Ethan remained beside his bed long after the alarm clock had ceased its inexplicable performance, regarding the three inscriptions upon his walls with an attention entirely different from that of the previous morning. Yesterday, he had examined them as mysteries requiring explanation; now he regarded them as evidence. The distinction was neither comforting nor insignificant. Mysteries permitted skepticism, coincidences, and the reassuring possibility that some overlooked circumstance might eventually restore ordinary logic. Evidence demanded acceptance, and acceptance required Ethan to acknowledge a proposition so thoroughly incompatible with everything he understood about existence that his mind instinctively resisted it.
The morning had happened before.
He remembered his mother standing in the kitchen with an earring in one hand and coffee in the other. He remembered the strangely altered photograph upon the refrigerator, Noah’s sarcastic observations during their walk toward school, and the unknown girl waiting beneath the clock tower. He remembered the impossible stillness of the chemistry classroom and Mrs. Whitaker’s papers scattering across the cafeteria floor moments before the carton of chocolate milk descended after them. Most vividly, however, he remembered standing within the darkened town square while every clock in Evermore proclaimed midnight and the mysterious girl shouted desperately for him not to allow the day to end.
Then he had awakened here.
Not on the following morning, but inside the same one.
“Ethan!”
His mother’s voice ascended from downstairs.
“You’re going to be late!”
He closed his eyes.
The words were identical.
Not approximately similar, nor merely the predictable observation of a mother whose son frequently underestimated the amount of time required to prepare for school. Her inflection, impatience, and precise emphasis upon late corresponded perfectly with his recollection.
Ethan approached the bedroom door but stopped before opening it.
“Breakfast is getting cold!” his mother called.
An unpleasant sensation settled within his stomach.
Yesterday she had said precisely the same thing.
Ethan looked toward the first inscription.
DON’T LET TODAY END.
Someone had known the day would repeat.
More disturbingly, that person appeared to have been Ethan himself.
He dressed hurriedly, although his thoughts moved with considerably greater speed than his hands. If the repetition extended beyond superficial circumstances, then his mother should already be standing beside the kitchen counter. The toast would occupy the same plate. Her handbag would rest beside the refrigerator. She would announce the existence of breakfast before criticizing him for staring.
The possibility seemed absurd.
Ethan descended the staircase.
Rachel Cole stood in the kitchen with a coffee mug in one hand and an earring in the other.
“Toast.”
Ethan stopped.
His mother glanced toward him.
“Good morning.”
He said nothing.
“Your toast is getting cold.”
Still, he remained silent.
Rachel attempted to fasten the earring, missed, and frowned at him.
“What?”
Ethan felt the skin along his arms tighten.
“Nothing.”
“You’re staring at me.”
“I’m looking at you.”
“There’s a difference?”
Yesterday, Ethan had replied that there was.
The conversation had changed.
Only slightly, but undeniably.
A sudden, almost disproportionate relief passed through him.
If events could change, then perhaps the repetition was not absolute. Perhaps he was not trapped inside an immutable recreation of the previous day but something more complicated, a circumstance in which familiar events remained susceptible to alteration.
His mother narrowed her eyes.
“Did you sleep?”
Ethan pulled out the chair and sat.
“I’m not certain.”
“That is a concerning answer.”
“You said something different yesterday.”
Rachel stopped adjusting her earring.
“What?”
Ethan immediately regretted speaking.
“Nothing.”
“No, you said I said something different yesterday.”
“I was thinking aloud.”
“About what?”
He considered explaining everything and dismissed the possibility almost immediately. The previous morning, his mother had regarded mysterious writing as concerning but explicable. Ethan doubted that informing her she had already experienced this conversation would improve matters.
“Do you remember what we did yesterday?”
Rachel stared at him.
“I went to work. You went to school.”
“No. I mean, do you remember this morning?”
“This morning is currently happening.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
Ethan ignored the remark.
“What date is it?”
His mother lowered the coffee mug.
“September eighteenth.”
He had known the answer.
Hearing it nevertheless disturbed him.
“What date was yesterday?”
“September seventeenth.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
Rachel’s expression changed.
“Ethan.”
“Yesterday was September eighteenth.”
“Unless someone has dramatically revised the calendar overnight, I assure you it wasn’t.”
Ethan removed his phone from his pocket.
