Structure had succeeded.
Chaos no longer devoured itself.
Existence no longer collapsed instantly.
Reality endured.
But something subtle had been lost.
There were no mistakes.
No surprises.
No choices worth remembering.
The universe functioned.
It did not live.
And somewhere, deep within the Clock,
a tension formed—
not yet rebellion,
not yet error—
but the quiet pressure of a question
that had never been permitted before:
What if the structure itself is wrong?
The Clock did not answer.
It continued to turn.