Afternoons in Arivon City were always predictable.
By three o'clock, the sunlight softened, traffic settled into a steady rhythm, and the same familiar sounds filled the streets — distant horns, passing footsteps, and the faint ticking of the clock tower in the city square. Nothing felt rushed at that hour. The city moved calmly, almost mechanically, as if it followed a routine it had repeated for years.
Aarav stood at the bus stop, waiting without impatience but not entirely relaxed either.
He was of medium height, lean, with slightly slouched shoulders that hinted at long hours of quiet study and thought. His dark hair was a little unkempt, a few strands falling over his forehead whenever the breeze passed. He wore a simple, light-colored shirt with rolled sleeves and carried a worn backpack on one shoulder, the strap loosely held in his hand instead of properly adjusted.
There was nothing remarkable about how he looked.
Nothing that made him stand out in a crowd.
He seemed like any other student waiting for a bus after an ordinary day.
Yet his eyes were rarely still.
They moved from the road to the passing vehicles, from the pavement to the clock tower in the distance, and then briefly to his wristwatch — not out of urgency, but out of habit. He had the quiet tendency to notice small things, the kind most people ignored.
He shifted his weight slightly and glanced at his watch.
3:16 PM.
He exhaled softly and leaned back against the metal pole beside the stop. A child dragged his schoolbag across the pavement nearby. A vendor adjusted the same stack of fruit for the third time. A stray dog slept undisturbed in the shade of a bench.
Everything felt normal. Comfortably normal.
A light breeze passed through the street.
And then the ticking stopped.
It was so subtle that Aarav didn't react immediately. For a second, he thought he had simply stopped paying attention to the sound.
He looked down at his watch again.
The second hand was frozen.
Not slowing.
Not shaking.
Completely still.
3:17 PM.
His fingers instinctively touched the edge of the watch, as if physical contact would make it move again. His brows tightened slightly, and his gaze lingered longer than usual. The calm expression on his face shifted into faint confusion — quiet, controlled, but real.
He lifted his head and looked toward the clock tower in the square.
It had stopped too.
The hands were fixed in place.
For a brief moment, a man walking past him seemed to pause mid-step, then continued as if nothing had happened. A woman glanced at her phone and kept talking, her tone unchanged. A car remained still for a second longer than necessary before moving again.
No one reacted.
No one questioned anything.
The world did not panic.
It simply continued.
A bus suddenly arrived at the stop with its usual screech, breaking the stillness of the moment.
Aarav blinked.
He looked back at his watch.
3:22 PM.
His grip on the strap of his bag tightened slightly.
He looked up at the digital billboard across the road.
3:22 PM.
Then at the clock tower.
3:22 PM.
His breathing remained steady, but his thoughts grew heavier, slower, more focused.
Five minutes had passed.
Yet his memory ended at 3:17.
There were no sounds in between.
No movement.
No thoughts he could recall.
Just a blank space in time.
He scanned the surroundings carefully now. People boarded the bus normally. Conversations continued. The CCTV camera above the pole blinked red again, active and recording as usual, as if it had never stopped at all.
Too normal.
He stepped onto the bus, quieter than before, his attention no longer on the seat or the crowd but on the absence in his own memory.
The conductor mentioned the current time as 3:22 while issuing tickets, his voice casual and routine.
Aarav nodded slightly, saying nothing.
Because explaining what he had just experienced felt impossible even in his own mind.
He took a seat near the window and watched the city pass by, trying again and again to remember the missing minutes. Each time his thoughts reached 3:17, they simply stopped, like a sentence cut off halfway.
That evening, the city behaved as if nothing unusual had happened.
There were no alerts on the news.
No reports of system errors.
No mention of any disruption.
Just another ordinary day in Arivon City.
During dinner, Aarav remained unusually observant. His mother began telling a story about a neighbor visiting earlier in the week.
He listened quietly.
Then slowly looked up.
She had told this story yesterday.
The same words.
The same pauses.
Even the same gentle laugh at the exact same moment.
A faint chill passed through him.
He carefully asked if anything unusual had happened that afternoon, around 3:17.
She paused, slightly confused, and said nothing strange had happened at all. Her expression was calm and sincere, completely unaware of any gap in the day.
That sincerity unsettled him more than denial would have.
Later, while placing his plate in the sink, he glanced at the wall clock.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
Perfectly normal.
He stood there for a few seconds longer, listening to the sound, grounding himself in its steady rhythm.
If five minutes had truly vanished once, then it could happen again.
Back in his room, he sat on the edge of his bed, thinking instead of panicking. If something was happening at a specific time, then the only logical way to confirm it was to observe that exact moment again.
He opened his phone and set five alarms.
3:15 PM.
3:16 PM.
3:17 PM.
3:18 PM.
3:19 PM.
He checked them twice before placing the phone beside his pillow.
The room grew quiet as the night deepened.
As he lay down, his eyes remained on the faint glow of the screen.
For a fraction of a second, it flickered.
So briefly that he almost ignored it.
But in that instant, the lock screen displayed something that made him sit up immediately.
3:17 PM — TOMORROW DISABLED
Then it disappeared.
The normal screen returned.
His heartbeat grew louder in the silence as he unlocked the phone and opened the alarm app.
Empty.
Every alarm he had just set was gone.
Not turned off.
Not delayed.
Deleted without any trace.
Aarav stared at the screen, the last of his doubt fading into a quiet, cold certainty.
This was not a simple error.
This was not a coincidence.
Something in Arivon City was interfering with time itself.
And whatever it was, it did not want anyone to remember what happens at 3:17 PM.
Except him.