CHAPTER 20: The Clock That Forgot Time
441 Words
The school clock stopped working.
No one noticed.
Except Czar.
It was stuck at 10:13 AM.
The exact minute he dreamed of her last.
He stared at it all day.
Each second refusing to tick.
Each breath holding something back.
Like the world was waiting.
---
In the library, a dusty book called “Timekeepers” fell from the shelf and cracked open in front of him.
Inside:
“When memory defies the laws of time, the world begins to bleed.”
And someone—no, she—had scribbled in the margins:
“Do not try to fix it. You’ll lose yourself.”
Czar slammed the book shut.
But when he looked again…
the scribble was gone.
---
Then came the whispers.
Not from outside.
From inside his mind.
“Forget her.”
“She never loved you.”
“She was never real.”
They came while walking.
While eating.
While breathing.
But every time he heard them, he clenched his fist and whispered back:
“She was real."
---
Then the dreams stopped.
All at once.
Gone.
He screamed into his pillow. He tore the drawings. Ripped his notebooks.
He forgot how she smelled.
How she laughed.
How her voice felt like sunlight through clouds.
And that was the worst pain of all.
---
So he went to the garden.
Again.
But this time…
The flower was wilting.
Petals fell like ash.
And for the first time, he saw someone else standing there.
Tzare.
Alive.
But cold.
Empty.
He looked up.
“Why are you crying?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Czar answered.
And suddenly—a crack.
A soundless fracture in the air between them.
Reality shimmered.
A wind without wind.
And Czar knew.
Tzare had no memories of her.
He was the price.
A living shell.
Because Diva gave her existence for him.
---
He turned to leave—but the Librarian was there.
Again.
“Too late,” he said.
“What is?”
“The breach is growing. You didn’t forget. So now… you both will pay.”
Czar’s hands started to fade.
Like dust in reverse.
Time was trying to erase him, too.
---
“Wait!” he shouted. “Let me fix this!”
“You can’t,” the Librarian said. “Unless you find the Hourglass of Undoing. But that would require… sacrifice.”
“What kind?”
“Your soul will split.”
“Then split it.”
---
The Librarian’s eyes narrowed.
“You don’t even remember her name, boy. And yet you’d tear yourself apart for her?”
Czar didn’t blink.
“Every time.”
- Writer
