Chapter 10: The Last Hour
The day was quiet.
Sunlight bathed Elmridge in a golden haze, and the town seemed to exhale—as if time itself was finally breathing easy. But deep inside Mara's chest, the heartbeat of the First Clock pulsed with a warning: *It's not over yet.*
She was no longer the girl who stumbled into a broken clock tower. She was the *Guardian of Time* now. But even guardians can sense when something is wrong.
And something was *wrong.*
The clocks in the old town square had all frozen again. The hands stuck at *1:13 PM*. The moment Elias vanished.
Mara stood beneath them, the wind tugging gently at her coat. She ran her fingers along the edge of her pendant.
Tick. Tick.
Except—there was no sound.
The silence was back.
But this time, it wasn't coming from a memory or a broken gear.
It was coming from... the *future*.
***
Caliah's voice echoed faintly in Mara's thoughts:
> "Time isn't safe yet. You sealed the past. But the future… it's still unwritten."
A ripple surged through the street. People froze. A mother paused mid-laugh. A cyclist's wheel stopped spinning.
And then—*a tear in the sky.*
Like shattered glass, reality opened. A figure stepped out.
Not masked. Not twisted.
But *familiar.*
He looked like her.
Mara stared in shock.
Her voice barely left her throat. "Who... are you?"
The figure smiled sadly. "I'm you. From the last timeline."
"What?"
"You failed before. Hundreds of times. Thousands, maybe. Every version of you tried… and broke."
Mara's heart raced.
"I don't believe that."
"Then why do you think the fragments existed?" the other Mara whispered. "They're pieces of all the timelines we've shattered."
She lifted her hand—and from her palm, glowing shards fell like rain.
Mara's knees went weak. She dropped to the ground.
"Then… I'm just another version?"
"No. You're the last one," her future self said. "The final rewrite."
***
Mara rose slowly. "Then why are you here?"
"To give you the last test."
The clocks began to turn backward. Fast. Spinning into chaos.
Time unraveled.
Buildings collapsed into dust, then rebuilt, then collapsed again. Trees aged in seconds. The stars blinked.
"You must fix the future," the other Mara said. "But to do that… you have to give something up."
"Like what?" she asked.
"*Me.*"
A wave of emotion surged. "You mean… if I fix time, I erase all the past versions?"
The future Mara nodded. "We're echoes. But echoes hold weight. If you reset the future, we all fade."
Mara's hands trembled.
"You're asking me to destroy every version of myself that ever tried to save the world."
"I'm asking you to save the one that can," her other self whispered. "Even if it means letting the rest of us go."
The world around them was collapsing fast. The First Clock's light was flickering inside her chest.
Mara stood.
Tears rolled down her cheeks.
She looked at her older self. "Thank you. For keeping the timeline alive until I could get here."
Her future self smiled. "Make it count."
***
Mara turned to the sky. The Heart of Time lifted from her chest. It pulsed—huge, glowing, endless.
She whispered a final command:
"Let time begin… again."
The light exploded.
When Mara opened her eyes, she stood in a quiet room.
Not Elmridge.
Not any place she knew.
Just her.
And a ticking clock.
The time: *12:00*.
Everything… was still.
Then the door creaked open.
A small girl stepped in. Holding a music box. Wide-eyed.
"Are you… the Guardian?"
Mara smiled.
"Yes," she said. "And you're right on time."