The Girl Who Borrowed Time

The clock tower towered above the night-time sky like a skeletal hand snatching at it. With ragged breath, Ivy pulled me through the overgrown cemetery gates. She growled, "He's close." "Check the remaining time on the watch."

Its gears hummed softly as I fumbled with it. There were no numbers on the face; only a single needle trembled between two symbols: a hollow eye and a serpent swallowing its tail. "What is meant by this?"

"Time is borrowed by the serpent." What happens when we run out is the eye. Footsteps crushed gravel behind us as she pulled me behind a collapsing tomb. With a blade unsheathed in his gloved hand, the Chrono-Warden's silhouette sliced through the mist.

"What is his desire?" I muttered.

The watch serves as more than just a tool. "That's a soul," Ivy remarked. "Every rewind robs someone of a piece of their life. He is here to collect my debt.

"You failed to inform me that it was cursed—"

"You believe I had an option?" Her voice broke. I worked as a nurse three months prior. Then, since he tampered with time, my brother disappeared—poor, wiped out of every picture, every memory. To get him back, I took this watch. Rather, I discovered you.

The Warden stopped and cocked his head, seemingly to listen to the wind. Ivy put a key in my hand. The mechanism of the tower is a time anchor. To reset the loop, wind the watch within. However, just once.

"Why me?"

"Because no one has ever outsmarted him except you." There was a glimmer of shame in her eyes. "Your accident wasn't a car accident. A reset occurred.

The Warden lunged before I could say anything. Ivy pushed me in the direction of the tower. "Go!"

My weight caused the spiral staircase to moan. Metal clashed behind me, and Ivy's cry echoed before cutting off. I didn't turn around.

A sickening green light surged through the clockwork chamber. Wagon-sized gears grinded like broken bones as they spun in reverse. I pressed the key into the pedestal in the middle. The needle on the watch whirled crazily.

Through the darkness came a slithering voice. "Elara, she lied to you."

Ivy's lifeless body was draped over the Warden's shoulder as he stood in the doorway. "She doesn't own this watch. It's yours. You constructed it. The fracture was caused by *you*. He threw a picture of myself when I was younger, standing next to a lab bench covered in clockwork, at my feet.

He declared, "The accident was no accident." "You attempted to hide your own demise. Ivy's brother lost his life repairing your error. She is now using you to complete the task he began.

The watch shook in my grasp. Tick, tick, tick.

The Warden remarked, "Wind it, and you'll forget everything." The same as previously. Otherwise, I'll let her live if you give it to me.

Ivy's voice was a broken thread as she stirred. "Elara, don't have faith in—"

The Warden clamped a hand over her throat to quiet her.

Selection:

A) Turn the watch on. Time can be reset, but memories are lost.

B) Toss the timepiece. Save Ivy, but allow the chronology to be consumed by the fracture.

Cliffhanger:

The needle comes to a standstill.

The serpent.

The eye.

Tick.

What comes next? For Part III, follow #TheGirlWhoBorrowedTime.