Time didn't pass here. It hunted.
Asher stood in front of the iron gates, wind biting through his hoodie. Ouroboros Academy loomed beyond like a dying cathedral—its black stone walls jagged like broken bones, the windows like empty eyes. Even the towers were wrong, crooked and clawing at the gray sky. The air smelled like wet metal. And something faintly rotting. Behind him, Rowan Vayne took a loud, defiant bite out of a red apple. "So," he said, chewing, "think they'll serve lunch before the horror starts? Or are we supposed to eat each other?". Asher didn't answer. His fingers tightened around the worn strap of his duffel bag. Suddenly, the gates groaned open. Not a normal creak, this one screamed like it remembered every soul that had tried to leave. They stepped through.
The courtyard was silent. Too silent. Grass long dead. Stone cracked and crooked, as if reality itself had warped. A massive sundial sat in the center, casting no shadow. Above them, a giant clock ticked—backwards. A group of students clustered nearby, whispering. Their voices sounded like echoes, out of sync with their mouths. No teachers in sight. No welcome banner. No orientation folder.
Rowan looked around, eyes half-lidded. "Are we sure this isn't just the afterlife's waiting room?" A gust of wind swept through—and then suddenly, he was there.
The Headmaster. He didn't walk up. He didn't open a door. He just… appeared. Headmaster Talus wore a coat the color of ink and shadows. Silver hair cut sharp. His eyes were twin glass clocks, ticking too fast. "You have entered the bounds of Ouroboros," he said, voice deep and distant. "Time here is not kind. Some of you will be forgotten. Some will forget yourselves." "You needst learn to survive here at Ouroboros" he said softly. "Unless Time decides otherwise." A girl in the crowd—wide-eyed, confidently—hesitantly raised her hand. "what happens if we decide to leave the academy?"
It happened so fast.
Her fingers dissolved first, like sugar dropped into boiling water. Then her mouth. Her face. Her entire body collapsed into nothing."No blood. No scream. There was no time. One blink—and she was gone.". Her bag hit the ground with a soft thump. Everyone froze.
Rowan let out a sharp laugh that cracked in the air, then groaned and clutched his head as blood gushed from his nose."The air cracked—like a whip. Then, everything paused. Just five seconds, but it felt like forever."
Wind froze in place. Snowflakes—yes, there were suddenly snowflakes—hung in midair like glass shards. Asher couldn't breathe. He couldn't blink. Couldn't think. Then— SNAP. Time lurched forward again. Rowan stumbled, wiping the blood off his upper lip with the back of his hand. "Cool party trick," he muttered. "Ten out of ten. No notes." The others were shaking. Some silent. Some pale as chalk. One girl—Lira, her name tag said—turned away to puke behind a statue of a headless angel, another boy with jet-black hair—Nico—didn't even blink. "First lesson," he murmured. "Mistakes get eaten."
Their dorm building was just as grim as the courtyard: dark wood walls, dusty chandeliers, floorboards that creaked before you stepped on them. Inside, the dorm halls twisted in ways that defied architecture. Some staircases doubled back into themselves. One hallway ended in a mirror that showed different people every time you passed. Asher and Rowan shared a room. Four beds. Two already claimed. Probably by people they hadn't met yet. Or maybe never would. The whole place smelled like cedarwood and dried blood. The lamp overhead flickered like a dying heartbeat. Every few minutes, it buzzed in Morse code they couldn't decipher. Asher tossed his bag on a creaky metal bedframe and looked around. Peeling wallpaper. A cracked mirror. A ticking wall clock whose hands twitched like they were glitching between seconds. Rowan collapsed onto the mattress opposite him with a heavy sigh. "Time feels… heavy here," he said. "Like gravity, but sideways."
"I feel like we're being watched," Asher muttered.
