It began, as many endings do, in silence.
A silence too heavy for a city like Tokyo, where time raced in neon streaks and dreams were swallowed before dawn. But tonight, that silence coiled around Haraza Genso like a second skin—tight, uncanny, and cold.
Twenty-four years old. A jack of all trades. A man of misplaced potential and absent plans. Haraza stood alone atop the rusted fire escape of a four-story apartment block in the heart of Sumida, looking skyward. The wind tousled his black hair, tugged at the loose fabric of his worn jacket, and carried with it a scent he could never name—one that visited only when the hour grew strange and the city held its breath.
The stars above him did not blink. They watched.
His eyes traced the heavens. Not in wonder, but with a sense of déjà vu he'd never shaken. Since childhood, the constellations whispered to him in patterns he didn't understand. Not voices—rhythms. Pulses. Like music written in light.
He glanced down at his phone. 12:57 a.m.
Midnight's final hour. The Forgotten Hour, his grandmother used to call it.
Haraza smirked bitterly. That woman had been mad—filled his head with ghost stories, gods lost to time, and tales of doorways that opened only when no one believed in them.
But she had also told him the truth, once. Only once.
"You were born in the Rift, child. Not in time, nor outside it. You're between the threads. Never quite caught, never quite free."
He hadn't understood then.
But he did now.
Because tonight, the clocks had stopped.
It began with a flicker.
The billboard across the street—blazing an ad for an energy drink seconds before—sputtered and dimmed. Its color bled away, until it was just grayscale static. The lights in nearby apartments blinked. The humming of the city quieted.
And then: everything froze.
Cars halted mid-motion. A cat leaping across a fence hovered in the air. A single raindrop, the first of a spring drizzle, floated like glass a foot from Haraza's shoulder.
But Haraza could move.
He blinked, stepped back—and felt wrong. Like he had stepped out of rhythm with a song the world was singing.
Above, the stars bent.
He looked up in time to see the sky split—not crack, not tear, but fold inward like paper. A spiral of pale light formed at the center of the heavens, an eye gazing through dimensions.
And then, from the spiral, came the voice.
("Chosen.")
It was not sound. It did not vibrate air or stir wind. It existed only in his bones.
Haraza opened his mouth to scream.
Light surged from the center of the spiral. A thousand arcs of silver-fire lashed down from the sky, and a great sigil opened beneath his feet—one that spanned the entire block. Runes shimmered. The space between atoms sang.
("Haraza Genso. Drifter. Threadless. Walker of the In-Between.
The world beyond the Rift summons you.")
His body arched. Pain lanced through every nerve. His heartbeat became a war drum. His eyes went white.
The city vanished.
He awoke in nothingness.
There was no ground. No sky. Just a sea of soft white mist rolling endlessly beneath and around him. Yet he stood, barefoot, as though the air itself held his weight.
He turned, slowly.
Behind him stood a great bridge—shining silver, polished like obsidian, its surface inscribed with glowing filigree that shifted in unreadable language. The bridge stretched across the void, its two ends disappearing into mist.
And at its heart: the Clocktower.
It rose like a monolith forged by gods. Hundreds of meters tall, its base built of interlocking black stone, its midsection made of great bronze gears in eternal motion, and its apex crowned with a glowing white clock face.
One hand.
One number.
13:00.
Time that did not, should not, exist.
And still—it ticked.
Thirteen chimes rang through the void.
Each one cracked his perception.
Each one stripped something from him.
He saw glimpses.
A field of swords beneath a purple sun.
A woman crowned in flame, screaming his name.
A mountain of crystal bleeding shadow.
And a throne, empty, waiting.
("Haraza Genso…" the voice whispered once more. "The Weave breaks. The Loom cries out. The Rift births anew.")
He fell to his knees.
And from the base of the tower stepped a figure.
The figure was tall. Cloaked. Genderless. Their robe flowed like liquid night, spangled with distant stars. Where a face should be, there was only a mask—half bone-white, half abyss-black.
They raised a hand.
A shimmer spread across the void like ripples in glass.
("Welcome, one-who-was-unseen. You were not born to this Thread, yet you are here. And that…" the voice curled like ink in water, "is a problem… or a solution.")
Haraza struggled to rise.("What… what is this place?")
("This is the Hour Between.")
("What do you want from me?")
The masked figure tilted its head.
("Not I. But the world that has broken.")
It extended a hand.
("Come. Let me show you Eltherra.")
Haraza hesitated.
He didn't move.
The figure snapped its fingers.
The bridge vanished.
The tower remained—floating in the void like a wound in space. Haraza was falling, but there was no sensation of wind, no gravity. Just motion, slow and inevitable, as though the world had decided what came next and no longer needed his consent.
