When Time Hesitates

The air seemed to carry an invisible weight, a constant shiver crawling across Lior's skin as he walked through the streets. Clocks hanging on walls displayed disjointed hours, their hands hesitant, as if they had a will of their own. The murmur of voices around him sometimes fractured, creating tiny, nearly imperceptible voids, as if fragments of time were slipping away, never to return.Lior watched carefully, feeling something unraveling in the world around him. The woman at the flower stand plucked a petal and held it before letting it fall, as if forgetting the natural flow of her own actions. A man on the corner stepped twice in the same spot, confused, before moving on. A cat darted through an alley and vanished for a moment, reappearing as if from another time.It was always like this. The city had its quirks, whispers, and faults. But lately, the feeling that something bigger was breaking only grew stronger each day—a crack no one else seemed to notice. Sometimes, Lior found himself frozen, caught between two seconds, watching a world about to quietly fall apart.He took a deep breath, trying to steady his thoughts. He had spent so much time observing that he began to doubt his own sanity. "Am I the only one who sees this?" he wondered as he crossed a street where time seemed to dance between pause and motion, like an old film refusing to play smoothly.Dust stirred in a slow whirl carried by a gust of wind, defying the very gravity of the moment. The rustling leaves were interrupted by a barely audible whisper, a language made of silence, lost in the heavy air of that morning.Lior felt his heart race without reason, a chill creeping down his spine. His hand instinctively reached for the necklace around his neck, the only thing that seemed steady in that uncertain world.Then, a distant sound started to rise, almost unnoticed amidst the everyday chaos. A young man hurried across the street, headphones isolating him from the world, eager not to miss some fleeting appointment.The sound of a vehicle's engine grew closer, but something was wrong. The wheels didn't respond at the right moment, the noise pulsing out of sync, as though plucked from its place in the city's symphony.Lior stopped, chest tightening. The world around him flickered briefly—a moment invisible to others but unbearable to him. His fingers began moving on their own, an almost automatic reaction to a need he didn't yet understand.The necklace on his chest glowed with a faint light, pulsing like a lonely heart amid the distortion. The air between him and the young man rippled like finely cracked glass, vibrating at a frequency only the most attentive could sense.The young man froze, as if pausing the film of his life on the brink of tragedy. The engine's roar ceased, time stopped.Lior stood there, feeling a subtle emptiness grow inside his chest—not pain, not relief, but a quiet weight, like a shadow freshly cast. He blinked, still stunned, and saw the world resume its uneven rhythm, but he knew something had changed.Nothing was in place anymore, not even himself.And that was just the beginning.The sun was starting to set on the horizon as Lior left behind the hustle of the city's main streets. The weight in his chest lingered—a silent echo of something he couldn't explain or fully understand. The city—with its cracks, whispers, and misaligned moments—kept living on, relentless in its strange dance with time.He sought refuge in quieter alleys, places where even the air seemed heavier, thick with secrets most preferred to ignore. As he walked, his eyes caught small details others would miss: a door creaking at an odd rhythm, a shadow flickering between worn walls, and a faint gleam of a fissure in the air, so slight it seemed like a sliver of night itself.Lior tried to organize his thoughts, but they slipped away, fleeing to places he didn't know how to reach. The feeling inside him grew bolder—a mix of fear and curiosity that pulsed, calling him to seek answers among the fragments of this broken city.By an unnamed square, he saw two men talking. Their voices melded with distant echoes, speaking of "forces that should never be awakened" and "old horrors time tried to bury." Their words were vague but heavy enough to make Lior's blood run cold.Wanting to avoid trouble, he changed direction, but the murmur of their conversation lingered, a shadow following him. His necklace seemed to warm in his pocket—a steady reminder of last night, of the light, the emptiness, and the unknown power he barely controlled.Images flickered in his mind: fragments of old tales, nearly forgotten, of a city that used to be different—stable, safe, where time flowed without hesitation. Stories speaking of ruptures, of events no one wanted to remember, not even the elders.Every step Lior took seemed to bring him closer to that dark past and at the same time, nearer to a truth he wasn't sure he was ready to face.When night finally wrapped itself around the sky, the city's silence grew heavier. Lior stopped before a simple door, its wood weathered beyond what seemed normal for that part of town. Taking a deep breath, he felt a strange tug at his necklace—as if something in that place was calling him.He pushed open the door, stepping into a dimly lit room where shadows danced on worn walls. An old man waited, his eyes deep and steady, as if he'd been there for centuries, waiting for someone like Lior."You feel it, don't you?" The old man's voice was a husky whisper. "What time hides. What few notice, but what grows."Lior swallowed hard, unable to hide the storm raging inside him."I don't know if I understand. I just know something changed. Inside me. Inside the city."The old man smiled, as if recognizing a fellow traveler."So the beginning is already here. And it's not time that decides the next step—it's those who walk between its cracks."That night sealed something in Lior. A silent vow, a quest becoming inevitable.And the city watched, waiting, as its secret began to awaken.