The Town Where Clocks Don’t Tick

Mira didn't remember walking to the Tower.

She remembered the street before it the lantern that flickered even in daylight, the birds circling overhead, the smell of burnt sugar in the wind. She remembered checking the map, tracing her finger along the path as it began to glow faintly beneath her skin.

Then nothing.

And now here.

Standing before something that shouldn't exist.

The Unclock Tower loomed above her, casting no shadow, even though the sun hung directly overhead. It wasn't made of stone or wood. It was ink and fog and angles that hurt to look at too long. From some perspectives, it had windows. From others, none. The spiral staircase wrapped around the outside like ivy, always twisting upward, never ending.

She could feel it humming in her teeth.

And worse she couldn't hear the ticking anymore. Not even faintly.

There was no time here.

Not stalled.

Absent.

The air was thick and still. Leaves were frozen midair. A puddle no longer rippled, holding a perfect mirror of the sky. A boy on a bicycle, halfway past the Tower, had paused mid pedal. The wheel was still spinning but slower than it should.

She stepped forward.

And suddenly, she was inside.

No door. No transition.

Just darkness. Then light.

Then the Tower.

The interior looked like a memory of a cathedral, if it had been dreamed by someone who had never seen one. Giant arches curved through the space, but they bent in wrong directions. Rooms stretched and shrank, flickering between child sized and infinite. Dust hung in the air, unmoving.

Objects floated everywhere.

A pencil with teeth marks. A cracked tea cup. A single, worn shoe. A bottle of ink. A glass eye.

All of them slowly drifting, like satellites. Forgotten things.

Mira spun in place slowly, trying to make sense of it. The air was thick with static. She saw fragments of herself reflected in shards of floating mirror older, younger, in different clothes.

One version of her had a streak of white in her hair.

Another was crying.

A third looked straight at her and mouthed something Mira couldn't hear.

She turned away quickly.

"Late," a voice said, not behind her, but everywhere.

"No," another replied. "Early. And fraying."

The voices belonged to nothing visible. Just threads of sound.

Then, movement.

From behind a floating clock its hands spinning violently emerged a figure.

Tall. Wrapped in folds of dark cloth, stitched together with ribbon and thread. Their face was hidden beneath a hood made of overlapping watch faces, all blank.

Their voice was layered whispers under whispers.

"You're Mira."

"You people need to stop saying that like it's a problem," she said, clutching the map tighter.

The figure tilted their head. "It's not a problem. It's an echo."

They stepped closer.

"The Unclock Tower doesn't open unless it wants something," the figure said. "And it wants to remember."

"Remember what?"

The figure gestured, and a door opened in the air. Not in the wall. In the air.

Behind it a memory.

Mira's mother. Sitting at a table. Writing in a black leather book. Her face pale. Her hands shaking.

She looked up suddenly right at Mira.

And mouthed: "Don't trust the Velvet Boy."

The door slammed shut.

Mira stumbled backward.

"What was that?"

"A stitch in time," the figure said. "She left it here. As a warning. Or a trap."

"Why did she come here?"

"To forget something. Or someone. Or you."

Mira blinked.

The figure reached into their coat and pulled out something small.

A clock. Black as ink. No numbers. No hands.

Just a single, golden eye that blinked slowly.

"This is yours."

Mira took it. It pulsed against her skin.

"She said to give it to the boy in velvet," the figure added. "When the hour bleeds."

"What does that mean?"

The figure didn't answer. Instead, they turned away, walking into a corridor made of fog. Just before disappearing, they paused.

"He's already looking for you. And you're already running out of time."

The Tower began to shake.

But not like an earthquake.

Like a memory unraveling.

Like the whole place had been a thought Mira wasn't supposed to think.

The mirrors cracked.

The objects fell.

The clocks screamed.

And Mira clutched the blinking eye clock to her chest and shouted, "Take me back!"

A flash.

A crack.

She hit the ground hard.

Gasped.

Looked up.

She was back outside.

The street was moving again. The boy on the bike was gone. The puddle rippled. Time had returned.

But the Tower?

Gone.

Only a smear of soot on the brick wall behind her, and the smell of burning lavender in the air.

Written in delicate, spidery chalk:

"He's already inside the seconds."

Mira stood slowly, heart pounding.

In her pocket, the clock blinked again.

And for the first time…

it ticked.

Once.