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Cornelius wasn’t just a raftsman; he was an artist of impossibilities. His pieces were n’ bare instruments for measuring the time they bruited it, cajoled it, bent it like molten glass. The people who visited him weren’t ordinary guests either; they were contenders, hopeless souls willing to die with fate in exchange for his liable pages.
One frigid December evening, a woman swept into the shop, her entrance heralded by the tinkling of a tableware bell above the door. She was drenched from the rain, her sanguine cloak coming to her like an alternate skin. Her face was pale, her eyes fierce.
“ Mr. Wren? ” she asked, her voice pulsing but resolute.
Cornelius looked up from his workbench, his magnifying goggles making his eyes look enormous and nonentity- suchlike. He lifted them onto his report, revealing a face lined with age and wisdom.
“ You’re late, ” he said with a boo, though he would not have an appointment with her. “ Time is way kd to the impatient. ”
The woman ignored his id syncrasy and approached the counter, placing a damp parcel wrapped in velvet before him. When she unmasked it, a shattered fund watch shimmered under the lamplight. Its intricate gears and hands lay in disarray, concrete in a single, woeful moment 11at 59 PM.
“ Can you fix it? ” she asked.
Cornelius studied the watch with a mix of admiration and suspicion.
“ This isn’t just any imer. Where did you get it? ”
“ It belonged to my family, ” she replied, her voice breaking. “ He failed at night. This watch stopped the moment his heart did. ”
The clockmaker’s palettes traced the delicate lineations on the watch’s covering. It was a masterpiece, far beyond the tradesman of any mortal hand. The name etched on the reverse made his breath hitch Aeternitas.
“ This watch was not made by me, ” Cornelius muttered, further to himself than to her. “ But whoever drafted it understood the vestments of time better than I ever could. ”
The woman’s eyes filled with rips. “ Please. I’ll pay you anything. Just make it work again. ”
Cornelius ithered. Fixing the watch wouldn't be a simple task. It was n’ just broken; it was cursed, tethered to the final tw kale of the person who formerly held it. To repair it would mean unraveling time itself, inviting chaos to dance upon its fragile vestments.
But commodity in the woman’s despair stirred the clockmaker’s curiosity. “ truly well, ” he said at last. “ But this will bring further than gold. ”
For weeks, Cornelius toiled over the watch. He assembled its pieces, polished its gears, and reconstructed its delicate mechanisms. But the final piece, the fractured heart of the ter, refused to align with the rest. It was as if the watch de ed being made whole.
One night, as he worked under the dim advance of his lights, the air in the ant grew heavy. The ticking of his timekeepers rounded to celebrate, also sstoppedtoaltogetherA presence filled the room, cold and rough. Cornelius turned, and there, standing in the murk was a figure cloaked in black.
“ You tamper with what you do not understand, ” the figure said, its voice echoing as if spoken from a thousand times down.
Cornelius’s hand ended on his tools. “ Who are you? ”
The figure stepped into the light, revealing a face that was both ancient and ageless. “ I am Chronos, the keeper of time. ”
Cornelius’s mouth went dry. He would hear Chronos, the reality of the sanctity of time itself. But to meet him in the meat was a terror he would no way anticipated.
“ You can't fix the Aeternitas, ” Chronos advised. “ It was nine in a way meant to be repaired. ”
“ Why not? ” Cornelius demanded, his fear giving way to defiance. “ This woman deserves a heck. Her family deserves an alternate chance. ”
Chronos’s eyes burned like molten gold. “ Time is not yours to rewrite. The moment you do, the balance will shatter. ”
But Cornelius, stubborn as ever, refused to abandon the task. Still, also perhaps it’s time for someone to make it stronger, “ If time is so fragile. ”
With that, he turned his reverse on the god and roceeded s work. Chronos dissolved, but his warning confederated the air like a shadow.
Ultimately, on a stormy night, Cornelius completed the watch. As he set the final gear into place, the plant was filled with a bedazzling light. The Aeternitas hummed with energy, its hands spinning the day before settling back to 1159 PM.
The woman returned the coming day, her eyes wide with expedient. Cornelius handed her the watch, his expression grave.
“ It’s fixed, ” he said. “ But you must understand this is no ordinary timekeeper. It will not simply tell time; it will give it. ”
She ripped the watch to her sket. “ Thank you. I don’t care about the cost. ”
Cornelius’s warning stopped her as she turned to leave. “ FlFlashbackis time is not a gift; it's a debt. Whatever you take, it will demand repayment. ”
The woman’s name was Isolde, and with the Aeternitas in her possession, she set out to right the wrongs of her history. She rewound the watch to the moment before her family’s death and set up herself standing in his room, seconds before night.
“ Nathaniel! ” she cried, throwing herself at him.
Her family, startled, turned to face her. He looked just as he would on that cataclysmal — immature, vibrant, and alive.
“ Isolde? ” he said, confused. “ What are doing also? ”
But before she could answer, the ti piece struck night, and the room dissolved around her. She set up herself back in the present, the watch in her hand. Nathaniel was alive, but ommodity was wrong. The world felt out.
Time itself had begun to unravel.
As Isolde continued to use the watch, she realized its terrible cost. Each time she altered the history, cracks appeared in reality. People answered from actuality. strStructuresrophied into dust. The sky fractured like broken glass.
Hopeless, she returned to Cornelius, the Aeternitas gripped tightly in her hands.
“ You have to fix this! ” she contended.
Cornelius shook his head. “ I advised you. Time demands repayment. ”
“ also take it back! ” she cried. “ Destroy it! ”
But before Cornelius could answer, the plant was engulfed in darkness. Chronos appeared formerly more, his fury palpable.
“ You have defied the natural order, ” he said. “ Now, you must face the consequences. ”
The god reached for the Aeternitas, but Isolde, driven by a hopeless need to save her family, clung to it. The watch glowed brightly, its energy wisting out of control. Cornelius tried to intermediate, but it was too late.
With a publicizing crack, time itself shattered.
