Gravesend was no longer pretending.
The sky was too still.
The wind too quiet.
And the clocks? They were breathing.
---
It started the morning after we installed the anchor.
Mara and I sat in the front room, watching the world through the blinds. The street was empty. Not just quiet—empty. No footsteps. No kids on bikes. No mail truck.
It felt like the entire town had inhaled and was holding its breath.
And then, at 9:06 AM exactly, the clocktower chimed.
Once.
Low and dull. Like a warning.
---
"You hear that?" I asked.
Mara didn't answer at first. Her hand was shaking as she set down her mug.
> "The tower hasn't chimed in twelve years."
> "Not since the first skip."
---
We ran outside.
It was colder than it should've been.
The sun was up, but the shadows were longer than logic allowed.
When we reached the square, people had started gathering—slowly, nervously, like they were waking from anesthesia.
The preacher.
Ellis the librarian.
The mayor, arms crossed, eyes twitching with unspoken thoughts.
They all stood at the base of the clocktower.
Looking up.
Waiting.
---
"Something's wrong," Ellis muttered as we approached. "It's... humming again."
He turned to me, pale as paper.
> "What did you do last night?"
I answered truthfully: "We anchored time."
He looked at the tower like it was a corpse learning to breathe again.
> "Then why is it speaking?"
---
I heard it next.
A whisper—not outside, but inside me. Like an echo between the ribs.
My name.
Not spoken.
Counted.
> "Riley... one. Riley... two. Riley... three..."
---
"Do you hear that?" I asked Mara.
She nodded. "Not your name. But something. Like... instructions."
She gritted her teeth.
> "It's giving us commands."
---
Suddenly, someone screamed.
We turned.
A young man—one of the shop clerks—had dropped to his knees in the grass. His hands were clamped over his ears. His eyes rolled back.
"Stop it! Stop the ticking! Stop—!"
Then his voice froze.
Not like a stutter.
Like someone paused him mid-word.
He stayed that way—mouth open, hands shaking.
Looping.
Repeating the same four seconds. Over and over.
---
People backed away.
The mayor barked something, but her voice lagged. Literally delayed—words trailing seconds behind her lips.
And still, the clocktower hummed.
---
Mara grabbed my arm.
"We need to get to the tower."
---
Inside the clocktower, nothing was as it should have been.
The gears were still.
But the sound—that low, mechanical whisper—was alive.
Not spinning.
Breathing.
We climbed to the mechanism room.
The blue lantern that powered the time-skip chamber still flickered faintly in the core. But now it pulsed in patterns.
Morse code.
Mara scribbled the pattern in a notebook as it blinked:
> "THE MINUTE WOKE UP."
"THE HOUR IS HUNGRY."
"YOU ARE THE VOICE."
---
She looked at me.
> "It's not just leaking now. It's broadcasting."
The anchor hadn't sealed the skipped minute.
It had made it bleed.
---
Behind us, one of the side panels on the wall clicked open.
We hadn't even known it could do that.
Inside, an ancient reel-to-reel recording system.
Still warm.
Still turning.
The tape whispered endlessly:
> "They're already in you."
> "You wear their time now."
> "The stitched ones walk inside your heartbeat."
---
Mara turned to me, pale.
"You said the tower wasn't affected before. That it always skipped like the rest."
"Yeah."
She stepped back.
> "Then why is your watch ticking here now?"
I looked down.
And sure enough—it was.
Ticking steadily.
When before, it had always frozen inside the minute.
Now it worked.
Because the skipped minute wasn't just a place anymore.
It was here.
---
That night, more broke.
Ellis forgot his name—three times.
The mayor spoke in reverse.
Children started counting in unison without realizing it.
And every mirror in town fogged over from the inside.
---
At 3:33 AM, I woke up from a dream of gears pulling my teeth out.
Mara was already awake.
Staring at the wall.
Listening.
"The tower's calling you," she whispered.
I didn't deny it.
Because I heard it too.
A voice that spoke in ticks and breath and reversed lullabies.
Singing my name backward.
---
> "Yelir Drah W…"
> "Yelir Drah W…"
---
Riley Ward.
My name, chewed backward by time.
---
The next morning, we found something buried in the grass by the clocktower.
A pocket watch.
Just like mine.
But cracked.
And engraved on the back:
> "Riley Ward – Anchor #2"