Chapter 164

  - Evan -

  The air didn't move; everything felt off, felt wrong. The silence of the ever-growing night did not flicker or waver.

  Shell City's always-humming became still—no vibrations from the cycling machines. The normal distant system irrigations, or metal veins breathing, we had grown somewhat used to, now slowed to nothing.

  Josh blinked. "Did anyone else—"

  He didn't finish.

  The sound of his voice...dragged.

  Like someone pulled the sylbles through syrup.

  My skin prickled with goosebumps.

  I reached for my earring.

  Kaysi reached for the charm on her bracelet.

  "Time stops for no man..." The voice whispered again.

  Closer.

  Then further.

  Then everywhere.

  Becky grabbed Josh's sleeve. "This isn't funny."

  No one was ughing.

  The artificial sky above us dimmed half a shade—not darker exactly, just... Aged. Like someone turned saturation down on reality.

  Micah exhaled. Is this a demon?

  A distortion rippled across the ptform railing.

  Not a crack.

  a blur.

  It was like the world was a camera lens that forgot how to focus.

  James stepped back. "Okay, so this is happening."

  My jaw tightened. "Form up."

  We instinctively shift closer together, covering our backs.

  The metal beneath our boot vibrated once.

  Then—

  Stopped.

  The hum of the city cut out completely.

  Silence swallowed us whole.

  And in the Silence—

  A figure stepped out of nothing.

  Not darkness.

  '

  Not light.

  Nothing.

  He looked human at first gnce.

  Just unfinished.

  And behind him, hundreds of clocks were floating there in midair.

  But none of them made a sound.

  "Six," he murmured, tilting his head.

  His eyes weren't eyes.

  They were shifting like hourgsses.

  "How delicate."

  Josh pulled Becky behind him. "Okay, buddy, you picked the wrong group."

  The figure smiled.

  Except the smile gged.

  It formed a second after his face decided to do it.

  "I do not pick," he said softly. "I simply arrive."

  The world skipped and shook like the hand of a clock when it was moved, then held its new position in time.

  Suddenly—

  We were five feet back from where we stood before.

  Josh looked down. "What—?"

  He stopped.

  Mid-sentence and movement.

  Then release.

  He blinked. "Didn't I just—"

  "We moved," Micah whispered.

  "No," the figure corrected gently. "You repeated."

  My heartbeat smmed in my ears.

  I lowered my voice. "What's your name?

  The entity looked pleased.

  "You require something to call me."

  This thing was definitely a demon, but it looked more alien than demonic.

  The clock hands behind him began spinning faster now.

  "You may refer to me as what you fear most, child."

  The world flickered.

  And suddenly—

  We were no longer on the ptform where we once stood.

  We were in a mansion hallway.

  I gasped.

  "What the—"

  James looked around wildly. "That's not possible; is this an illusion?"

  Josh stared at Becky. "We were just outside!?"

  The light overhead buzzed violently.

  Then—

  The front door burst open.

  Mary stood there.

  But not the Mary we know now.

  Mary is pale.

  Crying.

  Older.

  Mary colpsed to her knees with a baby in her arms.

  "No," Becky breathed and jumped forward.

  Micah moved in front of her. "This isn't real."

  Mary looked up at us.

  Her eyes were empty.

  "You left," she whispered.

  The baby let out a scream that warped into static.

  The image shattered.

  We were back on the ptform.

  "He's toying with us," Josh said, blinking as if none of this happened.

  Except we were all breathing harder.

  The figure observed us.

  "You cling to moments," he said. "How frail your attachments are. You ck direction."

  I lowered my eyes. "You're not touching them."

  "Touch?" The demon tilted his head. "I have already touched everything you will never be."

  The ptform cracked.

  Not physically.

  Visually.

  Like yers of time were misaligned.

  I saw our graduation. The mansion is empty. Becky, crying over Josh's singed remains.

  Micah is standing alone on a balcony, looking down at the ground below.

  James, in uniform, standing in the midst of a warzone, fires, smoke, and a torn world around him.

  Kaysi is falling into the abyss. I jumped into nothing but air, and my stomach dropped.

  The images accelerated around me, skipping and blinking, in a hospital room. Becky was pale, her eternity ice out, spiraling out of control.

