The Archivist guided Nox through a narrow corridor of floating shelves, each stacked with hourglasses that glowed faintly like caged stars. Some leaked sand. Others spun in reverse. A few were wrapped in chains as if too dangerous to observe.
"This place stores the impossible," the Archivist said. "The hours that should have never occurred. Dreams that became real. Futures that tried to replace their present."
Nox's gaze halted on a shelf where only one object sat:a broken silver gear inside a crystal sphere.The sight stirred a pain behind his eyes, like a memory attempting to surface.
"What is that?" he whispered.
"A remnant," the Archivist replied. "From a time that no longer exists. You're remembering it because…"He paused, studying Nox's unstable Hourglass."Because you were part of that erased world."
Nox's breath tightened. "You're saying I belonged to a different timeline?"
"Not belonged." The Archivist adjusted his glasses. "Originated."
The sphere shuddered. Cracks traced its surface, and a faint ticking echoed in Nox's mind, in perfect sync with his heart.The room tilted. Books warped into spiraling constellations. He staggered, gripping a shelf.
A voice slipped through the ticking.
"You are not supposed to be here."
Nox jerked his head toward the sphere.The voice wasn't heard.It was remembered.
He stepped closer, drawn by a gravity that felt like home.
The Archivist caught his arm."Stop. If you look too long, the erased hour will reclaim you."
"But who am I?" Nox demanded, trembling. "What hour did I come from?"
The Archivist hesitated.Then he answered.
"You were created to replace a catastrophe. To fill a void left by someone who was never meant to vanish." He lowered his voice."A spirit of time once erased. A child born from a star's last breath."
Nox's thoughts spiraled.A person erased so thoroughly that even memories of them were forbidden artifacts.
"And that person is…?"
Before the Archivist could answer, alarms screamed across the vault. Shelves trembled. Hourglasses cracked open, releasing storms of silver sand that swirled like tornados.
The lights extinguished.
A pitch-black shape flickered into existence behind Nox.A silhouette made of torn pages and dripping shadow.
Two bright lights burned where its eyes should be.
The Archivist gasped."A Chronovore… It slipped through the erasure. Run!"
The creature lunged.
Nox didn't have time to think.His cracked Hourglass flared with white light, freezing the sandstorms mid-swirl.The creature halted, suspended… but only for a heartbeat.
The light shattered.
Nox grabbed the Archivist and sprinted toward the exit as shelves crashed behind them. The Chronovore's roar chased them through the collapsing corridor.
Just before the vault door slammed shut, the creature hissed a single word:
"Return."
Then silence.
The Archivist leaned heavily against the sealed door, panting."That thing sensed you. It knows your fracture. It knows your origin."
Nox felt the ticking in his chest again. Louder. Impatient.
"What must I do?" he asked quietly.
The Archivist looked at him with a sorrowful certainty.
"You must find the hour that vanished…and decide whether it should stay gone."