Steampunk Adventure The City That Ticking Backwards

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The bridge of light and rust ended at a massive gate that looked like the face of an old pocket watch. Hands of polished copper moved slowly across it, one forward, one backward. When Mollie and Ventrox reached the gate, it opened silently—and the world beyond swallowed them like a breathing giant. The city was a marvel of wheels, pendulums, and spirals. Houses grew from hammered brass, towers spiraled into the hazy sky like wind-up coils. Bridges of ticking gears spanned streets of shimmering obsidian, reflecting the light of the celestial clock. And everywhere, something was moving: small mechanical animals scurried across the paths—tiny mice made of gears, beetles with glass wings, owls whose eyes blinked like tiny chronographs. No one spoke. The city was filled with the sound of time itself—a gentle clicking, whirring, ticking, and whispering. Ventrox floated a little ahead, his luminous heart now shimmering at a calmer pace. Mollie followed, feeling the strange harmony of this world in every fiber of his being. Here, everything had a place. Even he—although he was a stranger. They stopped in front of a particularly tall tower. The tower consisted of an endless spiral of clock faces, twisting around each other. Above the entrance portal, guarded by two carved dragons made of gears, was an inscription engraved: "He who goes backward finds what has been forgotten." Mollie ran her fingertips over the cold writing. A whisper wafted from within the tower, like the last breath of a memory. Suddenly, Ventrox flinched—from within protruded a small key, which began to rotate slowly. It had changed: its clockwork connected with the pulse of the city. "We must go in," Mollie said quietly. And as they passed through the tower's portal, he sensed: They had only opened the first page of a book whose story had long waited to be told. And somewhere, high up in the spiral of the city, a clock ticked—not with time, but with Mollie's heartbeat.