The peace lasted one month.
Marcus stood at the threshold of the clock tower, watching the threads of connection pulse with steady golden light. The bridge was strong. The echoes were healed. The test was passed. Everything was as it should be.
But something was wrong.
It started with the echoes. The ones that had been healed, accepted, honored. They began to fade. Not violently, not dramatically. Just a slow, subtle dimming, like a candle burning down to its last flicker.
Marcus tried to ignore it at first, telling himself it was just the natural flow of the connection. But the fading continued, spreading from the echoes to the threads, from the threads to the bridge itself.
Anna noticed it too. She arrived at the clock tower one evening, her face pale, her eyes hollow.
"The bridge