SEPTEMBER 18.
He turned the screen toward her.
“See?”
“Yes. Today is September eighteenth.”
“Yesterday was too.”
Rachel regarded him with sufficient concern that Ethan anticipated the possibility of being transported to the hospital where she worked.
“Are you feeling ill?”
“No.”
“Headache?”
“No.”
“Dizziness?”
“Mom, I’m fine.”
“You’ve spent the last two minutes arguing with the calendar.”
“That sounds considerably worse when you describe it.”
“It was already concerning.”
Ethan looked toward the refrigerator.
The photograph remained there.
Three people beside Lake Monroe.
His father on one side.
His mother on the other.
The unexplained absence between them.
“Did we always have that photograph?”
Rachel followed his gaze.
For a moment, she seemed confused.
Then she approached the refrigerator.
“I suppose so.”
“You asked me that yesterday.”
His mother looked at him.
“Ethan, you need to stop saying that.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re beginning to frighten me.”
The sincerity of her answer silenced him.
Rachel removed the photograph and examined it, precisely as she had done during the previous morning. Ethan watched her expression carefully, searching for the fleeting uncertainty he remembered.
It appeared.
A slight contraction of her brow.
A momentary hesitation.
Then nothing.
“We look ridiculous,” she said.
Ethan’s heartbeat accelerated.
Yesterday she had said those exact words.
“Where was it taken?”
“Lake Monroe.”
“When?”
“Five years ago, I think.”
“Who came with us?”
His mother lowered the photograph.
“Why are you asking me these questions again?”
Ethan became motionless.
“Again?”
Rachel frowned.
“What?”
“You said again.”
“I meant that you’re asking too many questions.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Ethan.”
“You said I was asking these questions again.”
“I misspoke.”
“Did you?”
His mother returned the photograph to the refrigerator with greater force than necessary.
“I have a meeting, and you have school. Whatever peculiar mood you’re experiencing can wait until this evening.”
She collected her handbag.
Ethan watched her approach the door.
In another moment, she would remember the refrigerator repairman.
Yesterday she had mentioned him immediately before leaving.
Rachel opened the door.
“Mom.”
She glanced back.
“Yes?”
Ethan waited.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
She shook her head.
“I love you.”
“Love you too.”
The door closed.
Ethan remained seated.
She had forgotten the repairman.
The day was repeating.
But not perfectly.
Something had changed.
Ethan spent the next eleven minutes conducting experiments.
The first involved the toaster.
Yesterday, he had left his plate beside the sink before departing for school. Today, he deliberately placed it inside the refrigerator. The action was ridiculous, but Ethan needed something tangible, an alteration sufficiently peculiar that he could not later attribute it to uncertain recollection.
The second experiment involved his mathematics assignment. He wrote a sentence across the upper margin:
IF THIS DISAPPEARS TOMORROW, THE DAY RESET AGAIN.
After reconsidering, he added:
AND YOU SHOULD PROBABLY START PANICKING.
The second sentence sounded more like Noah than himself, but the circumstances justified a degree of informality.
His third experiment concerned memory.
Ethan retrieved the spiral notebook from his desk and opened to an unused page.
September 18 — Second Time
He hesitated before writing second. The mysterious inscriptions suggested previous repetitions he could no longer remember. The girl’s words in the corridor had been explicit.
YOU FORGOT AGAIN.
Again, implied recurrence.
Again, implied failure.
Ethan continued writing.
What I remember:
1. The day ended at midnight and immediately began again.
2. Nobody else appears to remember.
3. The girl beneath the clock tower knows me.
4. Time stopped during chemistry.
5. I predicted what happened to Mrs. Whitaker during lunch.
6. Someone is missing from the photograph on the refrigerator.
He stopped.
After several moments, he added another observation.
7. I wrote the messages on my walls, but I do not remember doing it.
Ethan read the list twice.
Seeing the events arranged in his own handwriting produced an unexpected effect. Individually, each occurrence had been bewildering. Collectively, they suggested something considerably more deliberate.
The messages.
The clocks.
The girl.
The forgotten person in the photograph.
The repetition of the day.
These were not isolated disturbances.
They belonged to the same mystery.
Ethan closed the notebook and placed it inside his backpack.
Whatever happened at midnight, he intended to discover whether the notebook survived.
