Salem fell through the void, a storm of fractured clocks, screaming echoes, and flickering lights swirling around him. Gravity didn't exist here—or if it did, it obeyed no rules he could recognize. Every fragment of his life, every skipped day, every version of himself he had met, flashed past in a dizzying montage.
"Well… this is inconvenient," he muttered, gripping at nothing. His hands closed on empty air, and yet the pressure of reality—or unreality—pressed against him like water.
The voice of the watch sounded, distant but cutting through the chaos:
"Surprise! You fell. Congratulations. Most protagonists trip over the first draft."
Salem groaned. "I'm not a draft, I'm… I—"
The watch cut him off.
"Details, Salem. Details are overrated. Look, you've been tossed into the in-between. That place where time goes to nap, where choices wait for indecisive fools… and yes, it has a sense of humor."
A shimmer of golden light appeared ahead. Threads of glowing temporal energy spun lazily in the void, weaving into arcs and knots. Each thread pulsed, resonating with the fragments of Salem's fractured memories.
"Those… are threads of time?" Salem whispered.
"Yes, yes, and yes," the watch said. "But be careful. Some threads are old, brittle, or… already contaminated."
As he reached toward a glowing strand, the void shifted violently. A sudden shockwave hurled him sideways, and he collided with another fragment—a version of himself, older and scarred, with eyes that had seen too many endings.
"Finally!" older Salem growled. "I've been waiting… waiting for someone to fix what I couldn't."
"You… you're me?" Salem asked, mind spinning. "But… how?"
"I'm a you from a branch you never took… yet. Don't ask questions, just follow, or the void will eat us both."
The threads pulsed again, brighter this time, resonating with the older Salem's presence. A staircase formed, floating in midair, made entirely of golden strands. Each step shimmered with potential, pasts, and futures folded into one unstable path.
"Step carefully," older Salem warned. "Every misstep… can unravel more than just you."
Salem hesitated, then placed a foot onto the first strand. It bent, quivering, like a living creature. The staircase extended upward, vanishing into a bright, flickering light. He followed, each step carrying him through flashes of memory: the July revolution streets, children lost in unknown chaos; COVID-era cities, deserted and surreal; glimpses of 1971, a world screaming with war and hope intertwined.
"I remember this," Salem whispered. "Every skipped day… every wrong choice…"
"Yes," older Salem said. "But remember—what you see isn't a warning. It's a map. Your map."
The void around them pulsed violently. Shadows of unseen watchers flickered at the edge of perception. Faces of his past and future selves appeared and vanished, some pleading, some laughing, some screaming. And through it all, the golden threads held steady, glowing like lifelines.
"This is… time travel?" Salem asked, awe and dread twisting in his chest.
"Exactly," older Salem said. "But it's messy. Chaotic. Dangerous. You've been thrown into the deep end, and now… you swim or sink."
A sudden crack appeared in one of the threads beneath Salem's feet. The strand splintered, and a memory—a skipped day—screamed through the void like broken glass.
"Hold on!" he yelled, clutching at older Salem's arm.
The older version smiled grimly. "This is the fun part. Chaos teaches better than certainty."
As they ascended, a figure appeared ahead, cloaked in shadow, radiating an aura of cold inevitability. The void pulsed in rhythm with its breathing.
"Who… what is that?" Salem asked.
"The observer," the watch whispered. "Not malicious. Not benevolent. Just… bored. And curious about how far you'll break reality this time."
The figure extended a hand, and the golden threads trembled violently. The staircase shuddered, threatening to collapse into infinite nothingness.
"We can't let it touch the threads," older Salem said. "If it does… every possibility you've created, every path you've altered, could be erased."
Salem's heart raced. His hand hovered over the nearest thread. Every choice seemed to hum beneath his fingers, each pulsing with memory, possibility, and consequence.
"Do it," the watch urged. "Touch. Break. Bend. Whatever. It's all part of the fun."
Taking a deep breath, Salem grasped the thread. Time quivered around him. The void shook, shadows screaming, clocks spinning in impossible directions. A flash of light blinded him. When he opened his eyes…
The Carnival of Clocks appeared again, but different—warped, fractured, alive. Ferris wheels floated in the sky, skeletal horses spun in reverse, and the air smelled of ozone, cotton candy, and distant gunpowder.
"Back here?" Salem muttered. "Again?"
"Not again," the watch said. "Different. A new branch. A chance. A choice. Or… a trap. Who knows?"
From the shadows, a tiny hand reached for him: a child, impossibly familiar.
"You're late," the child said. "And everything depends on the next step…"
Salem's stomach dropped. A choice awaited, bigger than any before. He could feel the threads trembling, quivering under the weight of the coming decision.
"And if I choose wrong?" he asked, voice trembling.
"Then…" the shadowed observer's voice rumbled from nowhere, "…the multiverse will notice."
The Ferris wheel creaked, skeletal horses glared, and the shadows whispered:
"One step… one thread… one choice… everything will change."
Salem's hand hovered above the thread. Breath caught in his chest. Time itself waited, holding its pulse for him.
And then—the golden thread snapped.
The void swallowed him once more.
> "This is where it begins," the watch whispered, fading into the darkness. "The real ride."