SFX: FWOOOOSH—)
The door of flame sealed behind them with a sigh — as though the Tower itself exhaled.
The third spiral rose before them in a dizzying helix, each step a shattered clock face suspended in air.
Gears the size of wagon wheels turned backward, grinding sparks that fell upward.
Time here was a wound—
and every tick bled.
Third Spiral: The Unmaking of Hours
The air tasted of rust and regret.
Shade's heartbeat stuttered—skip, skip, thud-thud-thud!
Beside him, Lira's grip tightened.
Their lantern—now burning with their shared light—cast two shadows that walked ahead of them, hand in hand…
older than they were.
(SFX: KR-CHNK...)
Halfway up the first turn, the staircase fractured.
A chasm yawned open—revealing a miniature world below:
A village square, thatched roofs aflame.
People running, mouths open in silent screams.
It was no larger than a tabletop, yet every detail was perfect—
the soot on a baker's apron, the terror in a dog's eyes.
Lira froze.
Her breath vanished like glass shattering in cold.
"That's—"
Her voice cracked.
"That's Briarhollow. My home."
Shade followed her gaze.
The diorama pulsed, alive.
A girl—no older than ten—stood at its center, clutching a lantern identical to Lira's.
Her face was the same: streaked with ash, eyes burning with brown fire.
Then—
*(SFX: TICK—tick—TICK—tick—)
The villagers began to move.
But wrong.
Jerky, hollow, like puppets with cut strings.
Flames licked backward into torches.
Screams twisted into laughter.
The child raised her lantern—
and the firefly inside flared white.
(SFX: SHH-CRAAAAK!)
The scene shattered.
Memory-shards rained upward, embedding in the gears above.
One shard—a sliver of burning thatch—lodged in Lira's palm.
She didn't flinch.
"I remember now," she whispered. "All of it."
She spoke as they climbed,
words tumbling like stones loosed from a cliff.
Briarhollow—
a river village between forest and water.
Apples that sang when ripe.
Nets woven from moonlight.
Her father: the lantern-keeper.
Every dusk he lit the beacon to guide boats home.
Her mother told stories of the Nightmare Realm—
tales to frighten children, not prepare them.
Then, one night—
the beacon went dark.
Not out.
Eaten.
Shadows poured down the hill like tar, swallowing dogs… then children… then homes.
Her father shoved the small lantern into her hands.
"Run to the woods," he said. "Don't look back."
She ran.
The Glasswood took her.
The Tower promised: Climb, and I will rewind the night.
She believed.
She climbed.
On the fourth spiral, she looked back—and the village burned forever.
The Choir stole her name.
Lira's voice never wavered, but tears carved clean paths through the ash.
"I thought if I guided enough souls to the summit, the Tower would let me trade their success for my village's second chance.
A thousand years of echoes... and I'm still bargaining with a door."
Shade's chest ached worse than any wound.
He stopped on a clockface step—its hands spinning so fast they blurred into silver light.
"You were ten," he murmured.
"I am ten," she said softly.
"Time doesn't pass here. Only forward for the climbers, backward for the guides.
Every soul I lead ages me a day in their world.
You've given me three days since the cage."
She turned her palm.
The splinter had become a tiny apple tree, its leaves flickering with phantom fireflies.
"This is what's left of home."
Shade took her hand.
The roots twined around their fingers, warm as pulse.
"Then we carry it together."
(SFX: GRRRRRAAAAHH—KCHNK—KRRRRTTT!)
The gears screamed.
A massive hourglass inverted, sand flowing upward.
The staircase buckled—
Clockfaces spun loose, whirling like sawblades.
One sliced between them.
(SFX: SCHNK!)
The apple tree split in two.
Golden sap spilled like blood.
"No!"
Lira's cry tore the silence—a sound both childlike and ancient.
Shade lunged, catching her before she fell into the abyss below—
a pit filled with endless dioramas of Briarhollow burning, burning, burning—
He pressed his forehead to hers.
"Listen to me," he whispered.
"The Tower lies.
It doesn't rewind time—it eats it.
But we're not its meal."
The lantern flared—
the firefly now bearing constellations on its wings.
Its glow carved a golden path through the chaos.
A ribbon of light between turning gears.
Shade lifted Lira—light as ash, heavy as grief.
"Hold on!"
*(SFX: WHRHHHHH—!)
They ran.
Gears parted like curtains.
Clockfaces shattered into butterflies of brass, dissolving mid-flight.
The golden ribbon led to a landing—
and a door stood waiting.
Wooden. Humble.
The kind that belonged on a cottage.
A brass knocker shaped like an apple gleamed.
"That's… my father's door."
"Then open it," Shade said.
Her hand trembled.
She lifted the knocker, hesitated—
(SFX: KNOCK…)
The door swung inward on silent hinges.
Light spilled through.
A small room.
Afternoon sunlight.
A table set for two.
Steam rising from a bowl of apple stew.
On the wall—
a child's drawing: a girl with a lantern, a tower in the distance.
Words scrawled in crayon:
"Come home soon."
Lira stepped inside.
The floorboards creaked—like they remembered her.
"This isn't real," she whispered.
"It's real enough," Shade replied.
"The Tower gives you what you lost… to keep you from what you need."
Tears fell freely now.
She pressed the drawing to her chest—
and it folded into her skin like light, forming a tattoo over her heart.
"I'm scared," she said. "If I leave this room… I might forget them again."
Shade stepped through the threshold.
The door tried to close, but he wedged the obsidian shard in place.
"Then I'll remember for both of us."
He cupped her face, gentle as moonlight.
"Lira of Briarhollow,
Lantern-Keeper's daughter,
Guide of a thousand souls—
I see you.
I name you.
And I'm not letting the Tower take another second."
*(SFX: BOOM—THUMP—heartbeat—)
Their lips met.
Not romance—
anchoring.
Salt. Breath. Refusal.
The room trembled.
Sunlight cracked.
The stew spilled, gold pooling on the floor.
"Together?"
"Together."
They stepped through.
The cottage dissolved into starlight.
The obsidian shard lengthened into a night-forged blade, humming with memory.
The lantern's glow burned steady.
Ahead, the fourth spiral awaited—
a staircase of living shadow, each step a mouth whispering futures that would never be.
Lira's hand found Shade's.
The apple-tree mark glowed softly between them.
*(SFX: STEP—STEP—STEP—)
They climbed.