I reach the tower's base without remembering the last stretch of the run. My breath is ragged, but my lungs feel like they're breathing for someone else — too slow, too deliberate.
The base isn't made of stone. It's made of glass. Behind the glass runs a river, black and thick like oil, flowing upward instead of down. Suspended in the current is a clock — massive, the size of a building floor. Its hands twitch erratically, sometimes freezing, sometimes spinning backward in violent bursts.
The ticking comes from inside it.
Every sound makes the water shiver. Every shiver sends ripples up toward the sky, where they vanish into the tower's impossible height. I press my hand against the glass. It's warm. Too warm.
The warmth spreads up my arm. It's not heat — it's time. I can feel minutes leaking away from me, my memories softening at the edges. My name feels distant, like I'm remembering it through fog.
A whisper cuts through the ticking.You've been here before.
I jerk my hand away. The voice stops instantly.
When I look at my palm, I see numbers burned faintly into the skin: 00:00:13.They start counting down.
I don't know what happens at zero, but I know I can't stay here. There's a spiral staircase embedded in the side of the tower. I take it, each step bending slightly under my weight, as though the whole thing is just barely holding itself together.
Halfway up, I hear the river roaring louder.
I look down.
The clock has turned.
Now it's facing me.