Chapter 1 — The Ticking Awakening
The city had forgotten what hour it was.
Somewhere above the fog-soaked rooftops of New Elysium, the great iron clock tower groaned, its gears slipping, its hands trembling like a wounded creature. Midnight or dawn—no one could tell anymore. The smog blurred everything into a gray smear, and the gas lamps flickered like they were afraid of the dark.
Elias Thorne woke to the sound of ticking.
At first, he thought it was his alarm clock.
Then he remembered: he didn't own one.
His eyes snapped open.
A low ceiling of warped wooden boards hung over him, stained with years of damp fog and smoke. A cracked window let in the faint glow of a dying street lamp. The air smelled of rust, old clothes, and the sourness of spilled oil.
He didn't recognize any of it.
"What…?" His voice came out hoarse, like it belonged to someone else.
He pushed himself upright, and pain lanced through his ribs. His breath came in ragged gasps. His body felt wrong—not just sore, but unfamiliar, like he had been wearing someone else's skin.
He looked down at his hands.
Thin. Pale. Scarred. Dirt under the nails. A faint, gear-shaped burn mark on the left wrist.
These weren't his hands.
Memories surged—warm, bright, loud.
Fluorescent lights.
Computer monitors glowing blue.
Colleagues shouting.
The smell of burning circuits.
A rising hum—no, a scream—
White light swallowing everything.
The quantum accident.
His death.
The realization hit him slowly, like a tide dragging him backward.
He had died.
And now…
He was somewhere else.
Someone else.
Before panic could take over, he heard it again—the ticking. Slow. Measured. Precise.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
Not from the room.
From his pocket.
His pulse quickened as he reached into the tattered coat he didn't remember wearing. His fingers brushed something cold and metallic. He pulled it out slowly.
A pocket watch.
Bronze. Old. Engraved with tiny interlocking gears. The hands spun wildly—too fast, too slow, sometimes backward—fighting themselves like trapped animals.
And it was ticking in a rhythm that didn't match the spinning hands.
Elias swallowed.
"This isn't possible…"
His mind raced. Was it a hallucination? A side effect of the accident? A dream?
No.
This felt too real, too heavy, too lived-in. His breath puffed visibly in the cold air. His hands stung from the rough blanket he had been lying on. His head throbbed with someone else's leftover pain.
Someone had lived here.
Someone had suffered here.
Someone had died here.
And that someone had become him.
A creaking floorboard snapped him out of his trance.
He wasn't alone.
He turned slowly.
In the corner of the room, sitting on a broken stool, was a boy. Barely fifteen. Thin like starvation itself had sculpted him. His hair hung like damp straw, and his eyes were hollow—too old for a child, too tired for life.
He sat in silence, watching Elias with a steady, empty gaze.
"You're awake," the boy whispered.
Elias tried to respond, but his throat tightened. He didn't know what to say. Didn't know where he was. Didn't know who this boy was supposed to be.
The boy spoke again, voice quiet. "You were shaking. Like you were dying in your sleep."
Maybe I was, Elias thought.
"What's your name?" Elias managed.
The boy blinked at him, confused. "You… forgot?"
Elias hesitated. "…Yes."
The boy looked down at his hands. "Elias. You're Elias. We've been living together here, in the slums. We… share food. Sometimes."
Elias tried to recall any memory belonging to the original Elias. None came.
"I'm Timmy," the boy added softly.
Timmy.
The name sat heavy.
The ticking grew louder.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
Elias looked at the watch again.
"Where did this come from?" he asked.
Timmy's expression changed for the first time—fear flickered across his face.
"You got that three days ago… from the machine."
Elias stiffened. "What machine?"
Timmy pointed at the far corner of the room.
Elias followed the line of his finger until he saw it—half-buried in shadows, covered with a torn cloth.
Something tall. Metallic. Humanoid. But twisted.
A machine body.
Wires hung like ripped veins. Its head was a cracked glass dome filled with foggy mist. Its arms were long, jointed, and ended in claw-like manipulators. Rust bloomed across its plating like a disease.
And even though the machine was dead, even though it didn't move, even though its core had been shattered…
Elias felt like it was watching him.
"What happened?" Elias whispered.
Timmy hugged his thin arms around himself.
"You don't remember. It grabbed you… and then the mist came."
"Mist?"
"Yes. Gray mist. Cold. Like the air died."
Elias stared at the machine, a chill running through him.
Gray mist.
Later… far later… he would learn its true name: Ashen Mist.
But now it was only a whisper in the dark.
Timmy continued, voice trembling. "I thought you were dead. The machine squeezed you. And then your eyes… your eyes turned silver."
Silver eyes.
Elias touched his face unconsciously.
"When the mist disappeared," Timmy said, "the watch was in your hand. And the machine was dead."
Elias felt a pull—an instinct, or maybe the residue of another soul's experience—toward the watch. He lifted it again, and the ticking grew louder, as if reacting to his thoughts.
