The Girl Who Sold Time

In the neon-glowing alleys of Zephra, where skyscrapers touched the clouds and time moved like a current no one could escape, lived a girl named Lira. She wore a silver stopwatch around her neck—not old and rusted, but sleek and humming with energy. Its ticks weren’t heard by anyone else, because the seconds inside it weren’t borrowed—they were stolen.

Lira wasn’t born with the ability to manipulate time. She bought it, like everyone else in Zephra bought their enhancements—through deals and secrets. But unlike others, she didn’t pay with credits. She traded in memories. Each freeze of time, each reversal, each slow-motion moment cost a cherished memory. At first, it was simple—her first taste of chocolate, the memory of losing her first tooth, her father's old lullaby. Memories most thought were disposable.

But soon, people noticed. In a world where time was more precious than currency, Lira offered moments. “Freeze a minute. Fix a mistake. For a price.” Her small booth at the edge of the time-market became a sanctuary. A man reversed time to stop a car crash. A woman paused time to say goodbye to her dying mother. Lovers paid to relive their first kiss. Lira delivered—one second at a time.

But with each transaction, her smile grew more hollow. She began forgetting faces she once knew, dreams she once had, places she once loved. Her booth remained, her stopwatch always ticking, but the girl behind the counter was slowly becoming a ghost of herself.

One rainy evening, a boy named Kye arrived. He was quiet, holding a rain-soaked photograph. “I want one second,” he said, his voice barely a whisper. “One second with my sister. Just to hold her hand before the fire took her.”

Lira looked at the photograph—a girl laughing in sunlight, holding a paper star. “What will you pay with?” she asked, as usual.

“My name,” Kye replied. “I’ll forget it. I’ll become someone new. But I’ll have that moment.”

Lira hesitated. Not because it was a strange request, but because she’d never met someone willing to give up the core of who they were, the way she once had. She agreed.

Time froze. Flames turned to still orange sculptures. In the silent world, Kye knelt and held his sister’s hand, tears tracing the edges of a memory that would soon fade. When it ended, he staggered back—relieved and empty.

He looked at Lira. “Have you ever… paused time just for yourself?”

She blinked, unsure. “No.”

“Then what are you saving your last seconds for?”

She didn't answer. For the first time in years, she realized she had none left.

That night, Lira went home and opened the stopwatch. Inside was a glimmering spiral of light—her timebank. And it was nearly drained. She had a few seconds left, maybe enough to relive a forgotten moment or reverse a small mistake. But something in Kye’s question stirred her.

What was she saving it for?

The next morning, the booth was gone.

A year passed. Zephra moved on. New time merchants appeared—cheap imitations, offering illusions instead of true seconds. Kye, now living under a new name, returned to where Lira’s booth had stood. In its place was a mural: a girl standing in a whirlwind of stars, her stopwatch bursting with light. Beneath it, etched in gold:

"Don’t trade away your past. It’s the only thing that proves you lived."

Some say she used her last second to stop time—not for business, but to watch a sunrise one final time. Others believe she rewound her entire life, choosing a path where she never touched time at all.

But the truth is simpler and far more magical.

Lira gave away her last seconds to people who needed them more. A child to see her mother smile again. A soldier to feel peace. A blind girl to see her painting bloom. No one knew how she did it. But in their hearts, they remembered the girl who didn’t just sell time—she gave it meaning.