---
The chimes had long since stopped, but Kairen still felt the thirteenth bell echo in his bones.
The Watchmaker's letter burned faintly in his coat pocket.
Safaa walked beside him, her silver hair catching the dim candlelight of the underground corridor. Neither spoke. Words felt fragile down here.
They had followed the sigils of lost time through the Clockmaker's Library, through forgotten doors and mirrors that showed possible lives. Now, they stood before a rusted hatch carved with an impossible inscription:
"Between tick and tock, He waits."
Kairen placed the rusted watch against the hatch.
It clicked once.
Then the hatch opened... sideways — folding time like paper.
Inside, there was no room.
Only silence. Floating furniture. Books suspended mid-fall. A shattered hourglass whose sand paused mid-air, defying gravity.
A man sat at a desk.
Or what used to be a man.
His face was stitched with clock hands, his eyes ticking in opposite directions. His voice, when it came, echoed before his lips moved.
"You have found the Room Between Seconds."
Safaa tensed.
Kairen kept calm. He felt it — this room was beyond fate, outside cause and effect.
The stitched man stood.
"You have touched forbidden gears, Kairen Azeil. Your memories were taken for a reason."
He raised a hand — and the moment froze.
Safaa's breath stopped.
Even the suspended dust paused mid-air.
Only Kairen could move.
He looked down — the rusted pocket watch in his hand was glowing. Its hands spun wildly, faster than thought.
Then came the voice. Not from the stitched man.
From within Kairen.
"Unlock the hour you fear most."
Kairen's mind fractured.
Visions flashed.
A child covered in blood.
A sigil branded onto his back.
A city burning beneath a thirteen-eyed god.
And him — standing before it, unblinking.
He gasped, falling to his knees.
"You're not here to fix time..." the stitched man whispered.
"You're here to replace it."
Then everything collapsed into blackness.
---
When Kairen woke, he was outside.
The hatch was gone.
Safaa lay beside him, unconscious but breathing.
But something had changed.
The sky above ticked.
Not stars… gears.
And on his arm — a new mark.
A golden sigil burned faintly into his skin:
"XIII — The Hour That Remembers."
He looked at Safaa.
Her eyes opened slowly. She whispered one word:
"Kairen… what are you becoming?"
---
[End of Volume 1]