More importantly, he intended to find the girl considerably earlier.
Noah appeared three blocks from Ethan’s house at precisely 7:52.
Ethan had been waiting.
His friend approached with his backpack hanging from one shoulder and the unmistakable expression of someone already irritated by circumstances that had not yet been explained.
“You look terrible.”
Ethan smiled despite himself.
Noah stopped.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Why are you smiling?”
“You said exactly what I thought you would.”
“That’s because you look terrible.”
“You’re about to tell me I look like I spent the night fighting a raccoon.”
Noah stared at him.
Ethan waited.
“That was precisely what I was going to say.”
“I know.”
“How?”
Ethan began walking.
Noah remained where he was.
“Ethan.”
He continued toward the town square.
“Ethan.”
Noah hurried after him.
“How did you know?”
“I need you to do something for me.”
“That depends entirely upon whether it’s illegal.”
“Believe me.”
“That is considerably worse.”
Ethan stopped walking.
Noah’s amusement faded when he saw his expression.
“What happened?”
Ethan contemplated the simplest possible explanation and discovered that none existed.
“I lived through today yesterday.”
Noah stared at him.
Several seconds passed.
“I withdraw my previous question.”
“I’m serious.”
“I know. That’s what makes it disturbing.”
“The same morning happened twice. My mother said nearly the same things. You appeared at the same time. Yesterday, you told me I looked like I had spent the night fighting a raccoon.”
Noah examined him carefully.
“You’re saying you can predict what happens today?”
“Some of it.”
“Prove it.”
Ethan had expected the challenge.
They were approaching the intersection beside the town square. Yesterday, at approximately 8:04, a delivery truck had turned too sharply and nearly struck a bicycle chained beside Peterson’s Pharmacy.
Ethan checked his phone.
8:03.
“In less than a minute, a blue delivery truck will come around that corner. The driver will turn too sharply, hit the curb, and nearly destroy the bicycle outside the pharmacy.”
Noah looked toward the intersection.
Nothing happened.
Thirty seconds passed.
Noah folded his arms.
“Compelling.”
“Wait.”
Another fifteen seconds.
The delivery truck appeared.
It approached the intersection.
Turned.
The right tire struck the curb.
The vehicle lurched toward the sidewalk and stopped inches from the bicycle.
Noah’s expression changed.
Ethan experienced no satisfaction.
“I told you.”
Noah looked from the truck to Ethan.
“You knew that would happen.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“I already saw it.”
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
“Yesterday was September seventeenth.”
“Not for me.”
Noah remained silent.
Ethan continued walking.
After several moments, his friend followed.
“What else happens?”
“Mrs. Whitaker drops her papers during lunch. Someone spills chocolate milk across her shoes. Mr. Aldridge explains catalysts at 11:36.”
“That last prediction seems considerably less impressive.”
“Time stops immediately before he says it.”
Noah stopped again.
“Time does what?”
Ethan looked toward the clock tower.
The girl was already there.
She stood beneath the enormous motionless face, wearing the same dark coat, her attention directed toward the approaching students.
Toward Ethan.
This time, he did not hesitate.
He stepped from the sidewalk.
“Where are you going?” Noah demanded.
“To find her.”
“Find whom?”
Ethan crossed the street.
The girl saw him approaching.
Her expression transformed.
Yesterday, Ethan had interpreted what he saw upon her face as recognition.
Now he understood it more clearly.
It was astonishment.
He was not supposed to approach her yet.
The girl stepped backward.
Ethan quickened his pace.
“Wait!”
She turned.
“Please!”
The clock tower bell rang.
Ethan continued forward.
The girl looked over her shoulder.
For the first time, he saw fear in her expression.
“Ethan, stop.”
He froze.
She knew his name.
Noah reached him moments later, breathing heavily.
“Who are you talking to?”
Ethan glanced toward him.
“What?”
Noah looked across the square.
“There’s nobody there.”
Ethan turned back.
The girl remained beneath the tower.
She was staring directly at him.
Noah could not see her.
The girl slowly raised one finger to her lips.
Then she spoke.
“Not yet.”
Before Ethan could answer, the clock tower bell rang a second time.
The square vanished.
For one incomprehensible instant, Ethan stood somewhere else.
The buildings were different.
Automobiles had disappeared from the streets.
