Eternally Yours: A Love That Time Couldn't Touch

Rain pattered against the glass dome of the museum’s time exhibition, a soothing rhythm that blended with the hush of visitors' footsteps. Elise wandered between artifacts—dusty clocks, faded letters, broken compasses—pieces of history once held by hands now long gone. She wasn't looking for anything in particular. Or at least, that’s what she told herself.

Then she saw it.

A pocket watch—gold, ornate, and humming softly, though no mechanism moved. Her breath caught. It looked familiar, absurdly so. She reached out instinctively, only to find her hand trembling. The placard read:

"Recovered from the wreckage of the 1887 Westmoor train crash. The owner was never identified. Mysteriously warm to the touch, it continues to tick—though no gears are found inside."

Elise's fingers grazed the glass. A whisper echoed in her mind: Find me.

That night, Elise dreamed of fire. Smoke rose into a violet sky, and people screamed as a train derailed in slow motion. But in the chaos, there was peace. A man stood beside her, tall, with windswept hair and eyes like twilight. He cupped her face gently.

“I’ll find you,” he whispered. “In another life, if I must. Time won't stop me.”

She woke with a start, tears on her cheeks, heart aching like it remembered something her mind couldn't.

Days passed. The dreams continued—glimpses of different lives, different times. In one, she wore a flapper dress and danced in a smoky 1920s speakeasy. In another, she tended a wounded soldier beneath the shattered skies of WWII. But always, he was there.

The same face. The same voice. The same vow.

And always, just before waking, his words reached her:

"Eternally yours."

Elise became obsessed. She returned to the museum daily, studying the watch, even sketching it. She visited historians, questioned curators, read obscure journals. That’s when she discovered the journal of a man named Julian Hart, a scientist from the late 1800s who vanished in the same crash that the pocket watch had survived.

The journal described experiments with time, love, and consciousness. One entry read:

“If love can stretch across miles, might it not stretch across time as well? If I die before I see her again, I pray my soul remembers. I pray she remembers.”

Julian’s portrait startled her—it was the man from her dreams.

The more Elise read, the more everything blurred: memory, dream, reality. She remembered details she’d never learned. She could hum lullabies from centuries ago. She knew what Julian’s lips would feel like on her forehead, though she had never been kissed like that in this life.

One night, alone in her apartment, the watch appeared on her nightstand.

She hadn't taken it. She couldn't have. But there it was—warm, alive, ticking.

A voice echoed: It’s time.

Light swallowed her.

She awoke in a Victorian train compartment, dressed in lace, breath hitching. Across from her sat Julian—older than the portraits, eyes weary but alight with recognition.

“Elise?” he asked cautiously.

She nodded, voice caught in her throat.

“I've waited... every life. I never stopped looking.”

He took her hand. It was trembling, like hers had trembled in the museum. She remembered everything.

The crash.

The promises.

The way time always tore them apart.

“We can’t stop it,” she whispered, tearful. “The crash—it always happens.”

Julian pulled the watch from his vest. “Not this time. I've altered it. A final attempt.”

The watch glowed in his palm. “We’ll wake up together—somewhere else. No more time loops. No more memories lost. But we must jump before the crash.”

Outside, the train began to shake. Steam roared. Screams rose. Reality began to fracture.

Elise squeezed his hand. “Together.”

They kissed as the world around them cracked like glass.

She awoke to sunlight, warm and golden. A modern apartment. Paintings on the wall. A coffee pot hissing softly.

Footsteps approached.

Julian—now Jules—walked in wearing a T-shirt and jeans, holding two mugs.

“You’re awake,” he smiled, handing her a mug. “We did it.”

She blinked, scanning the room. Photos of them lined the shelves. Smiling. Traveling. Living.

“Is this real?” she whispered.

He nodded, gently brushing a tear from her cheek. “No more dreams. No more time tearing us apart.”

She leaned into his touch. “How do you know we’re safe now?”

He pulled the watch from his pocket—now cracked, silent, finally still.

“Because time has nothing left to steal from us.”

And so they lived—not just in one moment, but in all of them.

Bound by fate. Held by heartbeats. Eternally yours