I wake up in a flash, a silent scream trapped in my throat, trying to get some semblance of control over my breathing. My heart is a frantic drum against my ribs, a frantic, panicked rhythm left over from the fading terror of the dream. What in the actual hell was that? The images are already dissolving, leaving behind only a residue of profound loss and a name whispered on the wind—a name that isn't mine. Gisèle.
I close my eyes, forcing myself to be present, to take a feel of the surrounding. This is real. This is now. The rough, cool texture of granite against my back. A familiar, comforting weight on my right shoulder—Aihan, his head slumped against me. The dry, gritty texture of the dirt beneath my left hand. The distant, melodic chirp of birds greeting the dawn as the morning sun begins to warm the land, its light painting the inside of my eyelids a soft orange.
As I continue to take inventory with my sharpened, panic-cleared senses, I finally feel the weight of dread lift from my chest. It's replaced by the more mundane, yet equally pressing, weight of our situation. Finally, I take a deep, shuddering breath and exhale, opening my eyes to the stark reality of our cliffside perch. I look to my right and feel the fine strands of Aihan's hair tickling my nose; he's still dead asleep, his face peaceful in a way that feels like a personal insult to our circumstances. Too bad for him. We have to figure this mess out today, and beauty sleep is a luxury we ran out of about twenty-four hours ago.
I bring my hand up to my face and blow air on it, immediately cringing at the foul, stale smell of my own breath. Gods, what I wouldn't give to be in my own bedroom right now, to feel the plush carpet under my feet, to stumble into my bathroom and brush my teeth with my lovely, burning-cold mint toothpaste. The memory is so vivid it's physically painful.
As I absorb that thought, my stomach gives a loud, plaintive growl of agreement. Of course it would. Aihan and I haven't eaten anything substantial since yesterday's meager breakfast of shared trail mix, aside from a handful of bitter, questionable berries last night that Aihan, against all odds, actually did manage to forage without poisoning us. My sigh is a heavy thing, laden with exhaustion and a deep-seated irritation at the sheer absurdity of it all. I close my eyes again, leaning my head back against the unyielding rock as I stare at the vast, uncaring sky. This whole thing is so utterly ridiculous.
Before I can wallow in my self-pity any further, a new sound cuts through the morning calm. A sharp, metallic ticking. It's almost… aggressive? Annoyed. I'd forgotten about it in the wake of the dream. My head snaps to the left, and there it is: the clock. It's thrashing against the dirt where we'd left it, its brass casing catching the sun as it vibrates with an angry, frantic energy.
My eyes widen. "Aihan! Aihan!" I hiss, turning and shaking his shoulder with considerably less gentleness than before. "Wake up, god damn it! That dumb clock is acting up again!"
Aihan groans, a low, rumbling sound of protest, and stretches his arms above his head with a wince. His eyes flutter open, blurry with sleep, but when my words finally penetrate his foggy consciousness, he snaps to alertness. His gaze locks onto the shuddering timepiece, and immediate irritation flashes across his features. He exclaims, lunging forward to grab the clock from its spot on my left, "I swear, this thing has it out for us! Can't it give it a rest for five minutes?"
As soon as his fingers close around the brass and his words leave his mouth, the world tilts. The ground beneath us gives a violent, sickening lurch, shuddering as if in response to his outburst. Small pebbles skitter over the edge of our ledge, disappearing into the misty abyss below.
My eyes widen in a fresh wave of panic, and I stare at him, my grip on the rock face turning white-knuckled. "What did you do?!"
He looks at me as if I've grown an extra head, his own face pale with surprise. "I did nothing! Just did the usual—which was cursing this damn thing out! It's not my fault it's a sensitive little—"
The shaking intensifies, cutting him off. And then, cutting through the low rumble of the earth, a new voice. It's not heard with our ears, not really. It's a vibration that forms words directly inside our skulls, dry and dripping with sarcasm. "Hey, so, I don't appreciate being in that dirt all night and then being suddenly grabbed out of nowhere. It's undignified."