Men wore dark suits and narrow-brimmed hats. Women crossed the square in dresses belonging to another era. The clock tower appeared newer, its stone unweathered and its enormous mechanism functioning.
The girl remained before him.
But she was no longer looking at Ethan.
She was looking toward the clock tower.
A man stood beneath it.
Tall.
Thin.
Watching them.
Then Evermore returned.
Ethan staggered backward.
Noah seized his arm.
“What happened?”
Ethan struggled to answer.
The girl had disappeared.
Beneath the clock tower, however, something remained.
An old newspaper lay upon the pavement.
Ethan approached and retrieved it.
The paper was yellowed with age.
Across the upper margin was a date.
October 18, 1953.
Beneath it, an enormous headline occupied the front page.
LOCAL GIRL MISSING AFTER CLOCK TOWER DISASTER
Ethan stared at the photograph printed beneath the words.
It was her.
The girl he had seen that morning.
The girl who knew his name.
The girl Noah could not see.
According to the newspaper in Ethan’s hands, she had disappeared seventy-three years ago.
For several prolonged moments, Ethan remained incapable of directing his attention anywhere except the deteriorated newspaper trembling between his hands. The paper possessed the brittle fragility of genuine age, its yellowed surface creased along innumerable folds and its printed letters partially obscured by decades of deterioration. Nothing about it resembled a reproduction or some elaborate fabrication manufactured for the purpose of frightening him. Even the odor rising faintly from the pages—that peculiar combination of dust, decaying paper, and accumulated years—suggested an object that had survived considerably longer than either Ethan or Noah had been alive.
Yet the photograph beneath the headline remained unmistakable.
The girl possessed the same solemn eyes, the same dark hair, and the same expression of restrained uncertainty Ethan had observed beneath the clock tower only moments earlier. The photograph appeared to have been taken several years before her disappearance, perhaps for a school function or community announcement, because she faced the camera with the uncomfortable formality of someone unaccustomed to being photographed. Beneath the image, a caption identified her as Clara Vale, seventeen, reported missing following the October 17 clock tower disaster.
Noah leaned closer, his earlier skepticism having surrendered to an apprehension he made no effort to conceal.
“That’s impossible.”
Ethan continued reading.
“Yesterday you thought I was experiencing a nervous breakdown.”
“I’m beginning to miss that explanation.”
“You really can’t see her?”
“See whom?”
“The girl. Clara. She was standing directly beneath the tower.”
Noah glanced toward the empty square before returning his attention to Ethan.
“There was nobody there.”
“She spoke to me.”
“I saw you speaking. I assumed the person you were addressing had disappeared before I arrived.”
“She didn’t disappear. Not immediately.”
Noah’s expression tightened. “What does that mean?”
Ethan hesitated. Describing the momentary transformation of Evermore seemed considerably more difficult than describing the repetition of the day itself. The experience had lasted no more than several seconds, yet the memory possessed an extraordinary clarity. He remembered the unfamiliar automobiles—or rather, the absence of modern automobiles—the antiquated clothing of pedestrians, the restored appearance of the clock tower, and the unknown man standing beneath it.
“I saw the town as it used to be.”
Noah stared at him.
“Could you elaborate before my imagination makes that statement considerably worse?”
“For a moment, everything changed. The buildings looked newer. The people were dressed differently. There were no modern cars, and the clock tower was working.”
“What year?”
“I don’t know.”
Noah pointed toward the newspaper.
“Would 1953 be an unreasonable suggestion?”
Ethan looked again at Clara’s photograph.
“No.”
The possibility produced another question.
Why had Clara shown him the past?
Assuming she had been responsible.
Assuming any of his conclusions possessed the slightest connection to reality.
He folded the newspaper carefully and placed it inside his backpack.
Noah watched him.
“You’re keeping it?”
“It’s evidence.”
“It’s seventy-three years old.”
“Exactly.”
“That wasn’t an argument in favor of putting it beside your chemistry homework.”
Ethan secured the backpack.
“If tomorrow happens again, I need to know whether this survives.”
Noah’s expression changed at the word tomorrow.
“You think the day is going to repeat again?”
“I don’t know.”
“But you think it might.”
“The message says not to let today end.”
Noah considered this before glancing toward the motionless clock tower.
“What happens if it does?”
Ethan remembered the violent trembling of the square, the extinguished streetlamps, and Clara running toward him as midnight arrived.
