The smell of burnt rubber and metallic blood. That was the last thing I remember before the world went black.
I was lying on the cold asphalt of 4th Avenue. My vision was a blurred mess of rain and neon lights. I could see the silhouette of the black sedan that had just crushed my ribs, speeding away into the midnight fog. I tried to scream, but only a gurgle of blood escaped my throat.
So, this is it, I thought. Twenty-two years of nothingness, ending in a gutter.
My heart gave one final, agonizing thud... and then, silence.
[Heart Rate: 0 BPM]
[Status: Deceased]
I expected darkness. I expected a tunnel of light. Instead, a searing white pain exploded behind my eyelids. A mechanical, cold voice echoed inside my skull, vibrating through my very soul.
[Initialization Complete.]
[Welcome to the Chronos Economy, Borrower #9928.]
[A debt has been recorded. Life has been granted on credit.]
My eyes snapped open. I gasped, a violent, lung-bursting breath that felt like inhaling shards of glass. I wasn't on the street anymore. I was standing in a narrow alleyway, my clothes still soaked in blood and rain, but the wounds... the shattered ribs, the punctured lung... they were gone.
Only a faint, glowing light remained.
I looked down at my left wrist. My skin felt like it was burning. Underneath the flesh, glowing with an eerie, ethereal blue light, was a digital countdown.
[00:59:57]
[00:59:56]
[00:59:55]
"Fifty-nine minutes?" I whispered, my voice trembling. "What is this?"
"It's your leash," a voice hissed from the shadows.
I spun around, my heart hammering against my ribs. At the end of the alley, a man emerged. He looked like a drifter—ragged clothes, greasy hair—but his eyes were wide and bloodshot, filled with a terrifying hunger. He wasn't looking at my face. He was staring at my wrist.
"A Freshie," the man muttered, licking his cracked lips. "You just woke up, didn't you? You've got a whole hour. Do you have any idea how much a 'Full Hour' is worth on the street right now?"
"Stay back," I warned, stepping away. My mind was racing. The timer on my wrist was still ticking down. Every second that passed felt like a drop of my soul leaking out.
[00:59:40]
"Don't be greedy, kid," the man said, pulling a jagged rusty knife from his pocket. "The Bank gave you that hour on credit. You're a Borrower now. And in this shithole, if you can't pay the interest, someone else will collect it for you."
He lunged.
I wasn't a fighter. I was a college dropout who worked two retail jobs. But as the knife swung toward my throat, something strange happened. The world... slowed down.
The rain droplets hanging in the air seemed to freeze like glass beads. I could see the individual veins in the man's crazed eyes.
[Warning: Perception Acceleration activated.]
[Cost: 10 Seconds per second.]
My wrist burned hotter. The timer started blurring: [00:59:30... 00:59:20... 00:59:10].
I moved. It felt like stepping through thick syrup, but I was faster than him. I dodged the blade, the metal whistling past my ear, and shoved the man with everything I had.
He hit the brick wall with a sickening thud. The "Slow-Mo" snapped back to reality.
I stood there, gasping, staring at my wrist. I had just lost two minutes in the blink of an eye.
"You... you've already unlocked a Skill?" The man wheezed, coughing up blood. He looked terrified now. "No... that's impossible. Freshies don't have enough Capacity..."
"What is this?" I screamed, grabbing him by the collar. "What is this timer? How do I stop it?"
The man started laughing, a manic, desperate sound. "Stop it? You don't stop it, Kael. You feed it. Look at me!"
He held up his own wrist. His timer was flashing red.
[00:00:12]
[00:00:11]
"I'm out of time," he whispered, his eyes filling with tears. "But if I kill you... I get yours. That's the only rule. The 13th Hour is coming, and the Collectors don't like to wait."
He tried to stab me again, but he was weak. I grabbed his wrist, twisting it until the knife clattered to the ground. We scrambled on the floor, clawing at each other. It was pathetic. It was primal. It was survival.
I found the knife. My hands were shaking. I didn't want to do this. I wasn't a murderer.
But then I looked at my wrist.
[00:45:12]
The Fear—the absolute, crushing terror of the void I had just come back from—took over. I drove the knife into his chest.
The man stiffened. He didn't scream. He just looked at me with a strange sense of relief.
"Welcome... to the game..." he wheezed.
As his eyes went dull, a surge of golden light flowed from his wrist into mine. It felt like a shot of pure adrenaline hitting my bloodstream.
[Target Neutralized.]
[Harvesting Time: +00:00:08 seconds.]
[Total Time Remaining: 00:45:15]
"Eight seconds?" I gasped, falling back against the wall. "I killed a man... for eight seconds?"
"He was a bottom-feeder. A scavenger."
A new voice. Cold, feminine, and dangerous.
I looked up. Sitting on the fire escape three stories above was a girl in a dark leather jacket, her silver hair shimmering under the neon signs. She was tossing a small, glowing coin in her hand. Her eyes were fixed on me—not with pity, but with curiosity.
"You used Perception Acceleration for three seconds and wasted two minutes of your life," she said, jumping down and landing silently on the pavement. She didn't have a timer on her wrist. Instead, she had a black band covering it.
"Who are you?" I asked, gripping the bloody knife.
"Someone who knows how to make that hour last a lifetime," she replied, stepping into the light. Her eyes were a piercing violet. "My name is Elara. And if you want to see tomorrow's sunrise, you're going to have to do exactly what I say."
I looked at my wrist.
[00:44:50]
The ticking wouldn't stop. The world was no longer the one I knew. This was a world of predators, and I had just tasted blood.
"Fine," I said, my voice cold. "What's the first lesson?"
Elara smirked, revealing a sharp, dangerous edge. "Lesson one: In this city, never trust a girl who helps you for free."
Far off in the distance, a heavy, tolling bell rang out. Not from a church, but from the sky itself. It was the sound of the 13th Hour.
The Hunt had begun.