CHAPTER 28 – When Time Trembles
393 Words
tick… tick… tick…
Ayotunde’s ears rang with the rhythm. Not like a clock. No—deeper, like something ancient measuring time in lifeblood instead of seconds.
The tapestry quivered behind her. What once shimmered with truth and healing now twisted, as if caught in a storm it could no longer hold back.
Kehinde stepped in front of her, instinctively protective. “What is that sound?”
Sàké’s eyes were wide, unblinking. “The beginning of the end. Or… the end of the beginning. Time is trying to correct itself.”
Whispers rose among the Watchers.
“She named the silence…”
“…the Third Thread was never meant to stir…”
“…what if we’re already too late?”
Ayotunde clenched her fists. “Someone tell me. What is the Third Thread?”
Sàké answered, voice trembling. “The First Thread is Life. The Second is Silence. The Third…”
She looked at the cracked tapestry.
“...is Time.”
The ticking stopped.
And in that instant, the Hall shattered.
Not into rubble—but into memories.
Time exploded like glass, and suddenly Ayotunde was everywhere.
—Running through her school festival again, where she first met Kehinde.
—In the shrine of her first vow, the blade trembling in her young hands.
—Watching her father disappear into smoke the day he defied the Keepers.
Each moment happened at once. Time bled into itself.
Kehinde dropped to his knees beside her. “I’m in the past—I’m seeing things I haven’t lived yet.”
Ayotunde reached for him, but her hand passed through his arm.
They were splintering.
Unraveling.
From the heart of the tapestry, a figure emerged.
Not a person. Not Aró.
A woman made of dust and moonlight, her skin painted with broken clock-faces, her eyes endless spirals.
She spoke, and her voice echoed like wind through forgotten tombs.
> “You were not supposed to remember me.”
Ayotunde stared. “Who are you?”
> “I am Ọjọ́.”
> “The one Time forgot.”
Kehinde tried to rise, struggling against the pull of fractured timelines. “You’re the Third Thread?”
> “I was the first. But they buried me beneath Silence. Beneath Life. Beneath lies.”
She extended her hand.
And the moment Ayotunde touched it—
The future shattered.
- Writer
