I’m not saying I hate my life, but if I ever woke up to find a reset button, I’d hit it so fast I might sprain my thumb. Take this morning, for example.

  “Connor, are you seriously still in bed?”

  That’s Bree—my girlfriend. The love of my life, if love means the persistent feeling that you’ve made a horrible mistake. She stood in the doorway, her arms crossed over her chest, her face already locked into her signature scowl. Her dark hair was tied back in one of those messy buns that Instagram influencers make look cute, but on her, it just screamed I’m too angry to brush my hair.

  “Yeah, good morning to you, too,” I mumbled, rolling over and pretending I didn’t hear her.

  “Don’t give me that,” she snapped, marching into the room. “You said you’d take the trash out last night, and it’s still sitting there. Do you enjoy making me look like the bad guy all the time?”

  I wanted to point out that no one in the history of bad guys had ever looked at a bag of garbage and gone, This is my moment, but I bit my tongue. Bree had a way of turning every argument into a long, drawn-out battle, and frankly, I wasn’t awake enough for that yet.

  “Sorry,” I said instead, dragging myself out of bed. My voice was flat, even to me, but Bree didn’t seem to notice. Or maybe she just didn’t care.

  Breakfast was the usual symphony of passive-aggressive commentary.

  “Do you have to slurp your coffee like that?”

  “You know, normal people put their dirty dishes in the sink right away.”

  “Don’t forget to drop off my dry cleaning on your way to work. Or are you going to ‘forget’ like last time?”

  I stared at her across the table, watching her poke at her yogurt like it had personally offended her. Once, I’d thought she was beautiful. That was before I realized her favorite hobby was making me feel like I was one wrong move away from becoming a crime scene.

  “Sure, Bree,” I said. “I’ll get right on that.”

  She didn’t even look up, just waved her spoon dismissively. “You better.”

  Work was the only time I could breathe.

  Sure, delivering packages isn’t glamorous. It’s repetitive, tiring, and most of the time, people treat you like you’re part of the box you’re holding. But at least it was quiet. No one yelling. No one criticizing every little thing I did. Just me, my van, and a radio station that played the same ten songs on repeat.

  That day, the route was nothing special—just a string of suburban neighborhoods that all looked like someone copy-pasted them from a developer’s catalog. I dropped off packages, dodged a yappy Chihuahua, and tried not to think too hard about the fact that I’d be going home to Bree later.

  “Another thrilling day in the life of Connor Hayes,” I muttered, pulling into a gas station to refuel.

  I grabbed a coffee from the convenience store—black, bitter, and just this side of drinkable. As I leaned against the van, sipping the lukewarm sludge, my phone buzzed.

  It was Bree.

  Bree: Don’t forget to stop by my mom’s and pick up the dining set she wants us to sell. And hurry up this time. Last time you took forever.

  I stared at the screen, the words blurring as my irritation flared. She didn’t even bother to say please. It was always commands, always expectations. And God forbid I didn’t jump to meet them.

  Why am I still with her? The thought came unbidden, sharp and unwelcome. I shoved it down, shoving the phone back in my pocket with it.

  By the time my shift ended, I was ready to collapse. My back ached from lifting boxes all day, and my brain felt like it had been wrung out and left to dry. But instead of heading home, I found myself driving to my parents’ house.

  Mom had called earlier, asking if I could help clean out the attic. I didn’t tell Bree. She’d just complain that I was wasting time when I “could be doing something productive.”

  The house looked the same as always—faded paint, a slightly overgrown lawn, and the faint smell of lemon cleaner that somehow never went away.

  “Connor, sweetie! You’re here!” Mom greeted me at the door, pulling me into a hug that smelled like flour and fabric softener.

  “Hey, Mom,” I said, forcing a smile.

  She led me upstairs to the attic, chattering about which boxes needed sorting and which ones could go to Goodwill. I let her talk, nodding at the right moments. It was easier than telling her how much I wanted to crawl under a rock and stay there.

  The attic was a time capsule of forgotten junk. Old photo albums, boxes of Christmas decorations, a broken lamp Dad swore he’d fix twenty years ago. I sneezed as dust puffed up from a stack of newspapers.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  “Sure, Mom,” I muttered under my breath, shoving aside a stack of National Geographics from the 90s. “I’d love to spend my evening inhaling asbestos and questioning my life choices.”

  That’s when I saw it.

  A chest. Small, battered, and out of place among the piles of mundane clutter.

  “What’s this?” I muttered, prying it open.

  Inside was a pocket watch.

  It was small, tarnished, and covered in strange engravings. Symbols that didn’t look like any language I’d ever seen.

  I picked it up, turning it over in my hands. The metal was cold, almost unnaturally so, and when I brushed my thumb over the winding mechanism, it clicked.

  The air shifted.

  A chill ran down my spine, and the attic suddenly felt…wrong. Too quiet. Too still.

  I dropped the watch, stumbling back as it hit the floor with a sharp clink.

  “Connor? You okay?” Mom’s voice floated up the stairs.

  “Yeah!” I called back, though my heart was pounding.

  I stared at the watch, lying motionless on the floor. It looked harmless now. Innocent.

  But it wasn’t. I knew it wasn’t.

  I should’ve left it there. Walked away. Pretended I’d never seen it.

  Instead, I slipped it into my pocket and went back downstairs, trying to shake the uneasy feeling that I’d just made a huge mistake.

