Hour 4 of 72
Ultra-Cinematic LN • SFX Enhanced • Third-Person POV
SFX: KRSSSHHH—SHHHHH—
Rain stitching itself across broken rooftops like needles sewing a wound shut.
The city was teaching them its rules the way a cat taught a mouse—
slowly, patiently, with claws.
They had left the plaza of the faceless woman behind.
Now the buildings leaned so close their rooftops touched, forming a crooked spine over the street. The road narrowed into a throat that swallowed sound whole.
Every window was dark.
But the curtains moved.
Without wind.
Without hands.
Without permission.
Sometimes a pale palm pressed against the glass—thin fingers splayed like drowning stars—
and then vanished the moment an eye tried to focus on it.
Kaelith hated it here.
Her shoulders sat so close to her ears she could've worn them as earrings. Her hand hovered near her sword hilts, not out of fear, but irritation.
Rhea, by contrast, walked like a woman revisiting an old habit.
Calm. Fluid. Familiar.
Caelan kept two steps behind them, counting heartbeats.
One, two.
One, two.
Every second step, his shadow hesitated—
lagging just a fraction behind the others
as though reluctant to follow
as though hungering for something else.
The Thirst gnawed behind his teeth like a wolf straining at a leash.
Feed.
Feed.
Feed.
He buried his face deeper into the hood of his imperial cloak and listened instead to the breathing of his escorts.
Kaelith: sharp, measured, the breathing of someone who had killed enough times to treat fear as wasted motion.
Rhea: none.
But every so often she inhaled out of courtesy—or nostalgia.
When she did, the rain around them paused mid-fall, frozen like glass beads suspended in air.
Caelan wondered what his breathing sounded like to them.
Probably like prey that had learned the predator's name and still slept in the same den.
A bell tolled.
Once.
SFX: BOOOOONG—
Deep enough to shake dust from roofs.
The sound rolled through the corpse-city like a dying god clearing its throat.
Every window slammed shut.
Curtains froze mid-sway.
Even the rain hesitated.
[First Bell has rung.
68 hours remain.
The Sleepless stir.]
Kaelith cursed under her breath. "Four hours for one bell? That's not the pattern from the last cycle."
Rhea tilted her head, listening to some frequency only leviathans heard.
"The city is angry," she observed softly. "Something disturbed its rhythm."
Both turned toward him.
Caelan widened his eyes, stammering on cue.
"D-did… did I do something wrong?"
Kaelith snorted.
Rhea smiled gently—
but her pupils slit vertically for half a heartbeat, like a cat seeing a fluttering bird.
"No, little prince," she crooned. "The city simply dislikes secrets."
He hugged himself tighter.
The throat-street spat them out into a sunken courtyard surrounded by dead iron trees. Their branches twisted upward like skeletal hands, each hung with empty nooses that swayed gently despite the still air.
In the center:
a child's swing set, rusted chains creaking—
though nothing sat on it.
A single object rested between them and the swing.
A pocket watch.
Silver. Impossibly clean.
Ticking backward.
Kaelith's hand went to her sword.
Rhea lifted a finger.
Instantly, the rain within ten meters froze into a floating sphere of shimmering droplets.
Caelan felt the Thirst surge.
His shadow trembled.
His vision tinted red at the edges.
The watch was bait.
He knew it as instinctively as a hanged man knew the rope.
And he knew what ignoring it would cost.
In his first life, another Chosen had touched it at hour six.
The swing began to move.
A little girl—faceless, red dress soaked in darkness—appeared.
Sang a lullaby in the voice of everyone you ever failed.
Thirty seconds later, the courtyard turned into a slaughterhouse.
Forty-three Chosen dead before the second bell.
Caelan stepped forward.
Both women tensed.
"P-prince?" Kaelith growled.
"I… I think it's calling me," he whispered, letting his voice fracture like thin ice. "I can feel it… like it knows my name…"
Rhea's eyes narrowed.
"Do not touch it."
Too late.
He was already moving.
His gait staggered, knees knocking, arms hugging his ribs like cold was killing him.
Ten steps.
Five.
Three.
He dropped to his knees before the watch like his strength had finally abandoned him.
His shadow stretched toward it—
eager—
alive.
He reached out.
Kaelith shouted.
Rhea's ice spears formed in midair.
Caelan picked up the watch.
The world inverted.
SFX: SKREEEEEEE—
Metal screaming. Souls screaming. Trees screaming.
The iron trees twisted.
The empty nooses filled—
with bodies.
Their bodies.
Kaelith's corpse swayed gently, her own swords stabbed into her chest.
Rhea's dangled limply, black water streaming from her open mouth.
Caelan's corpse…
still wore his perfectly practiced terrified expression.
The swing creaked.
The little girl materialized.
Red dress dripping.
No face—just smooth skin where features should have been.
She pushed off with bare feet and began to swing.
The corpses rotated slowly.
The watch in Caelan's hand grew warm.
The System whispered:
**[Hidden Condition triggered prematurely.
Trial within Trial: "The Lullaby of Three Heartbeats"
Objective: One of you must die for real.
The other two may leave.
Time limit: Until the third backward swing.
Failure: All three die.
Reward: Aspect – "Regret of the Hanged".
Begin.]**
The girl reached the peak of her first backward arc.
Kaelith's swords drew with a sound like tearing silk.
Rhea's gentle expression melted away. Frost radiated from her feet, dropping the temperature twenty degrees in seconds.
They looked at each other.
Then at him.
Caelan let the watch slip from his fingers.
Clink.
It hit stone and did not break.
He lifted his face—rain streaking down—and allowed real tears to mix with it. Tears he had held back for two whole lives.
"I don't want to die again," he whispered.
The word again was soft.
Barely there.
Almost missed.
Almost.
Rhea flinched.
Kaelith's grip tightened until her knuckles whitened.
The girl on the swing rose into the second backward arc.
Caelan stood.
Slowly. Deliberately.
The terrified prince peeled off him like old skin.
He looked at Kaelith first.
"I'm sorry," he murmured. And he meant it in ways she would only understand much, much later.
Then he turned to Rhea.
"Thank you… for carrying me this far."
He stepped back.
The imperial cloak slid off his shoulders.
Underneath, he wore no armor.
No cloth.
Only shadows.
Living.
Wriggling.
Clinging to his skin like hungry serpents.
The Thirst howled.
He tasted copper on his tongue.
He smiled—
with too many teeth for any human mouth.
The girl reached the peak of her third and final backward swing.
Caelan opened his arms to the two most dangerous women in the city.
"Come," he invited, voice no longer young, no longer afraid.
"Let's see which of the three heartbeats stops first."
The rain fell upward.
And the courtyard forgot how to breathe.