  Josh ghost-screams her name, to no reply.

  The clock spun violently now.

  "You stand at a threshold," the demon whispered. "You celebrate as if tomorrow belongs to you."

  Josh roared and charged.

  The moment he lunged, he froze in the air.

  Becky screamed.

  The demon walked around Josh casually.

  Examining him.

  "Fire," he murmured. "So eager to burn."

  I moved when his back was turned, and his eyes were away from me.

  I stopped, not frozen, but slowed.

  Like gravity increased around me.

  Kaysi sank to the ground, her arms and weapon limp as if they weighed twice as much.

  My thoughts even dragged; I could think in this fog.

  The demon's gaze turned to Kaysi.

  Ah.

  He said in recognition.

  "Little Crane," he said, softly lifting her chin.

  My chest tightened with anger.

  "You carry futures you do not yet understand."

  He left with her for what felt like a second, just a blink.

  I yelled "No" as I left, but my words came out deyed.

  I tried to move toward him, but I couldn't.

  The demon's voice beside Kaysi's ear.

  "This is one possibility you could have."

  He snapped his fingers, and she was older, but her sword was just a cracked feather charm.

  The sky turned red.

  "If you never joined the Waymakers," he hissed. "You could have outlived them."

  She was standing in the abyss with the other demon monsters and the warden.

  "You were robbed of your memories and future. Evan holds all the secrets you can't reach."

  Kaysi's head turned sharply to mine. "What does he mean?"

  "I see every past, present, and future of each of your lives. Alongside every possibility and probability. Any future you can dream up, I have already seen them all." The clock demon smiled.

  Images fshed.

  Micah hardened, with no love in her eyes.

  James is alone and quiet.

  Becky was frozen in her own ice like a resting cocoon. The city around her was frozen as well.

  Josh is evil, burning homes around him.

  And I was fighting with my father in the abyss, and I lost, ending up at the hand of the warden.

  I fshed back and fell to my knees, bleeding.

  My breath caught, and my heart raced as if hours had passed.

  "No," Kaysi screamed. "Stop, stop this, no more!"

  Josh was still frozen in midair, and the rest of us were locked in pce.

  "So much potential," he whispered.

  "Stop," Kaysi mouthed, tears streaming down her cheek.

  "You believe time is a path you can navigate," he continued calmly. "It is not. It is a storm, a wild storm you can't control."

  The artificial sky above us began to spin and cycle rapidly—

  Day.

  Evening.

  Night.

  Dawn.

  Over and over.

  Shell City flickered through seasons in seconds.

  Crops blooming, rotting, then blooming again.

  The people even walk by the skeletons lying on the ground, then walk again.

  Micah finally forced words forward. "He's destabilizing the city!"

  "No child," he corrected. "I am revealing it."

  I growled, holding my stomach wound. Pushing inch by inch. "Why us?"

  The demon's smile widened.

  "Because you think you are central."

  He stood.

  The clock hands stopped dead still.

  "You are not."

  He raised one hand.

  And time shattered.

  Fragments of moments exploded outward like gss.

  Josh's eyes widened, and the pain in his eyes increased, along with a familiar burning pain in them.

  I saw dozens of versions of us overpping.

  Fighting, dying, winning, losing, together, alone.

  The demon's voice echoed through every version at once:

  "You are not heroes."

  Everything went white.

  The Silence of the City returned.

  Josh stumbled forward and hit the ground.

  Becky colpsed beside him.

  Micah gasped.

  James grabbed the railing.

  I caught myself before I fell again.

  The ptform was intact.

  Kaysi, the sky, the city—everything was back to normal as if nothing had happened.

  Except—

  Every clock in the farming district was wrong.

  All of them were off at different times and speeds.

  Josh pushed himself up slowly. "Please tell me that was a group hallucination. Like, did we eat something that made us all trip?

  "No," I whispered.

  I gnced at Kaysi's bracelet, still with the crack running through it.

  "Crap, that means he is still here."

  The demon's voice drifted faintly in the air.

  Not from anywhere but from everywhere, as if many speakers were projecting his voice.

  "Your time stops now."

  The wind returned as the city breathed.

  But something had shifted.

  Time wasn't stable around us anymore.

  And we had just been marked.