The Clock of Memories

Episode 6: "The Awakening of Illusion"

Victor was sinking into a spiral of darkness, memories intertwining in a suffocating confusion. The basement around him seemed colder, the shadows of the wooden beams weighing on him as if they were suffocating him. The clock in his hand pulsed, a constant reminder of the weight of his actions, each tick echoing in his mind like a silent warning. Everything he had gained, every change he made to save Gabriel, to fix his relationship with Clara and preserve their marriage, was dissolving before his eyes.

He was lost.

The sense of loss and guilt consumed him from the inside. Every memory he revisited seemed to corrode the foundations of his reality, transforming what he thought he was fixing into something distorted, broken, and beyond repair. The pressure was immense, and each attempt to keep control only sank Victor further into his own despair.

He thought of the guardian’s words, about the cost of tampering with time, and how Gabriel had repeatedly told him he couldn’t be saved without consequences. But even now, Victor refused to believe that there was no more hope. He had already sacrificed so much. All he wanted was a second chance. But second chances always seemed to slip through his fingers.

“What more do I have to lose?” Victor murmured to himself, his voice weak, drained of energy. “How much more can time punish me?”

And then, suddenly, everything around him distorted. The ground beneath his feet trembled, as if it were collapsing. The basement began to spin, and the walls closed in. He felt as though he was being swallowed by his own memories. Each scene from the past he had visited began flashing before his eyes: Gabriel’s accident, his wedding with Clara, moments with Ana, childhood memories—all happening simultaneously, all spinning around him.

He tried to grasp something, but there was nothing tangible left. The clock in his hand glowed with a dangerous intensity, its gears spinning uncontrollably. “You’re trapped in your own memories,” Gabriel’s voice echoed, a bitter reminder.

Suddenly, he found himself in the day Clara left him. He sat on the couch, her parting words echoing through the room. But something was different. Clara was distant, her image flickering like a reflection on water. She no longer seemed real. Her words weren’t words; they were just sounds without meaning, and everything around him began to crumble again.

“No... no…” Victor whispered, feeling the urgency to escape. He ran toward Clara, trying to grasp her hand, but she vanished into a cloud of dust. He looked around, desperate, but all he could see was darkness. A darkness that seemed to swallow him whole.

Suddenly, he was in another place. He was at the park, watching Gabriel run after a ball. His brother was laughing, carefree, but Victor felt a growing pressure in his chest. He tried to shout for Gabriel to stop, but his voice was stuck in his throat. There was no sound, just an eerie silence surrounding him.

Then, the world around him began to disintegrate once more. The clock pulsed in his hand, and reality around him cracked like shattered glass. The memories became floating fragments in the void, like pieces of a puzzle he could no longer piece together.

That’s when the guardian appeared again, imposing and enigmatic, with deep eyes and a grave voice. “You were warned, Victor. Every journey has a price.”

“I just wanted... to fix things,” Victor responded, his voice filled with regret. “To save Gabriel... to keep Clara by my side…”

“And what you’ve done is destroy everything around you,” the guardian replied, his expression serious. “The memories you tried to alter have become prisons. Every change you made only dragged you deeper into this cycle of regrets.”

The guardian slowly approached, his gaze piercing into Victor’s soul. “The real question is: how long will you keep trying to fix something that cannot be repaired?”

“I… I don’t know,” Victor stammered, feeling the weight of his defeat. “I just… I just want everything to go back to normal.”

“What is normal? The past has happened. The present is distorted. And the future...?” The guardian sighed, as if tired of offering advice that Victor refused to accept. “You need to wake up, Victor. You need to see beyond these illusions.”

The guardian’s words hung in the air, reverberating within Victor. He looked down at the clock once more, the symbol of all his attempts and failures. The clock’s pulse became erratic, as if it was on the verge of stopping completely. The blue glow that surrounded it began to dim gradually.

“Wake up,” the guardian repeated. “Accept reality.”

Victor felt a cold grip on his heart. “What does that mean? Am I… trapped?”

The guardian tilted his head, his eyes locked on Victor’s. “It’s not a prison, Victor. It’s a warning. One last chance.”

And then, in the blink of an eye, everything went black.

Victor felt his body falling, a sensation of free fall that took his breath away. Darkness enveloped him, and he had no more control. Everything seemed to dissolve around him, and the clock finally stopped pulsing.

Suddenly, Victor opened his eyes.

He was lying in his bed, his breathing heavy and uneven. The room was lit by the soft morning light, and he could hear the familiar sound of birds chirping outside. He sat up quickly, sweaty and gasping, his eyes fixing on the bedside clock. It wasn’t the mysterious clock—just a simple digital device reading 7:45 AM.

Confused and disoriented, Victor looked around the room. He was no longer in the basement, no longer lost in time. Everything seemed normal, as if nothing he had experienced had really happened.

“Was… was it all a dream?” he whispered to himself, trying to process what had just occurred.

He rubbed his face with his hands, feeling reality slowly return. But something still felt out of place. Even though it seemed like nothing had happened, there was an unease deep within him. It was as if the memories, the events he had experienced, were still present, rooted in his mind.

As he turned to the nightstand, he noticed something that made him shudder. The old clock, the one he swore was just part of the dream, was there, stopped, without its glow.

Victor felt a chill run down his spine.

The dream… wasn’t over.