“I wake up.”
“That doesn’t sound particularly catastrophic.”
“It does when you’re supposed to wake up the following day.”
For once, Noah offered no humorous response.
Together, they continued toward school.
Ethan approached the remainder of the morning differently than he had during the previous cycle. Rather than allowing events to carry him toward familiar outcomes, he interfered whenever possible, motivated partly by curiosity and partly by an increasingly urgent need to determine the limitations of whatever phenomenon had imprisoned Evermore within September eighteenth.
During mathematics, he deliberately answered a question incorrectly despite remembering the correct response from the previous day. The teacher corrected him, the lesson continued, and nothing unusual occurred.
During history, Ethan dropped his textbook several minutes before another student had accidentally knocked it from his desk during the preceding cycle. The anticipated collision never happened.
These alterations were insignificant, yet their implications were considerable.
The day repeated its circumstances, not its exact events.
People possessed no recollection of previous cycles, but their decisions could be influenced. The future remained changeable.
That realization provided Ethan with the first genuine measure of encouragement he had experienced since awakening.
If the future could change, then perhaps midnight could be prevented.
The optimism survived until chemistry.
At 11:35, Ethan watched the clock.
Noah, seated across the room, had insisted upon attending his own class rather than accompanying Ethan as an observer, although he had extracted a promise that Ethan would immediately report any recurrence of the previous day’s temporal interruption.
11:36 arrived.
Mr. Aldridge continued speaking.
Nothing happened.
Ethan waited.
The teacher turned toward the whiteboard.
The clock advanced.
11:37.
A profound relief moved through Ethan.
He had changed something.
Perhaps approaching Clara earlier had altered the sequence of events. Perhaps the newspaper had replaced the interruption. Whatever the explanation, the day was no longer following its previous progression.
Then every student in the classroom vanished.
Ethan’s breath caught.
One moment, twenty-four students had occupied their desks; the next, the chairs stood empty.
Mr. Aldridge disappeared.
The classroom door remained closed.
Books, backpacks, and unfinished assignments remained exactly where their owners had abandoned them, although no movement or sound indicated where those owners had gone.
Ethan rose cautiously.
“Not again.”
The clock stopped.
11:37.
A voice emerged from behind him.
“You shouldn’t have found me this early.”
Ethan turned.
Clara stood beside the window.
For the first time, he saw her clearly enough to notice details previously concealed by distance. Her dark hair descended beyond her shoulders, and although her features possessed the unmistakable youthfulness of seventeen, her expression carried an exhaustion that seemed profoundly incompatible with her age. There was something else within her eyes as well, something Ethan had observed in adults who had endured tragedies they no longer possessed the strength to explain.
“You’re Clara Vale.”
She became motionless.
Ethan retrieved the newspaper from his backpack.
“I found this.”
Clara stared at it.
“Where?”
“Beneath the clock tower.”
“I didn’t leave that for you.”
“Then who did?”
Her attention shifted toward the classroom clock.
“We don’t have time.”
“That seems ironic considering everyone has disappeared.”
“They haven’t disappeared.”
Ethan glanced toward the empty desks.
“I’m willing to debate that.”
“They’re still here. You’ve moved somewhere else.”
“Where?”
Clara hesitated.
“Between moments.”
The phrase was sufficiently peculiar that Ethan required several seconds to consider it.
“What does that mean?”
“It means you shouldn’t be able to see me.”
“Noah can’t.”
“I know.”
“You know Noah?”
Clara looked at him with an expression Ethan could not interpret.
“I know considerably more than you remember.”
The words disturbed him.
“Why does everyone keep saying I forgot something?”
“Because you did.”
“What?”
Clara turned away.
Ethan stepped toward her.
“No. You don’t get to appear beneath the clock tower, speak to me through frozen classrooms, leave messages—”
“I didn’t write those messages.”
“I know. I did.”
Clara’s expression revealed genuine surprise.
“You figured that out?”
“They’re in my handwriting.”
“You didn’t figure it out last time.”
Ethan stared at her.
“Last time?”
Clara closed her eyes.
The exhaustion in her expression deepened.
“I shouldn’t have said that.”
“How many times has this happened?”
She did not answer.
“How many times, Clara?”
