What's the loop?" he asked, careful not to sound like he already knew too much.
She turned toward him, surprised. "What?"
"You said something earlier," he lied. "That time doesn't move straight. That maybe… we're stuck in a loop?"
Zara hesitated, then looked at her hands. "I think there are patterns that repeat until we notice them. People. Moments. Emotions. Like… echoes."
"You think death can echo?"
She met his gaze. "I think some people are born already tangled in the ending."
"Why?"
"I can't explain yet. But something's going to happen."
She stood. "Like what?"
"You'll die. I think. At 7:14."
She blinked. "That's oddly specific."
"I know it sounds crazy—"
"No," she interrupted. "It doesn't."
He stared.
She stepped closer. "I don't remember things sometimes, right? But I… feel them. Deep in my bones. I believe you. I don't know why. But I do."
He grabbed her hand.
They ran together.
—
7:13 p.m.
They stood in the sculpture room again. All the clocks ticking. Faster now.
The journal flipped open in his bag without his touch.
One sentence appeared in frantic, broken strokes:
*"You brought her back to the origin."*
Zara stepped toward the wall of clocks.
A crack opened in the plaster—slowly—revealing a staircase curling down into darkness.
She looked at him.
"You coming?"
He nodded.
She smiled.
And they stepped into the next loop together.
—
*Chapter 3: The Descent*
The moment Tare stepped onto the first stair, the air shifted. It wasn't just darker—it was heavier, as if the atmosphere grew thicker the deeper they went. Zara walked ahead of him, one hand trailing along the cracked wall, her violet hoodie now a shadow in motion.
The staircase spiraled downward into silence. Not the quiet of a closed room, but true silence—no echo, no breathing, no sound of footfalls. Just stillness, like time had stopped keeping score down here.
Tare glanced over his shoulder.
The entrance behind them was gone.
Just more stairs curling upward into black.
He swallowed. "Zara—"
"I know," she said, not looking back. "It closed. It always does."
That stopped him. "Wait. What do you mean 'always'?"
She turned, her face barely lit by a weak, flickering glow coming from below.
"I've dreamed this before," she said. "Always this staircase. Always the same pressure. Like the walls are watching. But I never reach the bottom."
"Then maybe we shouldn't be going further," he said, feeling his heartbeat rise.
She turned back and kept walking. "But we already are."
—
They descended for what felt like hours.
No end. No markings. Just Zara's steady pace, and Tare's thoughts unraveling with each step.
Then, finally, they stepped into a corridor.
It wasn't ancient. In fact, it looked oddly clean—white-tiled floor, matte-gray walls, faint fluorescent lights humming overhead.
Zara tilted her head. "This wasn't here before."
"You said you never got this far."
"I know. That's why it's weird."
On the left wall, a small glass window revealed a room full of clocks—hundreds of them. Grandfather clocks, wristwatches, broken timers, hourglasses, digital faces blinking random times. All of them ticking. All out of sync.
A door buzzed open beside them without a touch.
The hallway beyond was darker.
Tare looked at Zara.
"Ready?" he asked.
"No," she replied. "But that's how you know it matters."
They stepped inside.
---
---
*Chapter 3: The Descent*
*Part 2: The Room with No Corners*
The hallway swallowed them.
Zara's hand brushed his as they stepped forward—not quite holding, but not letting go either. Tare's other hand stayed tight on the journal in his bag, even though he hadn't dared open it again. Every time it responded to him, reality twisted a little more.
Ahead, the hallway bent unnaturally, like it had been folded by hand. It didn't turn left or right—it *curved*, as if space itself had softened. The lights flickered, then dimmed, leaving only a dull blue glow coming from deeper within.
As they turned the corner, they found it.
A square room—but wrong.
There were no corners. The walls curved seamlessly into each other, floor into ceiling. Everything was smooth, like they'd stepped inside the belly of something not meant to be entered. No sound. No dust. Just a cold hum and a floating screen in the center.
On it: a countdown.
*00:12:36*
It ticked down.
Zara's breath hitched. "Tare…"
He stepped forward. The screen pulsed as he neared, and a soft voice whispered—not aloud, but in his head.
*"One reset remaining."*
The journal slipped from his bag. Landed open. A fresh page flipped itself.
*"Time can be borrowed. Never kept."*
Zara was staring at him now. "You knew about this. The book—it's telling you things, isn't it?"
He hesitated.
"Yes," he said. "It told me you were going to die tonight. At 7:14."
She swallowed. "And this is supposed to stop it?"
"I think it's the only thing that can."
The countdown hit *00:09:58*.
The lights overhead shifted to red.
Zara stepped to his side. "If we reset this… what happens to us?"
"I don't know," he said. "Maybe we forget again. Maybe we lose more time. Or maybe—"
"We die anyway."
Neither moved. Neither blinked.
Then she reached forward and touched the screen.
Everything went white.
—
---
*Chapter 3: The Descent*
*Part 3: Whiteout*
White.
So much white that it burned behind Tare's eyelids.
The chill of the room disappeared. The heavy silence gave way to an endless echo, like they were standing inside a shell where every breath bounced back tenfold.
He opened his eyes.
Zara was kneeling on the ground, face buried in her hands.
He looked around.
No walls. No floor.
Just infinite white stretching in every direction, seamless and terrifying.
"Zara?" His voice sounded wrong—too loud, too empty.
She lifted her head slowly.
Her eyes were glassy, distant. "I don't remember," she whispered. "Why I'm here… who you are."
Tare's heart dropped.
The reset hadn't erased just the danger. It had wiped her memory clean.
He swallowed. "It's okay. I'm here."
She shook her head, eyes wide but vacant. "I don't know you."
He wanted to scream. Wanted to tell her everything. To make her remember.
But the space around them rippled again.
And then—
A new voice echoed from nowhere.
"*Time is a story, Tare. The loops are your chapters. You can write them, but only if you dare to read the end.*"
The voice was soft but endless, like the universe itself.
"Who's there?" Tare demanded.
No answer.
Only a sudden rush of wind that pulled at his clothes and Zara's hair.
The white space cracked, fracturing like glass.
And when it healed—
They were somewhere else.
---
*Chapter 3: The Descent*
*Part 4: The Place Between*
The white fractured like ice underfoot, and they fell through.
For a heartbeat, the world tumbled.
Then everything stopped.
They landed softly, feet touching cold stone beneath a dim sky that shifted colors—violet bleeding into deep blue, dotted with stars that moved too fast to be real.
Around them stretched an endless cityscape unlike any Tare had seen. Buildings folded into impossible shapes—spirals, inverted towers, bridges that led nowhere. Shadows moved sideways. Sounds echoed backwards.
Zara looked around, trembling.
"Where… are we?"
Tare shook his head. "I don't know. But I think this is the place between."
She looked up. "Between what?"
"Life and death. Time and space. The loops we're caught in."
They began to walk.
Each step echoed unnaturally, footsteps repeating twice, out of sync.
The air smelled like ozone and something metallic.
Suddenly, a figure appeared—an old man cloaked in ragged robes, face wrinkled