Chapter 9

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Chapter 9: The Hourglass Decision

 

It happened suddenly.

The pocket watch began to hum—its gears spinning on their own. The mechanism was waking. The tether was calling him back.

The sky flickered.

Lights blinked. Time rippled.

Elias had only minutes.

He ran to Ella’s apartment. She opened the door before he could knock, already crying, already knowing.

“You’re leaving.”

He held her. Desperate. Breathless. They didn’t argue with fate. They didn’t beg.

“I will find you again,” she said. “If I knew you once, I’ll know you always.”

Elias pressed the watch into her hand.

“This will remember for both of us.”

Then the light swallowed him.

And he was gone.

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