onabebesh

Alexander Holmes is immortal—bound to time, yet lost within it. When a scientist vanishes during a dangerous experiment, time fractures, and reality begins to unravel. Hunted by a shadowy creature and haunted by his forgotten past, Alexander must uncover the secret behind his curse to save her—and possibly all of time itself.

But as time unravels, one truth becomes terrifyingly clear:
He was never just a witness to history—he was its trigger.

The Timebound

The Pale City and the Clockwork Orphan

The London they stepped into was not entirely real.

Beneath the flickering streetlights and the sound of distant sirens, time itself seemed threadbare—like a city wearing a mask stitched from a thousand eras. Neon signs blinked in languages that hadn't been invented yet. Pigeons moved in slow motion. Shadows lingered longer than they should, stretching in directions no light pointed.

Alexander moved carefully, his coat torn from their passage, the symbols of the Chronoblack Scripture occasionally flickering faintly across his skin like phosphorescent scars. Sister Yu walked beside him, hood drawn, pendant dimly pulsing.

They passed an alley where a telephone rang from a box that hadn't existed since 1965.

In the heart of a decaying borough they didn't recognize—though maps said it was Bethnal Green—they found her.

A girl. Maybe ten. Standing perfectly still beneath a broken streetlamp, eyes shut, dressed in mismatched clothes stitched from old military coats and silk banners. Her breath fogged the air in rhythmic puffs, despite the warmth.

Tiny cogs ticked behind her pupils.

"I am not lost," she said. "I am waiting."

"For what?" Sister Yu asked gently.

The girl tilted her head. "For the Anachron. For the one who carries the Door in his bones."

Alexander's jaw tightened. "Who told you that?"

Then turned her back to them and walked into the wall.

The stone rippled like water—and she was gone.

Only a single brass gear remained, still warm.

Sister Yu knelt and picked it up. "She wasn't alive," she murmured. "She was… built. But who made her?"

Alexander looked at the wall, now solid again.

Then toward the sky, where the moon blinked like an eye behind clouds.

From the Thames rose figures in black coats and porcelain masks—thin, long-limbed, moving with the silence of falling ash. They carried no weapons, yet clocks slowed as they passed. Every dog howled. Lights flickered in agony.

"The Pale Men," Sister Yu whispered. "Chrono-specters. Time's old wardens… twisted by exposure."

"They're hunting anomalies," Alexander said. "Us."

Through market ruins, abandoned tunnels, collapsing districts stitched from memories of other centuries. As they moved, Alexander saw flashes—visions that weren't his.

A woman with Lenora's eyes, whispering to a child.

A name on a birth certificate half-burned: Eleanor Holmes.

Sister Yu stared at him. "Then she anchored herself. Somewhere. Somewhen."

Before they could say more, a Pale Man appeared at the edge of the rooftop, head twitching, mask cracked.

"ANACHRON CONFIRMED," it said in a voice of static and lullabies.

Not space. Not time. Just memory—shards of it, bleeding from the wound the Pale Man tore in the world. Alexander gritted his teeth, clutching Yu's hand as the world screamed.

They landed hard—on stone and glass and old blood.

The room was circular, ancient, lit by candles that refused to go out. Mirrors lined every wall, and in each one: not their reflection.

Alexander as a soldier in World War I. As a monk in feudal Japan. As a tyrant wearing a crown of teeth.

Sister Yu as a dancer. A killer. A bride.

From the largest mirror, a figure stepped forward.

It wore Alexander's face—but its eyes were pits of clockwork and flame.

"You broke time to chase a ghost. I am the cost."

Alexander stepped forward, voice steady.