Elias lived in a town where nobody ever asked the time; they simply knew. His shop was filled with ornate clocks, each a perfect replica of the last. They were beautiful, but none were ever sold. They were merely the husks.
The truth was hidden beneath the floorboards, where the real mechanism ticked. It wasn't metal cogs and springs, but the slow, rhythmic beat of a single, captured heart—the heart of the town itself. Elias maintained it with drops of his own blood.
One rain-slicked Tuesday, a young stranger—a woman with eyes like unsettled storm clouds—walked in, ignoring the ticking multitude of clocks. She put a hand on a dusty mantelpiece clock.
"This one is fast by exactly one minute," she stated, her voice quiet.
Elias froze, his blood running cold. Only an outsider could perceive such an error. Only a threat would point it out.
She smiled, a chilling glint in her eye. "My father was the last clockmaker here. He told me about the basement."
The town outside continued on its seamless, timed schedule, completely unaware that their very existence had just become a negotiation.
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