The sound of his voice speaking her name affected her unexpectedly. She looked toward him, and for one fleeting instant the distance within her expression disappeared.
“You remembered my name.”
“It was printed beneath your photograph.”
The moment vanished.
“Of course.”
Ethan felt strangely guilty, although he could not have explained why.
“How many times has the day repeated?”
“I don’t know anymore.”
The answer was considerably worse than any number Ethan had anticipated.
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
“I stopped counting.”
“When?”
“After the first thousand.”
Ethan said nothing.
The empty classroom seemed to contract around him.
“That isn’t possible.”
Clara gave a humorless smile.
“You’re standing inside a moment that doesn’t exist, speaking to a girl who disappeared seventy-three years ago, and that is where you’ve decided to establish the boundary of possibility?”
Ethan could not argue.
“If the day has repeated thousands of times, why don’t I remember?”
Clara looked toward him.
“Because you always forget.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“You said you know more than I remember.”
“That doesn’t mean I know everything.”
“Then tell me what you do know.”
Clara walked toward the window.
Outside, the courtyard remained deserted and motionless.
“Evermore is disappearing.”
Ethan thought of the photograph.
“The missing person.”
Clara turned sharply.
“What missing person?”
“There’s someone gone from one of my family photographs. My mother doesn’t remember them.”
Clara’s expression changed.
Not confusion.
Fear.
“What?”
“Something wrong?”
“How large was the empty space?”
“What difference does that make?”
“Ethan.”
Her urgency silenced him.
“Large enough for a person.”
“Do you remember who?”
“No.”
Clara looked toward the clock.
The second hand trembled.
“What is it?”
“It’s happening faster.”
“What is?”
Clara approached him.
“Listen carefully. When the day begins again, Evermore loses something.”
“What do you mean, loses?”
“A building. A photograph. A street. Sometimes a memory.”
Ethan remembered the inexplicable absence beside his mother.
“And people?”
Clara did not answer.
“Can it erase people?”
Her silence provided the answer.
Ethan felt the coldness beneath his ribs return.
“Who is missing from my photograph?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not.”
“You looked terrified.”
“Because this shouldn’t be happening yet.”
“Yet?”
Clara looked away.
Ethan stepped closer.
“You keep talking as though you know what happens next.”
“I know what happened before.”
“That’s the same thing if the day keeps repeating.”
“No.” Her voice became unexpectedly sharp. “It isn’t.”
The clock resumed ticking.
Clara looked toward it.
“You have to go.”
“I’m not leaving until you explain.”
“You don’t have a choice.”
The classroom began trembling.
The vanished students appeared momentarily, translucent figures occupying their desks before disappearing again.
Ethan looked around.
“What’s happening?”
“You’re being pulled back.”
“Where can I find you?”
Clara hesitated.
“Beneath the library.”
“What?”
“Tomorrow.”
“There is no tomorrow.”
Something resembling sadness crossed her face.
“Exactly.”
The classroom returned.
Twenty-four students reappeared.
Mr. Aldridge continued speaking.
Ethan stood beside the window.
Everyone looked toward him.
The teacher sighed.
“Mr. Cole, is standing during my lectures becoming a personal tradition?”
Ethan barely heard him.
Clara had disappeared.
The clock displayed 11:37.
Noah believed him considerably faster this time.
Ethan suspected the seventy-three-year-old newspaper contributed substantially to his credibility.
They spent lunch examining the document and searching the internet for information concerning Clara Vale. The school’s unreliable wireless connection complicated the investigation, but eventually Noah discovered a digitized archive belonging to the Evermore Chronicle.
“There.”
Ethan leaned closer.
The headline appeared on the screen.
LOCAL GIRL REMAINS MISSING FOLLOWING CLOCK TOWER FIRE
Noah opened the article.
Clara Vale, seventeen, had disappeared during the catastrophe of October 17, 1953. Witnesses reported seeing her enter the clock tower shortly before the fire began.
She never emerged.
No remains were discovered.
The article mentioned one additional person.
Dr. Elias Cole, local inventor and engineer, is believed to have perished during the disaster.
Ethan stared at the name.
Noah noticed.
“Cole.”
“I see it.”
“Relative?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’ve never heard of him?”
“No.”
Noah continued reading.
Dr. Elias Cole had conducted private experiments within a laboratory beneath the clock tower. The nature of his research remained unknown.
