Dawn came reluctantly, as if the sun itself wasn't sure it should bother.

Mist clung to the trees, turning the forest into a world half-born from a dream. Kael woke before the others, his eyes already open when the first pale light touched the camp. Sleep hadn't found him—not with that sound still echoing somewhere behind his thoughts.

Tick.

Even now, he could almost hear it, faint and deliberate, like time trying to remind him it wasn't finished.

He sat up, rubbed his temples, and glanced at the broken Chrono Blade lying next to him. It looked harmless enough now—just a scarred piece of metal that no longer glowed or hummed. But Kael didn't trust silence. Silence, in his experience, was always just the breath before something remembered how to scream.

Eira stirred nearby, blinking herself awake. "You didn't sleep."

Kael gave a tired smile. "You'd think after killing time itself, I'd get a nap."

She sat up, brushing her hair out of her face. "I heard it again last night. The ticking."

"So it wasn't just me."

"No." Her gaze flicked to the Blade. "Do you think it's connected?"

"Everything's connected." Kael stretched, bones popping. "The question is whether it wants our attention or our blood."

Jorah groaned from his bedroll. "If either of you are planning to have a philosophical argument before breakfast, I'm out." He rolled over, grumbling. "Some of us died once already this week."

Kael smirked. "Come on, lazy hero. We're moving out. There's a town a few miles east—if this world even kept the same map."

"Fantastic," Jorah muttered, sitting up. "Maybe they've got coffee. Or a priest who's good at dealing with existential noise."

---

The forest thinned as they walked. The air smelled cleaner than it had in the old world—less burnt, more alive—but there was an odd undercurrent, like a hum you could only feel with your bones.

By midday, the trees gave way to open plains. In the distance, a town sprawled across the horizon—small, peaceful, perfectly ordinary.

Too ordinary.

Eira slowed, frowning. "Do you feel that?"

Kael nodded. The ticking had returned. Faint at first. Then louder. Rhythmic. Each step seemed to fall in time with it.

Tick. Step. Tick. Step.

Jorah shifted uneasily. "That's not in my head, right?"

"Nope." Kael's hand hovered near his sword. "And it's getting louder."

As they entered the outskirts of the town, everything looked… normal. Farmers tending fields. A baker sweeping his storefront. Children laughing by a fountain. Except none of them were actually moving.

They were mid-motion—frozen perfectly. Flour hung in the air above a baker's hand. Water from the fountain arced upward but never fell. The children's laughter echoed in a loop, broken halfway through the sound.

Eira whispered, "Kael…"

"I know." He stepped closer to one of the figures—a woman carrying a basket of apples. The apples hung suspended in the air, each one trembling ever so slightly. When Kael touched the woman's arm, the world shivered.

The ticking grew louder.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Jorah swore under his breath. "I thought you ended this kind of thing."

Kael's eyes darkened. "So did I."

Eira looked around, her voice low. "What if this isn't the same loop? What if it's what came after?"

Kael turned slowly toward her. "A world trying to remember how to exist."

She nodded, eyes wide. "Or one trying to remember him."

Kael froze. "What?"

Eira swallowed. "The moment you shattered the Blade, you erased the loops—but you were their constant. Maybe this world is trying to rebuild itself around the only thing it remembers."

He let out a quiet, humorless laugh. "Me. The world's worst blueprint."

"Don't," she said gently. "Maybe it's not punishment. Maybe it's calling you."

Something in her tone made him meet her gaze. The way she said it wasn't fear—it was faith. Dangerous, misplaced, but real.

The ticking slowed. Once every few seconds now. Like a heartbeat.

Kael realized then that the sound wasn't coming from around them anymore.

It was coming from inside the town's clocktower.

He exhaled slowly. "Alright. Guess we found our next bad idea."

Jorah groaned. "You're not seriously—"

But Kael was already moving, boots echoing on cobblestone that shouldn't have sound. Eira followed without hesitation.

Inside the tower, the air was thick, almost liquid. Dust hung suspended like glitter in syrup. The great pendulum at the center stood still—until Kael stepped past the threshold.

Then it began to move.

Tick.

The vibration rippled through the floor, through their bones.

Eira winced. "Kael…"

"I feel it," he said. "It's not mechanical."

"What is it, then?"

He stared up at the massive gears turning above them. Light flickered between the teeth of time. "It's a heartbeat. The world's heartbeat."

And then—he heard it. A whisper threaded through the ticking. Soft. Familiar.

> "Kael…"

Eira's head snapped up. "Did you—?"

Kael didn't answer. His expression went pale. Because he knew that voice. It wasn't Horizon's. And it wasn't Eira's.

It was his own.

The whisper came again, warped through time.

> "It didn't end, Kael. It never ends."

The clock's hands began to move backward.

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