He couldn't scream. Couldn't even breathe.
His thoughts were unraveling like frayed rope.
(What is happening to me?)
(Why me?)
(I'm nobody.)
(I fix computers. I clean gutters. I patch drywall. I cook noodles. I—I don't belong here!)
Then—impact.
Except there was no pain.
He landed in a shallow pool of light. The world blinked, and color exploded.
Above him: a sky split by two suns, one gold, one pale blue. Clouds churned like seafoam. Trees towered on all sides, their trunks spiraling upward, bark shimmering with iridescent scales. The ground beneath him was covered in moss that glowed faintly underfoot.
A forest—yes. But not of Earth.
He was in Eltherra.
And he was not alone.
A woman stood twenty paces away, poised like a blade unsheathed.
Armor wrapped her tall frame—woven from crystal and black leather, studded with silver runes. Her hair was the color of cooled ash, tied behind her head in a warrior's braid. Her eyes—golden, glowing faintly—watched him with a predator's patience.
She did not speak at first.
Haraza stood, shaky.( "Are you—are you real?")
The woman tilted her head.( "You're not screaming. That's good. The last one screamed for hours.")
("Last what?")
("Threadwalker." She slid her sword free of its sheath. The blade hummed like a tuning fork. "One who crosses the Rift.")
He stared at the weapon.( "You're not planning to use that, are you?")
She didn't answer.
The wind shifted. Leaves rustled like whispers.
Then came the growl.
It echoed through the trees—low, guttural, ancient.
Haraza turned in time to see the shadows twist.
Something moved—something massive.
It stepped into view, and the forest bent to its weight.
It was wrong.
That was Haraza's first thought.
Not terrifying, not monstrous—wrong.
The creature stood four meters tall, a hunched amalgam of bone and shadow. Its six limbs were jointed backwards, ending in claws that dripped black ichor onto the forest floor. Its body was plated with fossilized scales, and from beneath its skull-mask face, three golden eyes burned.
And on its chest—embedded deep—was a clock face.
The hands spun wildly, never stopping.
Haraza could not look away.
("Run,") said the woman, not turning.
(What—?")
("RUN!")
She leapt forward in a flash of white flame.
Haraza ran.
Branches whipped at his face. Roots snatched at his feet. Behind him, the creature roared—like a cathedral collapsing.
The forest changed as he moved. Trees twisted. Paths rearranged themselves. The light shifted colors. Every direction was the wrong one. The landscape was a labyrinth.
Still he ran.
Memories surged. He remembered being thirteen, running from a group of delinquents in the alley near his old school. The sting of fists. The sound of laughter. The shame. The helplessness.
He wasn't helpless now.
He didn't know why, but something in him woke up.
His hand moved without thought.
He reached for something he didn't have.
And it appeared.
[A tool. Simple. Familiar].
A wrench.
[Rusty. Heavy. Warm in his grip.]
He turned, just as the beast burst through the trees, jaws open, breath reeking of burnt metal and ozone.
Haraza swung.
The wrench glowed—etched with the same glyphs from the Clocktower.
It struck the beast's face.
Time stuttered.
The impact threw both of them back.
Haraza rolled to a stop, coughing.
The beast screamed—a sound that broke trees, bent the air, and shattered stone. Its clock glitched, freezing at 00:00.
From the treetops, the woman descended, blade-first.
She struck the creature's spine. Crystal shattered bone. Light burst.
And then silence.
The beast collapsed. Not dead—but inert. Locked in a moment.
She sheathed her blade.
("You're lucky,") she said, glancing at Haraza. ("Some Threadwalkers die before they land. Others die right after.")
Haraza sat up, gasping. ("I didn't ask to be summoned.")
("No one ever does.")
She offered him her hand.
He took it.
("I'm Lyssira," she said. "Knight of the Frayed Order. You're going to want answers.")
He nodded.
("We should walk now before something kills us.")
They moved through the forest together.
Lyssira spoke little, but when she did, her words wove the bones of the world.
("Eltherra was once bound by the Loom—a construct that governed fate, time, and magic. The Threads connected all life. The Balance held.")
("Then something crossed from beyond. From the Rift. Something that does not belong.")
("The Loom was shattered. Magic broke into wild fragments. Time began to bleed. The world forgot how to die—or how to live.")
Haraza listened. It made no sense. And yet it did.
He felt it all—the warp of the air, the hunger of the shadows, the resonance in his bones.
("You're saying I'm… part of this?")
("You're outside the Loom. You were never woven. That makes you the only thing that can pass between broken Threads. You are… anomalous.")
Haraza laughed bitterly.( "I'm a handyman with a wrench. I don't belong in some myth.")
Lyssira glanced at him. ("That's exactly why you do.")