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In a forgotten town hidden between two dying rivers, there was a shop that never opened.
People walked past it every day—a crooked wooden sign that read “E. Solace – Timepieces & Oddities”—but no one had ever seen the door swing open, or a light flicker inside.
Until one rainy evening, seventeen-year-old Aria stepped inside.
She hadn’t meant to. She was chasing her runaway cat, Lantern, who bolted through the town square like something had terrified him. He darted right into the clockmaker’s door.
Which was unlocked.
Inside, time stood still.
Literally.
Dozens—no, hundreds—of clocks lined the walls, hanging from the ceilings, stacked in dusty corners. All frozen at the exact same time:
3:33.
The air smelled like cinnamon and rust. The cat had vanished. And in the center of the shop stood an enormous grandfather clock, carved from a tree that no longer exists, ticking once every minute.
As Aria stepped closer, she saw something terrifying:
Her own name, etched into the wood.
> “ARIA ELEANOR LYRE – 3:33 PM – FINAL RESET.”
Before she could even scream, the clock chimed once.
And the world shifted.
The walls turned into trees.
The ceiling melted into clouds.
And the floor beneath her became a garden of clocks, blooming like flowers.
Each one had a name. Each one had a time.
And every time a clock stopped ticking, something… vanished.
A memory.
A voice.
A person.
A boy appeared beside her—tall, silver eyes, hair like falling ash. He said his name was Elian Solace.
> “Welcome to the Garden of Lost Time,” he whispered. “You weren’t supposed to see this.”
But Aria had always felt like time bent around her—déjà vu, strange dreams, memories of places she’d never been. Now she knew why.
She was one of them.
A Timekeeper.
Chosen to guard the lost seconds of forgotten people. Every name on a clock? Someone erased from time. Not dead. Just unremembered.
But someone—or something—was stealing time.
Ripping out names. Breaking clocks.
And Aria’s was next.
Together, she and Elian dived into a world between seconds. They chased shadows made of ticking echoes. They visited memory libraries. They spoke to ravens that remembered the past and butterflies that knew the future.
And at the heart of it all… they found The Broken Hour—a cursed clock, splintered by betrayal, locked in the Garden’s roots.
Aria had the choice:
Fix it… and forget who she is.
Or break it… and remember everything the world wanted to erase.
She chose the latter.
Now, no one in the town remembers Aria.
But sometimes, when it rains, people hear chimes at 3:33 PM.
They stop. They turn.
And they whisper,
> “I feel like I’ve forgotten something… someone…”
Deep in the hidden garden, a new flower-clock blooms.
And it ticks on.
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