There were twelve mirrors in the room.
None of them were whole.
Shattered edges curled inward like peeling paint, each one still flickering with motion—as if the glass wasn't reflecting, but remembering.
Mara and I stood in the center, staring into fractured versions of Gravesend.
Each mirror showed a different time.
A different me.
---
In one, the town was flooded up to the rooftops, and a figure with my face stood on the clocktower's spire, shouting at the sky as boats filled with stitched-mouthed people floated past.
In another, the sky bled constantly—red, thick, eternal—and I sat at the café table, sipping coffee as if nothing were wrong.
One mirror showed me without a face, just a blank stretch of skin.
And another showed nothing at all, until my reflection slowly leaned in from the corner of the glass…
Smiling.
---
> "What… are these?" I whispered.
Mara turned, her voice low, heavy.
> "These aren't timelines."
> "They're failures."
> "Every time someone tries to fix the skipped minute… this is what it leaves behind."
---
She pointed at one mirror—cracked through the center, flickering with sparks of static.
In it, Gravesend was frozen.
People mid-step, mid-sentence.
And me, standing in the square.
Eyes glowing.
Holding a shattered watch in one hand.
---
> "That one?" she said. "I remember that one. You burned time itself. Fried every second to keep the town locked."
> "But it didn't hold."
> "The stitched ones just… waited."
---
A low sound vibrated through the mirror room.
A voice—my voice—but layered.
Dozens of me, speaking at once.
> "We tried. We tried. We tried."
> "But we were all late."
> "Late by one second."
---
I stepped closer to the center mirror—the only one not broken.
Its frame was black iron.
Cold.
Dustless.
Untouched.
My reflection stood inside it, looking back at me with clear eyes.
No stitching.
No glow.
No madness.
Just… me.
Wearing the same clothes. Holding the same watch.
But smiling like he knew something I didn't.
And then—he raised his hand and pressed it against the glass.
So did I.
Our palms met.
---
And he spoke.
But not out loud.
Inside my skull.
> "You still have time."
> "But only if you steal it."
---
The mirror flashed white.
For half a second, I wasn't looking at myself anymore.
I was looking through his eyes.
I saw Mara, but not my Mara.
Her hair was gray.
Her arm was missing.
She was speaking—but I couldn't hear her.
She handed him something—a small metal cube.
Then—boom.
Smoke.
Fire.
A scream.
And the vision shattered.
---
I stumbled backward.
Breathing hard.
Mara caught me.
"What did you see?"
"I… I think he's me."
"A version of you?"
I shook my head.
> "No. Not a version."
> "A message."
---
From the far end of the room, a sound began to rise.
Wet footsteps.
Dragging chains.
We turned—one of the broken mirrors had darkened.
The town inside it was gone.
And something else stood in its place.
A tall figure, faceless, wrapped in strips of time. Literal rolls of numbers, dates, seconds—sliding down its form like bandages.
Its chest pulsed with a clock.
The hands were made of teeth.
And it was walking through the mirror.
---
"RUN!" Mara screamed.
But there was nowhere to go.
The door behind us had vanished.
The only thing left was the center mirror—the one that hadn't broken.
The one that showed me.
---
Without thinking, I grabbed Mara's hand.
> "We jump."
> "Into yourself?!"
> "Into what hasn't failed yet."
---
I dove into the glass.
It didn't shatter.
It opened.
---
For a second, I felt everything—
The skipped minutes.
The stitched ones.
The time-looped deaths.
The bell that never stopped ringing in the versions that didn't make it.
Then—
Silence.
And light.
---
We landed hard on wooden floorboards.
I gasped, coughing.
We were back in the clocktower, but… cleaner.
Brighter.
No blood.
No rot.
The walls were whole.
---
Mara stood beside me, stunned.
"Where are we?"
I looked around. The air was different. Crisp. Stable.
I raised the watch in my hand.
It read:
> October 31st
11:51 PM
Ten years ago.
---
It clicked.
We hadn't just moved through space.
We'd moved through time.
The mirror hadn't shown me a version.
It showed me a point.
A second where things hadn't broken yet.
A second where the tower still stood—where the anchor hadn't been corrupted.
A final chance.
---
I turned to Mara.
She stared at the walls, recognition flooding her face.
"This is… the night my brother disappeared."
---
We heard a voice from below.
A young man.
Yelling up the staircase.
"Mara! I got it working! Come see!"
---
Her breath caught.
"Caleb."
---
We looked at each other, and I understood what we had to do.
We weren't here to fix the present.
We were here to stop the first break.
The first skip.
The first minute that never happened.
---
Because the only way to stop Gravesend from skipping again…
was to erase the moment it learned how.