The gears still ticked.
Lior pressed his hand against the old brass wall of the clocktower, the metal cool and vibrating softly beneath his fingers. It felt alive — like the tower itself had a pulse, a rhythm. A heartbeat made of time.
But that couldn't be possible.
He remembered dreaming it — the spiral staircase, the enormous bell, the mural of stars along the ceiling. It had been gone for weeks. No one in Ravin even knew it had existed.
And yet… here it was.
The sun had not yet risen. The village lay quiet, wrapped in its usual silence, but Lior knew — something had changed.
---
Mira arrived minutes later, out of breath, her coat fluttering behind her like wings. She didn't ask how the tower had returned. She didn't scream or cry or accuse him.
She just said:
"It's started, hasn't it?"
Lior hesitated. "You knew?"
Mira looked away. "I was hoping I was wrong."
There was pain in her voice — like this wasn't the first time she had seen the world begin to break.
He leaned on the railing. "Who was she?"
"Who?"
"The girl in my dream. She looked like me. She said I've created worlds… and that something was following me."
Mira was silent for a long moment.
Then:
"She's one of your echoes."
"My what?"
"You're not just one boy, Lior. You're a… fragment. A piece that remembers what others forget. That girl you saw — she was one of the past yous. Or maybe one of the future ones. I don't even know anymore. But I do know this—"
She stepped closer, voice trembling:
"You're the only one still awake across the timelines. And that means it will come for you."
---
They climbed the tower together, the wooden steps creaking under their weight. The wind whispered through the broken gears, carrying voices that weren't theirs — laughter, whispers, screams, lullabies.
"Do you hear that?" Lior asked.
Mira nodded. "They're from the other worlds. The ones you've dreamed. Pieces that never fully disappeared. This tower… it's like an antenna. Pulling echoes from what's left."
At the top, they found something neither of them expected.
A girl.
She was sitting on the edge of the platform, legs swinging over the abyss, as if waiting for someone. Her hair was red, short, wind-blown. Her eyes were closed.
But she opened them the moment Lior stepped forward.
"You took your time," she said with a smirk. "I've been dead for weeks."
Lior froze. "I don't— Who are you?"
She tilted her head. "Name's Rhéa. I've been looking for you through fourteen deaths. Took long enough."
Mira looked shaken. "You're one of the fallen?"
"Not fallen. Just stubborn." Rhéa stood and dusted off her jacket. "I've seen pieces of you, Lior — across worlds. But this one… this is the last. We're in the final loop."
Lior frowned. "What loop?"
"The dream loop. The cycle of creation and erasure. You dream a world, live in it… then when you fall asleep again, it's erased, and the next begins. Over and over. Each time, the Bleeding One gets closer."
Lior shivered. "The what?"
Mira answered for her, whispering like she was afraid to speak its name.
"The Bleeding One… it's what remains of the first dream. The one you never woke up from. It's not just a creature. It's a broken piece of your soul — the part that wants to end everything. It remembers every world you erased."
"And now it wants me?" Lior said.
"No," Rhéa said, walking past him to the edge. "It wants to become you. To take your place in the final dream — and rewrite it into only silence. No worlds. No people. No more dreaming."
---
Thunder rumbled across a cloudless sky.
The three looked up.
A crack had appeared in the sky above Ravin — thin at first, like a split in glass. Through it, they could see something watching.
Not with eyes.
But with hunger.
Rhéa didn't blink. "It's found us."
Mira gripped Lior's hand.
And for the first time, Lior wasn't afraid of dying.
He was afraid of sleeping.