In the city of Eclipsa, time didn’t flow—it was traded.
The wealthy bought extra hours, stretching their days into languid, golden eternities. The poor sold their minutes just to afford a crust of bread, their lives flickering by in hurried, half-lived instants. And at the center of it all loomed the Tower of Chronos, where the Master of Hours hoarded time in vaults of frozen glass.
The Thief with a Broken Pocket Watch
Lira Vey was the best time-thief in Eclipsa. She didn’t steal from clocks—she stole the clocks themselves. Her coat was lined with stolen seconds, her boots padded with borrowed breath. But her most prized possession was broken: a pocket watch that didn’t tick, given to her by a mother she barely remembered.
One night, she broke into the Tower of Chronos, not for riches, but for answers.
Instead of gold, she found a mechanical sparrow.
It perched on a gear the size of a wagon wheel, its wings whirring softly. When it spoke, its voice was the sound of a winding key.
"You’re late," it said.
The Bird That Remembered the Future
The sparrow wasn’t just a machine—it was a memory keeper, one that had seen all of time’s possible paths. It told Lira a secret: her pocket watch wasn’t broken. It was empty.
"Your mother didn’t abandon you," the sparrow said. "She unwound herself to buy you more time."
Lira’s hands shook. To "unwind" was to erase oneself from time, scattering one’s hours into the wind.
"Why?" she whispered.
The sparrow tilted its head. "Because you’re the only one who can break the Tower."
The Heist Against Time Itself
With the sparrow’s guidance, Lira plotted the impossible:
- Steal the Master’s Key (forged from a stolen century).
- Find the Heart of the Tower (a clock that ticked backward).
- Rewind the first theft of time—the moment Chronos hoarded what should have belonged to everyone.
But the Tower fought back. Staircases spiraled into infinity. Guards made of solidified seconds moved faster than thought. And the Master of Hours himself, a man with no face—just a shifting mask of hands—waited at the top.
The Choice at the End of Time
When Lira reached the Heart, she found not a clock, but a mirror.
Her reflection held the pocket watch. "You can have all the time you want," it whispered. "Just walk away now, and live forever."
The sparrow pecked her ear. "Time isn’t meant to be kept. It’s meant to be given."
Lira smashed the mirror.
The Last Tick
A sound like a thousand sighs filled the Tower. The vaults shattered. Frozen hours melted into the streets, returning to those who’d lost them.
The Master of Hours crumbled into rust.
And Lira’s pocket watch?
It began to tick.
A World That Breathes
In the new Eclipsa, no one sold time anymore. Clocks still ticked, but now they belonged to everyone equally.
Lira kept the sparrow on her shoulder, though it mostly scolded her for sleeping in.
And sometimes, in the quietest hour of dawn, her watch would chime—a sound like a mother’s laughter, drifting back from where time had hidden it.