The Whispering Clock

Priya never expected to inherit anything.

So when the lawyer handed her a single envelope after her grandmother’s passing, she was surprised. Inside it was a small brass key and a note:

“It only whispers at midnight. Always listen.”

She didn't know what it meant—until she visited her nani's house one last time.

In the dark, dust-filled living room, stood an enormous grandfather clock. Mahogany wood, golden pendulum, a cracked glass face. It ticked slowly, like it carried the weight of time itself.

She brought it home to her Delhi apartment. She didn’t believe in superstitions. But something about the clock... felt alive.

That first night, out of curiosity—and a little unease—she stayed awake till midnight.

At exactly 12:00 a.m., the ticking stopped.

Then, a whisper.

“Your mother never wanted you.”

Priya’s breath caught. It wasn’t the voice of her grandmother. It was older, deeper, like it came from the wood itself.

The next night:

“Your father was paid to stay.”

Each night, a new truth. Whispers only she could hear.

“You were born to replace someone who died.”
“Your dreams are not your own—they were planted.”

The truths grew darker.

She confronted her mother, but only received silence and a trembling lip. Her questions were answered with locked doors.

Priya began to dig into old papers. Newspaper archives. Medical records. Secret files hidden in drawers she never dared open as a child.

She discovered a fire in their ancestral home—one that occurred in 2004, the year she turned six.

Her memory of that year? Gone.

But the whispers brought it back.

Flashes of a woman screaming. Fire licking the walls. Her grandmother, holding her, whispering something in Sanskrit.

Then the clock.

Standing still while the world burned.


---

One night, the whisper said:

“You were supposed to die. Time was reversed for you.”

Priya dropped the teacup in her hand. The glass shattered, but she didn’t flinch.

She didn’t know who she was anymore.

The next night:

“Your grandmother wasn’t protecting you. She was preparing you.”

Then came a whisper that chilled her spine:

“Tonight, the clock chooses.”


---

Midnight came. She sat in front of the clock, heart pounding.

The ticking stopped.

The pendulum halted.

Silence.

Then—the chime. Not a soft ring, but a deep, echoing cry. Like time itself exhaled.

And then... she remembered everything.

She remembered standing before the fire, her mother screaming at her grandmother. A hidden room. Candles. A ritual to bind memory and time.

Her grandmother had stopped the flow of time—just for five seconds—to save Priya.

And she paid for it with her soul.

The clock was no ordinary object. It was a keeper of broken timelines. A vault of truths too heavy for the world. And it demanded a guardian.

One who could hear it.

One who had died, but lived again.


---

Suddenly, the room was flooded with soft, golden light. Shadows circled her. A wind blew from nowhere.

The hands of the clock spun wildly.

Then… stillness.

On the wall behind her, words had burned themselves into the plaster:

“Time remembers. Do you?”

She walked toward the clock.

Placed her palm on the cold glass.

“I remember everything,” she whispered.

The clock chimed once more.

Her apartment melted away.

She awoke in her grandmother’s house, but it wasn’t crumbling anymore. It was pristine, untouched by time.

She was back in 2004.

But she wasn’t six anymore.

She was the keeper now.