The dorm room hummed faintly with the flicker of the overhead bulb, casting long shadows that twitched like nervous fingers across the floor. Night had settled its weight on the academy like a damp wool blanket. The world outside was silent, save for the distant hush of trees in the wind and the occasional creak from the old building's bones. Rowan sat hunched at the edge of his bed, carefully polishing the cracked face of a brass pocket watch. The thing looked ancient, stained with years and secrets. The smell of oil and old metal clung to the room now, oddly comforting in the way old books or hidden attics were. Asher lay across from him on his own bed, arms crossed behind his head, gaze on the ceiling but mind elsewhere. "You don't seem like the academy type," he said, voice low. "How did you end up here?". Rowan didn't look up. His hand slowed for just a breath, fingers tightening around the cloth, before he chuckled. "Got caught rewinding a casino's roulette wheel twelve times in Atlantic City," he said with a grin that was too casual, too smooth. "Judge gave me the usual two options: juvie or Ouroboros Academy." Asher turned his head to look at him. It sounded like the kind of story the tabloids would eat up—rebellious time-bender hustling casinos. It even matched the way Rowan carried himself: lazy confidence, shoulders loose like someone used to slipping out of trouble. The way his fingers never stopped moving. A gambler's charm sewn into the seams of his posture. But something didn't sit right. The lie was too perfect. Every beat rehearsed. Every detail convenient. And when Rowan thought Asher wasn't watching, his eyes flicked down to the cracked glass of that watch like it owed him something. Like it held something broken he couldn't fix. Asher knew that look. The same haunted glaze he saw in his own reflection on bad days. The kind of expression that doesn't come from stealing chips or gaming roulette wheels. Still, he said nothing. He let Rowan hold onto the lie, tuck it back in like a blanket too thin for winter. Everyone at Ouroboros had a reason for being here—and more often than not, the official story wasn't it. Instead, Asher offered a softer question. "What's it like… slowing time?" Rowan's smile faltered. Then he shrugged, leaned back on his palms. "Like being the only one breathing in a room full of statues. Sometimes peaceful. Sometimes… unbearable." There was a quiet between them after that. Not awkward—just still. Like the room itself was listening. Asher sat up and reached toward the small shelf above his bed. He grabbed the pack of lemon drops he always kept hidden behind a physics textbook. They were half-melted and stuck together, but he offered one across the gap between beds. Rowan blinked at it, then gave a soft laugh and took one. They sat like that for a while, sucking on sour candy in silence, listening to the wind whistle between the window frames. For the first time since arriving at Ouroboros, Asher felt something gentle, a thread between them. Not trust—maybe not yet—but understanding. A quiet, tentative peace. Then came the knock. A sharp, precise knock. Not loud. But it sliced the air like a blade. Rowan straightened immediately, the chain of the watch slipping between his fingers. His spine went stiff, his face shuttered close—mask slammed on. He stood, every part of him now wired tight. Asher followed, slower, and opened the door. A girl in a long, deep blue coat stood in the hallway. Her boots made no sound on the floor boards.The gold Ouroboros prefect crest gleamed at her shoulder. Her eyes were so pale they almost looked silver in the dim hallway light. "Asher Rook?" she asked. He nodded. She handed him a thin black envelope. No name. No seal. Just smooth matte paper, cold against his fingers. Asher opened it while the prefect waited. Inside: a single sentence. Midnight. Observatory. Come alone. And beneath it, in small, hurried writing: Tell no one. He looked up, but the girl was already gone. The hallway was empty. He closed the door, the envelope crinkling in his hand. Rowan hadn't moved. He stood like a deer sensing the crack of a hunter's footstep, tension in every muscle. His voice, when he finally spoke, was barely more than a whisper. "Did they say anything?" Asher shook his head. "Just... a message. Meeting at midnight." Rowan swallowed. "You're going?" "I think I have to." They locked eyes. Something passed between them—unease, maybe, or recognition. Rowan turned back toward his bed but didn't sit. He looked at the pocket watch again. His voice was softer now, with an edge of something frayed. "You ever feel like time's not moving forward? Like we're stuck in one of those snow globes... always shaking, never breaking out?" Asher blinked. "Yeah. All the time." The silence returned, but heavier now. Denser. And then Rowan said it. Barely audible. Like a secret he didn't mean to say aloud. "They'll find me eventually." Asher froze. "What?" Rowan blinked, as if waking from something. "Nothing," he lied. But outside, somewhere far away on the edge of the academy grounds, a clock struck midnight. And every light in the dorm flickered out. Asher stood and crossed to the window. The courtyard below shimmered strangely under the moonlight. Shadows moved where there were no bodies. Lamps blinked on and off in a rhythm he couldn't follow. Then he saw it. The clock tower in the distance—its face was slowly rotating. Not the hands. The entire clock.