The city's nights have never been so silent. But for the past few days, there's been a lot of talk in the city.
That something strange is happening at the clock tower in the center of town.
Ever since the clock stopped, it's as if time has stopped. The air near the tower feels cool, like a cool breeze before the rain.
When the wind blows through the tall trees, brushing against the walls of the old tower and the broken windowpanes, the rustle of an unfinished story can be heard.
That clock tower...
whose ticking used to be the sole theme of the entire city.
Today, it was silent for the first time.
People say, when a clock stops, it's not time that stops, but someone's destiny.
And that night, Yaduvanshi's destiny truly stopped.
Yaduvanshi was the strangest man in the city.
He was neither completely a scientist nor completely a monk.
There was always something moving in his eyes that ordinary people couldn't understand, as if he were searching for another time.
People called him crazy.
But the truth was this:
He could see things
that the rest of the world had learned to forget.
He was the sole keeper of the clock tower.
Every night he would go there, dust off the old machines, wind the clock hands, and return without a word.
No one ever asked why he did this... because whoever asked, did.
He disappeared the very next day.
That night, when the clock stopped,
Yaduvanshi looked up at the sky, and
the bright moon through the clouds looked different; it appeared blue, not white.
He took out his old pocket watch from his pocket.
That watch, too, was stuck at 12:00 AM.
As if someone had chained time to itself.
A faint voice came from behind him.
"Did you hear that too, Yaduvanshi?"
It was Rishika, the girl who worked in the city library.
Her eyes always held a question, and her voice held a lingering fear.
She spoke tremblingly, "On the street below the tower... someone called out a name."
Yaduvanshi slowly descended the tower stairs.
With every step, dust flew, and the old lines on the walls seemed to move with his footsteps.
As he reached the bottom, he saw a stone statue lying on the ground.
It wasn't a statue...
It was a human being, but made of stone.
Rishika recoiled in fear, but Yaduvanshi bent down and looked at it closely.
A name appeared on that face, a name.
Princess Selina.
She was the one...who was said to have been cursed hundreds of years ago.
"Anyone who tries to free her with a true heart will be turned to stone."
Suddenly, a tremor ran through the air.
The walls of the tower began to shake.
And then,
a young man entered the tower and said, "I am Shimanu."
His eyes shone with lightning.
He came from the oldest part of the forest—a place where not humans, but human spirits reside.
He looked at Yaduvanshi and said, "Time has stopped, and with it the seal of that curse has been broken."
"Which curse?" Rishika screamed.
Shimanu pointed to the wall, where someone had written in blood:
"When the clock's hands stop,
those who sleep in stone,
awaken again."
The atmosphere of the city was beginning to change.
The dogs fell silent and fell asleep, the trees stood still, and from somewhere in the distance came the sound of a bell.
A sound that seemed to come not from a temple, but from a grave.
Yaduvanshi closed his eyes and placed his palms on the statue.
The stone was cold, but a heartbeat rang within it.
That heartbeat seemed to belong not to a human being, but to some ancient power.
"It's alive…"
He said softly.
Rushika's breath stopped,
"So should we free it?"
Shimanu said with a cold laugh,
"If you free it, you'll be imprisoned yourself."
But Yaduvanshi didn't listen.
He closed his eyes, muttered something like a mantra,
and at that very moment,
the stone began to crack.
A strange smell wafted through the air with each crack.
As if the soil and ashes of the ancient forest were mingling to tell an ancient secret.
And when the stone finally broke,
there stood Princess Selina,
whose eyes held centuries of sleep and a painful question.
"Why... have I been awakened again?"
At that moment, Yaduvanshi realized
he had made a mistake.
The clock stopping wasn't a coincidence...
it was a sign.
Selina's eyes began to glow blue.
The wind swirled behind her, shadows danced on the walls.
And then everything began to tremble.
Shimanu shouted loudly,
"She doesn't know what she is!
She's not a goddess... She's the protector of darkness!"
Yaduvanshi grabbed Rishika's hand and dragged her back.
"Run!" Run!
Run away from here!" But Rishika didn't run.
They left the tower,
but as soon as the door closed,
Selina's voice echoed in the air,
"Do you think you can stop me, Yaduvanshi?
You're the one... who's tampered with my time again."
The tower clock started working again.
But now its hands were moving in reverse.
Time was going backwards.
Yaduvanshi looked at the sky;
The clouds had turned red,
and it seemed as if someone had plunged the entire earth into darkness.
Rishika said tremblingly,
"What will happen now...?"
Yaduvanshi said softly,
"Time will no longer move; now time will move us."
And at that very moment,
somewhere far away, deep in the forest, an old temple shone.
On its walls was the same mark that had been on Yaduvanshi's arm since childhood.
Three circular circles,
which always moved in the opposite direction of the clock.
He knew that what had begun now was not a game of man, but of some power.
The depths of the forest were so dark that even the sun's rays couldn't penetrate its branches.
With every step, Yaduvanshi and Rishika's breaths mingled with the mist, trying to grab them with invisible hands.
And behind, Shimanu's footsteps seemed to float in the air, almost imperceptible to us.