It began on a night when the fog hung low and heavy, curling like pale smoke around the lampposts of a silent street. The clock tower above ticked a few minutes too slow, its hands dragging through the chill November air. The faint aroma of roasted peanuts drifted by from a nearby cart, but the vendor was long gone.
That's when you saw it — a cream-colored envelope, lying on the cobblestones. A red wax seal glowed faintly in the lamplight. The symbol pressed into it was strange: a cat's pawprint surrounded by binary code.
You bent to pick it up. The paper felt oddly warm, as though someone had just left it there. A whisper brushed your ear, too soft to be the wind:
"Find the one who knows time isn't real."
No one was there. Only fog and the faint hum of the clock. Across the street, a café window glimmered with golden light. A place to think, perhaps.
Inside, the café was dim and inviting — old books on the shelves, the smell of cinnamon and rain-soaked wood. A tired barista offered a polite nod. You ordered tea and tried to ignore the envelope burning in your pocket.
When the clock above the counter struck midnight, something shifted. The second hand paused… then jumped backward.
Outside the window, a shadow bent to the ground where the envelope had been. You stepped into the fog again, just in time to meet grey eyes that gleamed like polished metal.
The stranger wore a pendant shaped like the same pawprint as the seal. Inside it, tiny gears turned in slow, deliberate rhythm.
"You opened it," they said. "Then it's already begun."
Before you could reply, another figure appeared behind them — silent, cloaked in mist. The first pressed something warm and metallic into your palm.
"When the cat blinks twice, use it."
A brass key, etched with the number 13. And then they were gone.