My head jerks to my left so fast my neck cracks. I look at Aihan, and his face reflects back the same stunned, disbelieving horror. That did not just happen.
I exhale, a sharp burst of air fueled by irritation and a rising, manic fear. "Aihan. Was that you just now? Some stupid ventriloquist bit?"
He shakes his head vehemently, his eyes wide. "No! I was just about to ask if that was you…? That wasn't funny!"
As we continue to endure the increasingly violent shaking of the ground, the pieces of this impossible situation slowly click together in my mind. The dreams. The feelings of déjà vu. The clock's strange, persistent interference since we found it in that dusty antique shop. My gaze falls to the object still clutched in Aihan's hand. "Aihan," I say, my voice surprisingly steady. "Can you pass me the clock?"
He looks at it like it's a live serpent but quickly shoves it into my waiting hand, almost relieved to be free of it. He stares at it with a kind of terrified fascination, probably thinking the exact same thing I am.
I stare at the ornate, now-quiet clock in my palm. It feels warm. I hold it up in front of my face, my voice a low, challenging whisper. "So. Was that you messing around in our heads just now?"
Silence. For a long, agonizing minute, there is nothing but the sound of the shaking earth and our own ragged breathing. Aihan and I share a look that speaks volumes: we've finally cracked. The stress, the hunger, the exhaustion—it's sent us both over the edge into shared psychosis. Just as I'm about to hand it back, to suggest we just throw the damn thing over the cliff and be done with it, the voice returns. It's louder now, clearer, and brimming with impatience.
"Yes, you dimwits! Took y'all a while. The synaptic functions are a bit rusty, I see. Anyway, let me not waste any more of my precious ticks and finally get things moving!"
In our shared shock, we are rendered speechless. And right before we can form a coherent thought, let alone a response, the ground beneath our feet simply… vanishes. Not in a collapse, but in a silent, seamless opening. A perfect circle of blinding, swirling white light erupts where solid rock had been a second before.
Aihan and I look at each other, our hands instinctively reaching out and locking together in a bone-crushing grip. Our expressions are perfect mirrors of absolute, utter disbelief. Only one thought runs rampant, screaming through the silence in our minds: *what the actual fuck?!*
The clock's voice is smug in our heads. "Okay, you fools, brace yourselves. And for the LOVE of god—don't drop me here or else none of us will ever be able to leave. I'm not keen on spending eternity in the interstitial vomit between worlds."
My eyebrows shoot up. A strange, cold calm settles over me. "What do you mean, 'leave'? Leave where? What is this?"
Aihan, however, is having none of it. He panic-talks, his voice rising in pitch as we begin to fall into the glowing abyss, a slow, terrifying descent that defies physics. "You have been a pain in the ass since the beginning of this whole ordeal! The LEAST you can do is tell us what you are bull-crapping about! What are you?!"
You could practically hear the clock smirk. "Well, for one, both of you are idiots for coming close to me and grabbing me in that shop in the first place. Did you really think a working orrery-phase chronometer just shows up in a bin of scrap metal? But oh well, wouldn't have stopped me either way. I'd have found you. Secondly, you guys need to realize some things and make the move to fix them. If you catch my drift." The psychic equivalent of a wink followed. It was infuriating.
Before we can get another word in, the last of the solid ground vanishes and true weightlessness takes hold. We are falling. Not down, but through. The world is a streak of impossible light and color. Both of us scream, a raw, unison sound of pure terror. Aihan's left hand vises around mine, while his right, in a testament to either bravery or sheer stubbornness, holds the clock in a death grip.
The clock practically cackles in our minds, its casing blinking with a soft, pulsing light that matches its laughter. "Oh my god, you guys are much more wimpy than before. The vocal cords on you two. Truly spectacular."
At that, we both snap our heads towards the damned thing. Aihan finds his voice first, shouting over the roar of the non-existent wind. "What do you mean, 'than before'? We don't recall ever meeting a talking clock before this trip! This is a new brand of insanity for us, thanks!"
