Chapter 13 – Shards of Silence
The city lay under a veil of muted light, its skyline fractured by the skeletons of towers that once defined its pride. Time itself seemed hesitant to move forward here; the sky was pale, neither day nor night, as if caught in a permanent hesitation between seconds. Streets lay abandoned except for the lingering hum of electricity flickering through broken lamps, echoing like whispers from a forgotten past.
Rian stood in the middle of this silence, his reflection caught in shattered glass that lined the roadside. His coat fluttered in the restless wind, and though his eyes traced the horizon, his mind was tethered to what had already slipped away. Behind him, the sound of cautious footsteps broke through the quiet—Elira.
"You shouldn't have come back here," she said softly, her voice carrying both warning and sorrow.
Rian did not turn. "And leave the hour fractured forever?" He closed his fist around the chain dangling from his wristwatch—an object he both hated and revered. "Every tick, every pause, it all points here. If I don't return, nothing ahead will make sense."
Elira's lips pressed together as if she wanted to protest but couldn't. Her gaze wandered over the collapsed buildings, the cracked pavement, the faded posters still clinging to walls—remnants of laughter and noise that the city once knew. She whispered, "It feels like the city is…waiting. As though it knows its missing second has broken everything."
At that moment, a distant metallic creak echoed, followed by the crash of falling debris. Both froze, instincts sharp. From the shadow of a ruined station, figures emerged—hooded, their masks glinting faintly under the twilight glow. The Keepers of the Hollow Hour.
"They found us already," Elira breathed.
Rian's jaw tightened. The Keepers, zealots of fractured time, had hunted him ever since he touched the frozen second—the moment when the world's clock stuttered and refused to resume. He knew what they wanted: the artifact bound to him. The watch wasn't merely a device; it was the scar of the world itself.
The lead Keeper stepped forward, voice hollow beneath his mask. "Return what was never yours, Rian. The fractured hour is not meant to be healed. It must remain broken, or the cycle collapses."
Rian's response was steady, but his heart raced beneath the calm surface. "Then let it collapse. A cycle that demands silence isn't worth preserving."
Without warning, the Keepers surged forward. A clash ignited—the air itself seemed to ripple as time bent in unnatural distortions. Rian raised the chain, its watch face glowing faintly, and the world slowed to an aching crawl. Every step, every breath became fragments, frozen in the fractured hour.
Yet the power tore at him. His veins burned with unbearable weight as he bent seconds into his grip. Elira rushed at his side, drawing her own blade, defending his blind spots. Each movement was desperate, calculated, almost mechanical. Still, the Keepers pressed harder, their presence suffocating, like shadows determined to erase every flicker of light.
When at last silence returned, only shattered glass remained between them. The Keepers withdrew, leaving their warning lingering like smoke: "You cannot repair what was never whole."
Exhausted, Rian fell to his knees, sweat dripping, his chest heaving. Elira crouched beside him. "How much longer can you bear it?"
Rian stared at the watch, cracks spreading across its glass face. He whispered, almost to himself, "Until the last second breaks. Until there's nothing left to fracture but me."
---
Chapter 14 – Through Splintered Glass
The night deepened. What little light remained was devoured by clouds gathering overhead, their edges lined with silver lightning. The city seemed alive with murmurs, each gust of wind carrying fragments of words too broken to understand. The fractured hour was no longer a secret; it bled through the streets, warping the very air.
Rian and Elira found shelter inside the shell of an old library. Dust lay heavy on the broken shelves, pages scattered like autumn leaves across the cracked marble floor. Shadows stretched unnaturally long across the walls, and every tick from the shattered watch reverberated louder than thunder in the silence.
Rian ran his fingers across the spine of a ruined book. Histories of the Clockwork Age. He stopped, staring at the faint ink, and said, "They knew. Centuries before us, they knew the hour could fracture. But they left no answers…only warnings."
Elira lit a lantern, its glow fragile. She settled across from him, her eyes reflecting both fear and determination. "Warnings are not answers, Rian. And answers aren't what you need right now. You need resolve. If the Keepers are right, then what are you fighting for?"
Rian exhaled heavily, leaning back against the fallen shelves. "For the world that never got its second. For every voice cut mid-laugh, every dream silenced before it began. That lost instant belongs to everyone—it doesn't deserve to be buried by zealots."
The silence stretched, broken only by the faint hiss of rain starting outside. Then Elira asked, almost timidly, "And if you can't fix it?"
Rian's gaze sharpened. "Then I'll break it further until nothing can hold us back. If the fractured hour has to shatter completely to be free, so be it."
Their conversation halted as the ground trembled. From outside, a sound rose—a rhythm, slow and steady, like the ticking of an enormous clock buried beneath the city. Each pulse sent vibrations through their bones, as if time itself were waking from slumber.
They ran to the library's broken window. Across the city, a tower of light erupted from the ground, piercing the sky. At its base, the shadowy silhouettes of the Keepers gathered, their voices raised in a chant that resonated with the hidden pulse.
Elira clutched Rian's arm. "They're trying to control it."
Rian's expression hardened. "No…they're trying to end it."
And then the fractured hour bled further into the world—the clouds above split open, revealing not stars but broken shards of skies, pieces of realities colliding like mirrors smashed together. The city trembled violently.
The fractured hour was no longer contained in a watch. It was consuming everything.
Rian knew then—the time for hesitation was gone. The next battle would not just decide whether time healed or stayed broken—it would decide whether the world itself endured the fractured hour, or vanished into silence forever