Chronia

Life was a predictable cycle: work, home, rare meetings with friends. Everything changed with the first accident. Sharp pain, darkness, and then... snap. You were sitting at home again, a few hours before the fateful trip. Deciding not to tempt fate, you stayed home and didn't go anywhere.

Then there was the subway—a train derailed, a roar, screams, and then the same click again. This time, you decided to call a taxi. This went on for months. Every death—from an accident, illness, even a fall down the stairs—set you back, giving you a new chance. You changed routes, canceled meetings, and avoided the slightest risk.

At first, it was salvation. Then a strange feeling arose—as if your soul was slowly being erased, like a pencil sketch. A slight numbness and emotional emptiness. But your mind soon erased this anxiety, too, as an unnecessary detail.

Another death overtook you quietly—in your sleep, from a sudden heart failure. But this time there was no click. You opened your eyes to a space beyond time: countless clock faces hovered around you, their hands moving in different directions, and ahead, in a radiance of golden sand, stood a woman of unearthly beauty. Her eyes held the wisdom of millennia.

"I am the Keeper of Time," came a voice like the quiet ticking of a clockwork mechanism. "I've been waiting for you to finally find yourself here. You've exhausted your chances, child. Each return cost you a piece of your soul, and now you belong to Time."

And you finally realized—there was no salvation for you. There was only a slow, irreversible path to eternity, where not death, but an entirely different fate awaited you.