The air beneath the hillside smelled of damp ink and sleep.Every step Ha-rin took down the spiral staircase felt like she was descending through layers of someone else's memory.Behind her, the boy's small footsteps echoed in a rhythm eerily close to a ticking clock.
At the bottom waited Han Seo-jin, lantern in hand, the light catching the nervous humor in his eyes.He gestured toward the iron doors ahead."Welcome," he said quietly, "to the place that refuses to forget."
Jae-hyun stepped beside Ha-rin, fingers brushing hers just long enough to steady her.The gesture wasn't loud or dramatic; it was a whisper of reassurance—I'm here. Don't get lost.
The doors groaned open.Rows of shelves stretched endlessly, each filled not with books but glass cylinders, inside which floated fragments of light.Some shimmered like candle flames, others pulsed faintly in rhythm.
Seo-jin's voice dropped. "Echo's first prototypes. Each one is a captured moment—an hour preserved before it was lived."
Ha-rin frowned. "You mean… stolen?"
He nodded. "The scientists believed if they could bottle a perfect hour, they could build eternity. Your parents were part of the team that made it possible."
The words landed between them like a slow explosion.Ha-rin turned to Jae-hyun. "Our parents—together?"
Seo-jin hesitated. "They were the original constants. You two were… the failsafe."
The boy wandered between the shelves, fingers trailing across the glass.Everywhere he touched, the lights brightened, then dimmed again.
Ha-rin followed him carefully. "Hey, don't touch too much, okay? We don't know what—"
The boy turned to her suddenly. His eyes glowed faintly silver."Mom, you said this once."
She froze. "Said what?"
He tilted his head, mimicking her voice perfectly:'Don't touch too much, okay?'
Jae-hyun's breath caught. "He's… replaying you."
Seo-jin whispered, "Echo doesn't mimic—it absorbs. He's remembering through you."
Ha-rin knelt beside the boy, her voice trembling. "Why are you doing that?"
He blinked up at her. "Because you forgot this hour."
A faint humming began—low, rising.The glass cylinders vibrated, lights flickering like heartbeat monitors.
Jae-hyun pulled Ha-rin back. "Seo-jin—what's happening?"
"The archive's waking up," he said grimly. "He triggered a recognition pattern."
Ha-rin stared as images began flickering inside the glass—tiny holograms of the past:
A lab filled with white light.
Her mother at a console, smiling through tears.
A young man—Jae-hyun's father—holding a prototype of the pocket watch.
And then, her own face.Small. Five years old. Laughing as her parents whispered:
"If they forget, time will remember for them."
The image dissolved.
Ha-rin's knees gave way, and Jae-hyun caught her before she fell."I saw them," she whispered. "They built this for us."
He held her tighter, his voice low and rough. "Then we finish what they started—without losing each other this time."
The humming softened. The shelves stilled.Only the boy remained lit, faint silver light threading from his wrist into the air.
Seo-jin exhaled shakily. "He's linking with the core archive. If he stabilizes, we could retrieve everything the system ever stored."
Ha-rin wiped her eyes. "You mean memories."
"Or ghosts," Seo-jin said. "Depends on what you call them."
The boy looked up suddenly. "Mom. Dad."
Both turned.
"There's another one of me," he said quietly. "Sleeping under the clock tower."
Jae-hyun exchanged a look with Seo-jin. "A backup fragment?"
The historian nodded grimly. "The final failsafe. If the main Echo ever broke, the tower's fragment would restart the loop."
Ha-rin's hand found Jae-hyun's without her even thinking. "Then we stop it before it wakes."
Seo-jin lifted his lantern. "You'll need to hurry. The rain's turning again."
As they started back up the stairs, the boy tugged Ha-rin's sleeve."Will you still hold my hand if the other me wakes up?"
She smiled through the ache in her chest. "Every version of you."
He grinned, small and sure. "Then the hours won't get lonely."
At the top of the stairwell, thunder rolled across the valley—twelve deep beats that sounded less like weather and more like a countdown.
Jae-hyun glanced at her. "You ready?"
She took a breath, her voice steady despite the tremor in it. "If time's repeating, at least it picked the right company."
He smiled, brushing a raindrop from her cheek, the touch lingering just long enough to draw warmth back into the gray air."Then let's go wake the past."