My mind, scrambling for purchase in this freefall through madness, latches onto his words. *Than before.* It throws me back to that dream, the one that felt more real than this falling sensation. An abandoned courtyard, stone overtaken by creeping ivy and strange, silver-blue flowers. Two figures, their backs to me, their laughter echoing. A sense of deep, abiding friendship. And a name. Fintan. My brain supplies oh-so-helpfully.
"Well," the clock's voice is singsong, taunting. "Your friend here seems to know a thing or two. Don't you, *Fintan*?"
The name hits me like a physical blow. Aihan turns to look at me, his expression a hurricane of confusion, fear, and a dawning, desperate question.
I meet his eyes, and the last of my resistance crumbles. There's no point in hiding it now. Not while we're falling through a glowing hole in reality, escorted by a megalomaniacal timepiece. I sigh, the sound lost to the void, feeling utterly drained. "I have been having weird dreams," I confess, my voice low but clear. "And hearing random things—whispers, mostly. A name. Gisèle. I brushed it off as my mind being crazy due to the stress, so I didn't bother mentioning everything last night during our discussion. It sounded insane."
He stares at my face for a long moment, his grip on my hand tightening. Then, to my surprise, he sighs. It's not a sound of anger, but of… immense relief. "I knew something was up with you," he says, his voice quieter now. "But to be honest, I wasn't being a hundred percent honest either. I've been having sleepless nights for weeks. Dreams… many dreams. And most of the time, they don't feel like dreams at all. They feel like… memories. Or memories of memories. Like I'm watching a play where I know all the lines but forgot the plot." He shudders. "I see a garden. And I hear a name. Belle."
The admission hangs between us, a shared secret in the chaos. I hum, not in surprise but in profound understanding. I'd unconsciously known Aihan was holding back last night, his answers too glib, his demeanor too carefully casual. As we continue to hold onto each other's hands tightly—anchors in this impossible storm—a new resolve hardens within me. I turn my attention back to the clock.
"Okay," I say, my voice firmer now. "Enough cryptic nonsense. You clearly know who we are—or who you think we are. Tell me, where is the landing point of this fall? What is our destination?"
It speaks in our heads again, the creepiness of it now just a background nuisance. "Oh, there's no *landing* point. Not in the way you mean. This isn't a elevator, it's a corridor. A correction. But give me a second here… almost there… the alignment is always so tricky…"
As it trails off, muttering to itself about temporal coordinates and soul-frequencies, the light around us begins to change. The chaotic streaks of color coalesce, solidify. The point below us—or ahead of us, direction has lost all meaning—is getting brighter, taking on a specific shape, resolving into the image of a vast, sun-drenched landscape of impossible architecture and glowing spires. It's rushing towards us, or we are rushing towards it. The brightness is overwhelming, searing, making my head spin and my stomach lurch with a new, more profound vertigo.
Aihan grips my hand even tighter. "I think I'm gonna be sick," he moans.
"Don't you dare," I snap, though I feel exactly the same.
Just as the light threatens to consume us entirely, the clock's voice returns, but it's different now. The sarcasm is gone, replaced by a strange, ancient solemnity. It echoes in our minds, a final pronouncement as we cross the threshold:
"Belle and Gisèle, Fintan and Aihan—one soul yet two minds, two pairs across the rift of ages. You will soon know your purpose, the duty that was entrusted and forgotten, something that was set in motion since the very beginning of your soul's existence. Now, wake up."
I hear Aihan draw a sharp breath, about to answer, to protest, to demand more, but it's too late. The world dissolves into pure, blinding white, and then into absolute, silent black. Our vision winks out completely. The last thing I'm aware of is the desperate pressure of Aihan's hand in mine, and the warm, steady glow of the clock nestled between us.
And there we fall, together, into an abyss that promises not an end, but a beginning—one that may just shatter and remake our whole understanding of existence itself.