Time stopped at 7:03 a.m.
Aarika Sen knew that because the second hand on her wall clock froze mid-tick—yet she could still hear the fan spinning and smell the burnt toast she forgot in the kitchen.
"What the…?" she whispered.
Outside her window, a bird hung in the air, wings stretched, unmoving—as if someone had pressed pause on the world.
But the strangest part?
A boy stood in the middle of her room.
Tall, sharp-eyed, dressed in a midnight-blue coat that looked older than the city itself. He wasn't frozen. He wasn't shocked. He was looking directly at her, as if he had been waiting a long, long time.
Finally, he exhaled.
"You're awake. Good. We don't have much time."
Aarika stumbled backward.
"W-Who are you? How did you get in here?!"
He ignored the question.
"My name is Kairon. I'm here because your future has gone missing."
"…My what?!"
Kairon stepped closer, the air around him shimmering slightly, as if the room wasn't fully real anymore.
"In seven days," he said calmly, "your world collapses. And only you can stop it. But someone has already stolen the path you were meant to take."
Aarika blinked. "I think you've got the wrong person. I'm literally late for school every day. I can't even keep track of my socks."
"You're exactly the right person," Kairon said. "Because time chose you."
He raised his hand.
A glowing key appeared from thin air—silver, weightless, carved with symbols she didn't understand.
"This is the Key of Tomorrows," he said. "It belongs to you."
Aarika stared at it.
"Why me?"
Instead of answering, he slipped the key into her palm.
The world trembled.
The frozen bird outside suddenly blinked.
The clock ticked once.
Time restarted.
But nothing else was normal anymore.
Aarika didn't know it yet, but she had just been chosen as the only person who could rewrite destiny—her own, and everyone else's.
And destiny doesn't like being rewritten.