A giant clock floated in the sky, cracked and leaking red smoke. The ticking echoed through the broken world like a heartbeat counting down to extinction.
> **Welcome to Game Three: The Bleeding Clock.**
The voice that greeted them was not the doll's. It was something deeper, older, like a whisper buried in a cathedral.
> "Your world is unstable. The seconds will bleed into each other. Keep the clock from stopping. Survive until the twelfth chime."
The arena around them was a floating ruin—massive gears turned above, and shattered architecture stretched into the sky. Dust choked the air. The ground below was a storm of darkness that devoured anything that fell.
In this game, there were **no enemies**.
Only time itself.
---
At first, everyone split into small groups. Some tried to decipher the machinery scattered across the platform. Others stood still, afraid to act. One boy tried to leap to a floating cog and missed.
He was swallowed by the storm below.
> "Clock Stability: 98%"
Kayaks stood beside Eli and Lena, scanning the chaos.
"This isn't about fighting," Eli muttered. "It's maintenance. Correction. The Playhouse is testing us to work together… or fall apart."
Lena nodded. "It's a team game. But they're counting on our mistrust."
Kayaks watched a pair of players argue over which lever to pull. One pulled it by force—and a tower exploded in the distance.
> "Clock Stability: 92%"
He stepped forward.
"We need to organize."
Nobody listened.
So he climbed.
Up onto a tall gear platform, he shouted across the arena: "If we keep acting alone, we're all dead!"
Some stopped. Others didn't.
But enough listened.
Lena joined him. Eli began calculating movement patterns for the gears. More players came to help. The arena slowly turned into a machine of coordinated chaos—players holding beams, rotating levers, and forming human chains to activate remote nodes.
Kayaks didn't lead like a general.
He worked like everyone else—sweating, straining, falling, rising.
And slowly... the bleeding stopped.
---
As the final chime rang out, the clock pulsed one last time.
> "Game Cleared."
Only **56** remained.
> "Clock Stability at End: 67% – Above Critical Threshold."
> "Bonus Awarded: Leadership Echo – Kayaks."
A new trait unfolded:
> **Leadership Echo** – Your resolve empowers nearby allies. In cooperative games, morale and synchronization improve. Stacks with Soul Echo.
Kayaks collapsed onto a pile of gears, gasping for breath. Around him, others stared—not in awe.
But in trust.
Eli dropped beside him. "You just saved forty people."
"I didn't do it alone," Kayaks said.
"No," Eli said, grinning. "But they followed you."
In the distance, Torran watched from a broken pillar, arms folded, face unreadable.
**End of Chapter 3**