Chapter XXVI: The Sand of the Glass
Morning is only a rumor.
The light in Nathaniel Cross's flat bends wrong, pale rays filtering through the blinds like broken glass, slicing the room into strips of gray. The radiator hums, steady as a metronome, but even its rhythm falters every few seconds—hiccups, stutters, as though the machine itself has caught the sickness spreading through the walls.
Nathaniel sits on the floor with his back pressed hard against the desk, knees pulled tight to his chest. His breathing is shallow, uneven, ragged from crying too much and sleeping too little. The notebook lies open two feet away, its pages fluttering without wind.
The veins are awake.
He keeps reading the words, as if repetition will make them lose meaning, as if staring long enough will dull their sting. But the cracks above him glow brighter, crawling down the plaster in jagged lines, veins of light that spread like roots in soil. They pulse in rhythm with his heartbeat.
Nathaniel whispers through clenched teeth, "It's not real. It's not real. It's—"
Knock.
The sound stops him.
Not from the door. Not from the floor. From inside the walls themselves, deep in the marrow of the building. A hollow, patient tapping.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
He clamps his hands over his ears. But the sound doesn't come through them—it reverberates inside his chest, rattling through his ribs.
For the first time, Nathaniel realizes: the knocking isn't something outside. It's something inside him.
Nathaniel staggers to his feet. His vision blurs at the edges, silver crawling into his sight like frost. He stumbles toward the bathroom, muttering, "Just me, just me, just me—"
He rips the towel off the mirror.
His reflection stares back. Pale. Haggard. Hollow-eyed. But it's still him.
Until it isn't.
The reflection tilts its head. Smiles. And then—it shifts.
Not into Eris. Not into some faceless monster.
Into something worse.
It becomes a version of him he doesn't recognize—a Nathaniel taller, stronger, cleaner. Hair swept neatly back, no dark circles, no tremor in his hands. His reflection looks like a man who has his life together. Someone who isn't drowning. Someone who is whole.
The other Nathaniel raises his hand and presses his palm against the glass.
"Trade," the reflection mouths.
Nathaniel recoils. "No. No, no, no—"
The reflection's grin sharpens. Its silver eyes burn brighter.
"TRADE."
The mirror fractures—spiderweb cracks erupting outward—and for one dizzying second Nathaniel feels his body pull forward, sucked toward the glass like gravity has shifted. His hand slams against the sink. He tears his gaze away, gasping, falling to the tiles.
When he looks back—
The mirror is whole. His reflection is normal.
But written across the glass in fog, as if from breath that wasn't his:
You are wasting time.
Nathaniel can't stay. Not here. Not with mirrors lying and walls knocking like ribs of some colossal body.
He throws on his coat again, storms out of the flat, and takes the stairwell two steps at a time. Each footfall echoes wrong—delayed, like the building itself is mocking him with the sound of his own running.
When he bursts onto the street, the world should feel better. Brisk London air. Rain. People moving in normal patterns.
It doesn't.
The city breathes.
He sees it now, clearer than ever: cracks glowing faintly across the brick facades, veins pulsing along lampposts, silver rippling beneath puddles like blood under skin. The entire city is alive, and it is sick.
Nathaniel grips the strap of his coat, head low, forcing himself forward. People brush past, umbrellas bobbing, laughter and chatter weaving through the rain. They don't see it. They don't see any of it.
But they look wrong.
Every passerby glances too long. Every face lingers a second too still before moving again. Like masks.
He wants to scream. But he doesn't. He keeps walking.
Without meaning to, his feet carry him across the Thames, through winding streets, until he stops—staring up at the clock tower.
Big Ben looms against the bruised sky, its hands crawling toward noon. But something is off.
The minute hand ticks forward—
And then ticks back.
And forward again.
And back.
Stuck in eternal hesitation.
The bells begin to toll. Not once, not twelve times. Over and over, clanging endlessly, the sound warping until it's no longer bells at all but hollow knocks echoing across the city.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
The sound rattles Nathaniel's scar, searing through his chest. He collapses to his knees on the pavement, clutching himself, gasping for breath. Around him, tourists smile, point, snap photographs, completely unbothered by the endless tolling.
His vision swims.
On the glass face of the clock, he sees himself.
Dozens of him. Each reflection grinning wide, silver-eyed, slamming their palms against the glass.
The hands of the clock twitch violently. Then—
They snap.
Shards of time rain down in silence, falling like glitter across the streets.
And Nathaniel runs.
He bolts into the Underground, hoping the noise, the crowd, the stink of iron and oil will anchor him. The escalator carries him down, his hands gripping the rail so hard his knuckles whiten.
But the station breathes too.
The tiles along the wall crack and pulse with faint silver light. The air hums, vibrating like the inside of a throat.
And when the train arrives, screeching to a stop, its windows don't show the inside of carriages.
They show mirrors.
Every reflection inside is Nathaniel. Rows of him. Some smiling. Some sobbing. Some tearing their faces open with their nails.
The doors hiss open.
"Board," the reflections whisper in unison.
He stumbles back, tripping over the yellow line. A stranger behind him mutters, "Watch it, mate," and shoves past—boarding the train like nothing is wrong.
The reflections don't acknowledge the stranger. Only him.
"BOARD."
The doors slam shut. The train lurches away, screeching into the tunnel, sparks flying. For a moment, Nathaniel swears the tunnel pulses like a throat swallowing.
He sprints up the escalator two steps at a time, desperate for air.
Rain greets him again at the surface. He collapses against a lamppost, chest heaving, lungs on fire.
And then he hears the footsteps. Slow. Deliberate.
He looks up.
The man in the gray coat. Sharp features. Eyes like pits. Standing across the street, unmoving, untouched by rain.
Nathaniel's voice cracks. "Why me? Why—why show me this?"
The man tilts his head. "Because you already are it."
Nathaniel shakes violently. "I don't want it. I didn't choose this—"
"Choice is the lie you tell yourself when the door has already opened."
The man steps forward. Traffic does not touch him. Cars blur past like shadows. His presence bends the street.
Nathaniel staggers back, clutching the railing of the bridge behind him. "Then tell me—what am I?!"
The man's lips curl into something that isn't a smile.
"You are the hollow hourglass. The fracture that pretends to mend. The silence that prepares."
And then—like smoke in wind—he's gone.
Nathaniel collapses onto the slick pavement, trembling, rain mingling with tears on his face. His scar pulses, harder, faster, until he feels like his chest will split.
The veins of light spread farther across the city, crawling along rooftops, threading through bridges, pulsing in time with the bells that still toll endlessly.
And then—he sees it.
In the puddle beside him.
Not his reflection. Not anymore.
An hourglass.
Its upper chamber nearly empty. The sand inside glows silver. Each grain falls slow, too slow, yet he feels the pressure of inevitability.
When the last grain falls—
The black door will open.
And Nathaniel Cross realizes with bone-deep horror:
He isn't racing against time.
He is the time.
The hourglass pulses. The veins burn brighter.
And somewhere, deep beneath the city's skin—
Something begins to wake.