The hatch opened with a sigh—not a groan, not a creak—but the sound of something old exhaling after holding its breath for far too long.
Eveline stepped back as the dust rose, curling like smoke. Rowan lit a lantern, and together they peered into the dark below.
"It's not a cellar," Rowan murmured. "No." Eveline's voice was quiet. "It's a room no one was meant to return to."
A staircase led down—stone, narrow, and cold as forgotten winters.
Each step felt heavier than the last.
When they reached the bottom, the lantern caught the edges of something unexpected:wallpaper. Blue, peeling in waves. A chandelier hung from the ceiling, long dead. The room had once been beautiful. Carefully built. Intimate.
Like a secret meant for love.
And in the center, resting on a lone velvet chair, was a silver pocket watch—unmoving, yet ticking.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
"This … this was ours," Rowan breathed.
"I've seen it before," Eveline whispered, her hand reaching toward it, trembling. "In our dreams. On your chest. When you were leaving me."
Her fingers touched the watch.
And time split.
The walls around them shivered.
Not violently—just enough to feel like the past had inhaled.
Suddenly, she was no longer underground.
She was dancing—in a mirror-lit ballroom, beneath the blue chandelier above. Her dress was soft gold. Rowan wore black. They were laughing, hand entwined, breathless from a life not yet lost.
"Promise me," he whispered into her hair.
"What?
"That if the hour ever comes again… you'll remember this. You'll remember me."
And just as suddenly, it all unraveled. The music cut. The chandelier crashed in silence. She gasped—and the dream broke like glass.
She was back in the dark.
Rowan knelt beside her. "Are you alright?"
Eveline nodded, barely.
"That was the last night," she said. "Before everything burned."
"You remember now."
"Pieces."
She turned to him, eyes searching.
"Rowan… what did we do? What was this room?"
He hesitated. "I think… it was where we sealed our fate. Where we made a vow—one time tried to erase."
"Why?"
His voice was almost a breath. "Because we weren't supposed to love each other. Not in that life."
"And now?"
"Now… the house wants us to pay for remembering."
A soft sound came from the far end of the room.
Eveline turned—the wallpaper there was different. Newer. Or older. Something was wrong with it.
She stepped forward, drawn.
And then she saw it—a mirror, half-buried behind the torn paper. Cracked at the edges.
She touched it.
And in the reflection… she wasn't alone.
Behind her stood a version of herself—mouth stitched shut, eyes wide with warning. One hand pressed to the glass. The other… pointing at Rowan.
"What is this?" Eveline whispered.
"The truth," said the reflection.
And just like that, the mirror shattered.
Upstairs, the grandfather clock struck six.
The gilded hour had begun again.