Ethan felt increasingly uneasy.
“Search the name.”
Noah did.
Very little appeared.
One archived photograph showed a tall, thin man standing outside the clock tower.
Ethan became motionless.
“What?”
“I saw him.”
“When?”
“This morning. When the square changed.”
“The man beneath the tower?”
Ethan nodded.
Noah looked again at the photograph.
According to the caption, Elias Cole had died seventy-three years earlier.
Clara had disappeared the same night.
Both were somehow connected to the clock tower.
And Ethan shared Elias’s surname.
Noah leaned back.
“I’m beginning to dislike this mystery.”
“You were hoping for a supernatural explanation yesterday.”
“I’ve reconsidered.”
Ethan closed the computer.
“Clara told me to go beneath the library.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow.”
Noah stared at him.
“You’re aware of the obvious problem.”
“Yes.”
“There is no tomorrow.”
“That’s what she said.”
Noah became silent.
Then Ethan remembered something.
The cafeteria.
Mrs. Whitaker.
He looked across the room.
The teacher entered carrying her papers.
“Watch.”
The sophomore stepped backward.
Ethan rose.
Before the collision occurred, he intercepted Mrs. Whitaker.
“Careful.”
She stopped.
The student passed behind her without incident.
The chocolate milk remained upon the table.
Noah watched.
“You changed it.”
Ethan returned to his seat.
“Yes.”
The significance settled between them.
The day repeated.
But its events were not predetermined.
Noah looked toward him.
“If you can change what happens, maybe you can stop midnight.”
Ethan thought of Clara.
Thousands of repetitions.
Thousands of failures.
“I don’t think I’m the first person to have that idea.”
At 11:57 that evening, Ethan stood within the town square.
Noah stood beside him.
“You’re certain this is a good idea?”
“No.”
“Excellent. I appreciate consistency.”
Ethan watched the clock tower.
Clara had not appeared.
11:58.
Noah checked his phone.
“What happens exactly?”
“Everything starts ringing.”
“That seems manageable.”
“Then reality collapses.”
“Less manageable.”
11:59.
The first bell rang.
Noah flinched.
“You heard that?”
“Yes.”
Ethan looked at him.
Yesterday, Noah had not heard the bell.
Something had changed.
The second bell sounded.
The buildings surrounding the square flickered.
For an instant, the pharmacy disappeared.
Then it returned.
Noah stared.
“Ethan.”
“I see it.”
The bakery vanished.
Another building appeared in its place, older and unfamiliar.
Then the bakery returned.
The pavement trembled.
Every clock began ringing.
Ethan looked toward the tower.
Clara stood beneath it.
This time, Noah saw her.
“Is that—”
“Yes.”
Clara looked at Ethan.
Her expression contained profound sadness.
“You found me sooner.”
Ethan approached.
“You told me to meet you beneath the library tomorrow.”
“I did.”
“How am I supposed to do that?”
Clara looked toward the clock.
“Remember.”
“Remember what?”
“Anything.”
The minute hand advanced.
Midnight approached.
Clara stepped closer.
“Every time you wake up, write something down.”
“I already did.”
Her eyes widened.
“What?”
“I started a notebook.”
For the first time, Clara smiled.
It was a small expression, fleeting and astonished, but it transformed her face.
“You’re learning faster this time.”
Ethan felt the familiar frustration return.
“You keep saying things like that.”
“I know.”
“Tell me what happened before.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because every time I tell you too much, you disappear.”
Ethan became motionless.
“What?”
The final bell began.
Clara looked toward him.
“Tomorrow, go to the library.”
The world fractured.
Noah shouted something Ethan could not hear.
Ethan reached toward Clara.
“Wait!”
She extended her hand.
Their fingers almost touched.
Midnight arrived.
Ethan awakened.
Morning sunlight entered through the curtains.
The messages remained upon the walls.
His alarm clock displayed 7:13.
Ethan immediately reached for his backpack.
The notebook was inside.
He opened it.
Every page was blank.
The newspaper had disappeared.
His written observations were gone.
Everything had reset.
Everything except Ethan.
Then he noticed something written upon his hand.
The ink was faint.
Nearly erased.
Two words remained.
BENEATH LIBRARY.
Ethan stared at them.
For the first time, something besides his memory had survived midnight.