The cold night air rushed in, extinguishing what little warmth remained in the shop. The lanterns flickered violently before going out completely.

The man stood in the doorway.

Only… he wasn’t alone.

Behind him, the shadows moved. Not like regular shadows, cast by the dim light outside—but alive, shifting and twisting, bending in ways they shouldn’t.

Elias’s breath hitched. The bookstore suddenly felt too small, as if the walls were closing in.

The man stepped forward, his coat rustling softly. His eyes gleamed in the dim light.

He smiled. “You’ve seen them, haven’t you?”

Elias swallowed hard. “Seen what?”

The man tilted his head. “The cracks.”

Elias flinched. He knew exactly what the man meant.

The visions weren’t just glimpses of the future. They were fragments of something breaking—splintering across time like glass under pressure.

The man took another step.

“This world is on borrowed time, Elias.”

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Mr. Alder’s grip on the compass tightened. “Enough.”

The man barely acknowledged him. His focus remained on Elias.

“You have a choice,” he said simply. “You can keep running from it. Pretend you never saw the fire before it happened. Ignore the warnings. Ignore the signs.”

He reached into his pocket.

Or at least—he tried to.

His hand glitched.

For a fraction of a second, his fingers vanished, replaced by a blur of motion, as if his entire arm had skipped through time.

Elias’s stomach dropped.

The man exhaled, shaking his hand as if shaking off static. Then he smiled again, as if nothing had happened.

“Or,” he continued, “you can listen.”

Silence.

The watch in Elias’s hand ticked—a single, sharp sound that cut through the quiet.

And suddenly, Elias understood.

The visions weren’t warnings.

They weren’t glimpses of what would happen.

They were glimpses of what was already broken.

Time wasn’t moving forward.

It was unraveling.

The fire. The shadows. The watch with no hands.

It wasn’t about seeing the future.

It was about seeing the fractures before they collapsed.

His eyes snapped back to the man. “You’re stuck, aren’t you?”

The man’s smile didn’t waver. But something behind his eyes shifted—a flicker of something unreadable.

Mr. Alder’s voice was barely above a whisper. “Elias… don’t.”

But Elias took a step forward. His fingers clenched around the watch.

The ticking grew louder.

The man’s form flickered—not fully here, not fully gone.

And Elias finally asked the question that had been haunting him since this all began.

“Who are you?”

The man’s smile faded.

And, for the first time, he looked afraid.

The shadows behind him twisted violently, spiraling upward. The entire bookstore shook, books tumbling from shelves as the air turned thick and heavy.

And just before everything collapsed, the man whispered—

“I am what happens… when you change what was never meant to be changed.”

Then—the world cracked open.