The bell above the antique shop rang softly as Aveline stepped inside, the air thick with dust and time. Shelves lined with pocket watches, hourglasses, and strange, ticking mechanisms towered over her like silent guardians. She had only been in this shop once before—but the memory was carved into her bones.
This was where time first bent for her.
The shopkeeper stood exactly as she remembered. The same brown velvet coat. The same lined face that seemed untouched by age. He looked up from a table cluttered with gears and smiled.
"I was wondering when you'd come back," he said.
"I didn't choose to," Aveline replied, stepping closer. "Time moved without me."
He nodded solemnly. "Yes. Because you've begun to lose control."
Her pulse quickened. "You said I was given a second chance."
He tilted his head. "I did. But you took more than one."
Aveline's mouth went dry.
"How many loops have there been?" she asked.
He studied her, eyes like ancient glass.
"Seventeen."
Her knees buckled, and she gripped the edge of the counter for support.
"I… I only remember three."
He turned a small brass key in his fingers, the same key he'd given her before. "Most loops don't remember the last. But the soul does. It carries grief like fingerprints."
She stared at him, her voice a whisper. "So… which loop is this?"
He paused.
"The final one."
Silence fell like a stone between them.
Outside, the wind stirred leaves that hadn't yet fallen from the trees. Inside, time felt frozen—waiting.
"You're saying if I fail this time—" she began.
"You won't get another chance," he finished for her. "Time is bending to forces older than you. Older than even me."
Aveline steadied herself. "Then tell me what I'm supposed to fix. Is it Lucien? Jules? Clara? Or me?"
The clockmaker gave a faint smile.
"Time doesn't work like stories. It doesn't seek heroes. It doesn't care about your love or your pain."
"Then why help me at all?"
He looked at her—really looked. As if seeing every version of her that had ever existed.
"Because once, a long time ago, someone broke the rules for me."
He handed her the key again.
"This will unlock the place where all the loops began. Use it when you're ready to see everything."
As she turned to leave, he called out gently, "Be careful what you search for, Aveline. Truth has a price."
Meanwhile, Clara sat in a café across the city, tracing the rim of her teacup with a shaking finger. The dreams had returned—violent, vivid, and frighteningly real.
She dreamed of Aveline's death.
And in one version, it had been Clara who pulled the trigger.
A shadow fell across her table.
Jules.
He didn't sit. Just stared at her like he was trying to remember if she was the woman he once trusted—or someone else entirely.
Clara finally looked up.
"I think I'm remembering things I shouldn't."
Jules nodded slowly. "So am I."
She pushed the notebook across the table toward him.
Inside were names. Places. Symbols. Pieces of the loop she had been recording without knowing why.
And scrawled on the last page, in shaky handwriting:
"One of us was never meant to exist."
Back in her apartment, Aveline stood before a wall safe she hadn't remembered installing.
The brass key trembled in her hand as she inserted it.
Click.
The door swung open.
Inside, there was no money. No documents. Just one item:
A photograph.
Lucien. Aveline. Jules. Clara.
All of them, standing together—smiling.
The date stamped on the back was 2013.
But Aveline hadn't met any of them until 2017.
And in the photo… she was wearing a wedding ring.
Not on her left hand.
On her right.