Everyone knows that time has no sound. But on the day the Empire of Arcadia began to fall, a rhythmic tick-tock echoed from the heavens like a turning gear. People knew then—time was finally running out.
The Beginning :
The hero of our story, Idris, was no prince. He was the keeper of a desolate, forgotten lighthouse. His job wasn't to watch the waves, but to cast nets into the sea to catch "fragments of memory." In this world, when people die, their memories crystallize into small blue stones and sink into the Abyss of the Silent Sea.
One day, Idris hauled in something that shouldn't have existed: a golden pocket watch. Inside, instead of gears and springs, there beat a tiny, living human heart.
"When the watch stops, your existence vanishes. When it ticks, you become the God of Tomorrow."
The Impossible Journey :
The sky began to crack like shattered porcelain. From the fractures descended the Void Merchant—a shadowy entity who didn't deal in gold or silver. He traded in "pasts." Anyone who sold their past to him became a hollow, living shell.
Idris realized this watch was the world's final key. He set out with two strange companions:
• Solane: A blind sorceress who could "smell" the scent of colors to predict the future.
• Captain Hook-less: A pirate who owned no ship but knew the secret art of walking upon the wind.
Their destination: The Isle of the Last Horizon, the place where time itself is manufactured.
The Final Conflict and the Scavenger's Wit
They battled "Memory-Eating Sharks" and storms made of stardust. When they finally reached the Factory of Time, Idris discovered a shocking truth. The Merchant wasn't a monster; he was a weary architect of time, desperate for someone to release him from his eternal duty.
The Merchant offered Idris a deal: "Give me the watch, and I will grant you immortality. In exchange, this world will freeze forever in a perfect, golden moment."
Idris didn't crave eternal life. Instead, he poured thousands of the blue memory stones he had collected into the watch. Each memory was a burst of raw emotion—grief, joy, and love. The sheer weight of those human feelings caused the watch to shatter, restarting the gears of the universe. The Merchant dissolved into stardust, and Idris returned to his lighthouse. He no longer had the watch, but he had a heart full of new stories to tell.