I always believed time was neutral.
Cold. Mechanical. Honest.
But that belief shattered the moment I stood face-to-face with myself—or at least, something that wore my face like a borrowed mask.
It stood in the doorway in that threadbare gray robe, head tilted slightly, eyes like shattered hourglasses, pupils that didn't reflect light…
only devour it.
Behind it, more followed.
A dozen figures—men, women, children. All silent. All wrong.
Each face twisted into a familiar shape.
Not strangers.
Townspeople.
I'd seen them in the café.
At the library.
Walking their dogs.
But here, in this skipped second, they had no mouths.
Only rough stitching where lips once were.
And yet, they whispered without sound.
> "You wound your watch, but you did not wind your place."
> "You broke the pact."
> "You brought a minute that should not breathe."
---
I stepped back, my breath caught somewhere in my throat.
The air had grown dense, as though the second itself pressed inward.
My lungs moved, but nothing filled them.
I raised the pocket watch instinctively.
It ticked once—then stopped.
The thing wearing my face reached out, fingers unnaturally long, dragging shadows behind them.
I stumbled back toward the window.
The streets were gone.
The world beyond the glass was no longer Gravesend.
It was... folded.
Like someone had taken the town and turned it inside out.
The buildings floated, unanchored.
The sky blinked—literally blinked—like an eye trying to stay shut.
---
And hanging in the center of that broken world…
Was the clocktower.
But not as it was.
It had teeth now.
And every gear turned with a scream.
---
The stitched-mouth Riley stepped forward.
He didn't walk. He floated, toes skimming the warped wood floor.
He placed his hand on the wall—and it began to bleed seconds.
They spilled out like sand, pouring down in reverse, curling in the air before vanishing.
> "You were not chosen," the voices said again.
"But now you've seen."
> "And time has a cost."
---
I turned and ran.
The hallway bent and twisted beneath me like film melting on a reel. The paintings on the wall showed faces I didn't recognize—until they blinked and matched my own.
I slammed through the back door.
Outside, the sky rippled like a black lake.
Lanterns floated midair, dripping blue fire onto nothing.
The trees swayed without wind.
And at the center of the backyard, where the pumpkins had once sat…
There was a door.
Not part of the house.
Just standing there.
Old.
Rotting.
Locked by twelve clock hands jammed into its center.
---
The stitched ones were close behind now.
Their footsteps weren't loud.
They echoed wrong—as if each step happened before it landed.
I reached the door and touched the cold, brass handle.
It burned.
But I held on.
The watch in my hand ticked once more.
A single tick—but forward.
Time wanted me out.
But this minute—the forbidden one—wanted me in.
---
"Let me go," I said aloud, unsure who I was speaking to.
A voice answered from the ground beneath me.
> "You never left."
---
Suddenly, someone grabbed my wrist.
A real hand.
Warm.
Human.
I looked up—and saw a woman.
Not stitched. Not gray-robed.
Alive.
She pulled me back, shoving me toward the house.
"Move. Before they anchor you."
I stumbled after her, the stitched ones pausing briefly at the doorway like moths denied flame.
We slammed the door shut.
She turned to me, breathing hard.
Short-cropped hair. Oil-stained hands. A welding jacket.
Eyes that had seen this too many times.
---
"You're not supposed to be awake," she hissed.
"Didn't you feel the pulse? That minute wasn't yours."
I stared.
"What… what was that?"
She didn't answer immediately.
Instead, she took my watch from my hands, studied it, then handed it back with a grim nod.
"Manual. Brass. Quartz-adjusted. Antique. That's why you saw it."
"Saw what?"
She looked at me.
Really looked at me.
> "The minute we buried."
---
We sat at the kitchen table.
Time resumed.
Outside, the world looked normal again.
But I knew better.
Some part of me was still caught in that missing second.
And so was she.
Her name was Mara.
A mechanic. Born in Gravesend.
The last survivor of the last generation who tried to fight the "skip."
---
"Long ago," she explained, "this town had a problem. Every Halloween, something opened. People vanished. Time fractured. No one remembered."
"Until my brother. He was like you. Could see through time's lie. He built a device—an anchor. It forced Gravesend's time to stay whole."
She reached into her coat and pulled out a cracked brass dial.
"He succeeded. For one minute."
"And then he disappeared."
---
"That was the first time the town skipped."
---
I stared at her.
The stitched versions of the townspeople. The bone clock. The names on the wall. The one labeled Outsider.
"Wait… that's me, isn't it?"
She nodded.
"You stepped into the minute they sealed off. And now it sees you."
---
I stood slowly.
"What happens next?"
She looked toward the window.
Then at the watch.
Then at me.
> "Now you have to survive it."
> "Because at the next skip... they come to collect."