  Just before I left, I noticed something. Tucked under the edge of the chest’s lid, almost hidden by dust and debris, was a crumpled scrap of paper. I hesitated for a moment—why bother reading some old note, especially when I had no idea who wrote it? But something about it tugged at me.

  I unfolded the yellowed paper, its edges fragile, as if it had been handled too many times over the years. The handwriting was hurried but neat, ink slightly faded but legible.

  “The watch is more than it seems. It binds to the one who winds it. Trust it at your own peril. The clock will not forgive your mistakes.”

  I blinked, reading the words again. My great-grandfather’s handwriting, unmistakable even after all these years. A man who died before I could even remember his voice, yet his warning was here, in front of me, as clear as day.

  What the hell does this mean?

  I tucked the paper back into the chest, feeling a coldness spread through me. I should’ve left it there, in that dusty attic, but something told me I wouldn’t be able to.

  The drive home was quiet. The kind of quiet that wasn’t peaceful, but heavy—like the world was holding its breath. I kept replaying the note in my mind, the scratchy ink of my great-grandfather’s warning etched behind my eyelids.

  “The clock will not forgive your mistakes.”

  What the hell did that mean? And why did it feel like those words were aimed at me, specifically?

  I gripped the steering wheel tighter, feeling the cold press of the watch through my jeans pocket. It hadn’t warmed, even after being in my hand for so long. It was just…there, like a weight I couldn’t shake.

  When I opened the door to the apartment, I barely had time to take a breath before Bree’s voice hit me like a freight train.

  “Where the hell have you been?” she snapped, standing in the kitchen with a dishtowel in one hand and a glass in the other. Her face was flushed, either from anger or the wine bottle sitting half-empty on the counter.

  “Helping my mom,” I said, shrugging off my jacket. I didn’t look at her—just headed straight for the sink to rinse my hands.

  “You couldn’t text? You couldn’t call?”

  I bit back the urge to tell her I’d already dealt with enough yelling for one day. “I was busy. It slipped my mind.”

  “Of course it did,” she shot back, slamming the glass onto the counter hard enough that I thought it might shatter. “Everything slips your mind when it’s something I need. Do you even care how that makes me feel?”

  I dried my hands, keeping my back to her. “I didn’t know I needed to provide hourly updates.”

  “Don’t start with me, Connor,” she hissed. “You think you’re so clever, don’t you? Acting like I’m crazy when you’re the one who can’t do the bare minimum.”

  She wasn’t yelling anymore, but her voice was sharp enough to cut. I turned around, meeting her glare with what I hoped was a neutral expression.

  “What exactly do you want me to say, Bree?”

  “I want you to act like you give a damn!” she snapped, throwing the dishtowel onto the counter. “You’re out there, wasting time, doing God knows what, while I’m here trying to keep this place together. But sure, let’s make me the bad guy.”

  It was like a script, one I’d heard a hundred times before. I tuned her out, letting her words blur into white noise as I nodded at all the right moments.

  But something inside me cracked.

  It wasn’t one thing—just a slow build-up of everything. The constant criticism. The way she made me feel like I was never enough. The weight of the watch in my pocket, like a reminder that I didn’t even know what I was carrying anymore.

  I couldn’t take it. Not tonight.

  “Yeah, okay,” I said, cutting her off mid-sentence. “I’m going to the bathroom.”

  She stared at me, her mouth hanging open in disbelief. “Are you serious? We’re not done—”

  I didn’t wait for her to finish.

  The bathroom was small, barely big enough for the sink, toilet, and shower crammed into the space. I locked the door behind me, leaning against it as I let out a long, shaky breath.

  My reflection in the mirror didn’t look like me. My face was pale, my eyes dull, the stubble on my jaw thicker than I realized.

  “Get it together,” I muttered, running cold water over my hands before splashing it onto my face.

  The watch sat heavy in my pocket. I pulled it out, turning it over in my hands as water dripped from my chin. It was small, but it felt…important. Like it shouldn’t exist, but it did anyway.

  The engravings were strange, looping and curling in ways that didn’t quite make sense. I traced them with my thumb, feeling the grooves beneath my skin.

  “What are you?” I whispered.

  It was rhetorical, of course. But something about the watch felt…alive. Not in a literal sense—there were no gears clicking, no hands moving—but in the way it seemed to hum under my fingertips.

  I turned it over again, finding a small latch I hadn’t noticed before. My thumb hovered over it, hesitation prickling at the back of my mind.

  The clock will not forgive your mistakes.

  I should’ve stopped. Should’ve left it alone. But something in me pushed forward, ignoring the warning.

  The latch clicked open, and the watch unfolded like a blooming flower.

  The room filled with light—blinding, white, and impossibly bright. I stumbled back, my hands flying up to shield my eyes, but the light wasn’t just around me. It was in me, pouring through my veins, filling every inch of my body with a warmth that bordered on unbearable.

  My heart pounded, the sound deafening in my ears as the light grew brighter, hotter. I tried to move, to cry out, but my voice was swallowed by the overwhelming hum that seemed to shake the very air.

  Then, just as quickly as it began, it stopped.

  The light vanished, leaving me in total darkness. But I wasn’t in the bathroom anymore.

  The air smelled different—sharp and clean, like rain on stone. A faint breeze brushed against my skin, carrying with it the sound of rustling leaves and distant, echoing chimes.

  When I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was the sky—endless and strange, painted in hues of violet and green.

  And I wasn’t alone.