As if alive.
A knock shattered the quiet.
Three slow, heavy raps.
Timmy froze.
"They found us," he whispered.
Elias's pulse spiked. "Who?"
"The Agency." Timmy's voice cracked. "They don't allow machines like this. They'll think we're hiding it. Or stealing. Or… doing forbidden things."
Elias didn't know this world, but the fear in Timmy's eyes was real.
Another knock.
Then a voice:
"Open the door, Elias. We know you're inside."
Elias's breath hitched.
And the watch in his hand—
Stopped ticking.
Just like that.
Silence.
Then—
Tick.
But this time slower.
Much slower.
Like the world itself held its breath.
The door handle rattled.
Elias stumbled to his feet, heart pounding. His vision blurred—then sharpened unusually fast. The room around him seemed to stretch, details becoming clearer, brighter, more defined.
He heard everything.
The scraping boots outside.
Timmy's frantic breathing.
The distant rumble of trains.
The faint hiss of steam pipes beneath the floor.
His own heartbeat—echoing like a drum.
Time wasn't moving normally.
"What's happening…" Elias muttered.
He blinked, and the world snapped back. But the clarity lingered at the edge of perception, like an unlocked ability waiting to be used.
This wasn't natural.
This was the beginning.
The door burst open.
A tall man in a brown coat stepped inside, lantern raised. Two more figures followed, silhouettes framed by fog and lamplight from the alley outside.
The leader's eyes landed on Elias immediately.
"Harlan," Timmy whispered.
Elias recognized the name—part of the blueprint memories inside the boy's body.
Agency officer.
Slums enforcer.
Suspected cultist.
Harlan gave a thin smile. "I heard you cheated death again, Elias. Let's see what gift the fog left you this time."
His gaze shifted to the machine in the corner.
His smile widened.
"Ah. So that's what happened."
Elias felt the ticking rise again in his mind. Not from the watch—this time inside his skull, a rhythmic pulse urging him to move, to react, to survive.
Harlan stepped closer.
"We'll take the machine. And you." His tone was cold. "If you cooperate, we won't harm the boy."
Elias stood still, but inside, something twisted—something ancient and unfamiliar—like a clockwork instinct waking up.
A faint shimmer brushed the edge of his vision. The air seemed to thicken. The lantern light bent subtly, warping around Harlan for a heartbeat.
The world slowed.
Not completely—just enough.
Harlan's hand reached for him, fingers stretching toward Elias's collar.
Slow.
Too slow.
Elias stepped back instinctively, movements sharper than they should have been.
Harlan's eyes widened slightly.
"You… moved fast."
Elias didn't answer. He didn't understand it himself.
He only knew one thing:
The watch in his hand—
Was ticking again.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
Faster now.
Harlan's grip tightened. "What did the Machine Knight show you? What did the Mist whisper to you, boy?"
Elias clenched his jaw. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Lies." Harlan raised his lantern. "I can see the change in your eyes."
Elias took another step back. His heel hit the edge of the broken floorboard. Timmy crouched behind him, trembling.
He had no weapons.
No experience.
No idea how this world worked.
But inside his chest, something thrummed—something metallic, something synchronized. A gear turning for the first time.
Harlan reached again.
The lantern light flickered—
And for a moment, Elias saw gray.
Not fog.
Not smoke.
Something impossibly still and cold.
A whisper brushed his ear.
"Move."
Elias ducked.
Harlan's hand sliced through empty air.
Elias's senses snapped into clarity again—time stretching, sound sharpening, edges sharpening. He grabbed Timmy by the arm, pulling him toward the window.
"Run," he hissed.
Timmy didn't hesitate.
They stumbled toward the window as Harlan shouted, "Stop them!"
But Elias didn't stop.
He threw his arm over his eyes and crashed through the glass.
Cold fog swallowed them.
The street below greeted them with the harsh smell of steam, smoke, and rain-slick cobblestone. They landed hard, rolling. Elias's ribs screamed, but he forced himself upright.
Timmy gasped, pointing. "Elias—your watch—"
The watch snapped open in Elias's hand on its own.
And inside, instead of gears—
A swirl of gray, shimmering like ash.
Alive.
Waiting.
The whisper returned, gentle and cold:
"Welcome back."
Elias froze.
He didn't know the words.
He didn't know the voice.
He didn't know the entity behind it.
But he knew with absolute certainty:
This was only the beginning.
He slipped the watch into his coat and pulled Timmy into the alley's deeper shadows.
Behind them, Harlan's voice thundered:
"Find them. The Mist has chosen again."
Elias clenched his fists.
The slums stretched before him—narrow alleys, rusted pipes, flickering lamps, haunted whispers drifting through the fog.
He didn't know this world.
But it knew him.
And the ticking in his chest—
Still hadn't stopped.
The clock had begun.