Legend XV – The Bearer of the 27 Minutes

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There are people who count their days, others who count their losses. But she—she counted minutes. Her name was Mirenna, and no one knew if she had ever been born or simply fallen out of time. She was found in the border towns of twilight, where clocks rusted and the sun refused to set. She wore a dress of gray threads and, on her back, a pouch that whispered. Anyone who came too close heard the whispers of seconds pleading for mercy. It was said that Mirenna collected lost minutes—those that people forgot in pain, in sleep, or in dying. No one knew how she did it. Only that she appeared when life stood still. When an old man closed his eyes before his last thought had finished. When a child held its breath in a dream, believing it could fly. Then Mirenna stood on the threshold—between now and nothingness—catching those minutes that were about to slip away. She preserved them, wrapped them in thin threads of dream light, and sewed them into the dreams of the dying, so that they could laugh, see, and love one last time before they departed. In the taverns, people whispered that she was the Clockmaker of Death. Others called her the Weaver of Last Moments. But no one dared follow her, for her shadow did not move as she did. When she turned, her shadow stood still; when she stood still, it wandered on, as if carrying its own story. Some said that within it lived the minutes she could no longer save. One night, she came to the city of Alvastrin, where the bells are silent and the houses are built of mirrors. There, a young soldier lay dying. His body was torn by shards of light, yet his eyes gazed wide open into the darkness. Mirenna approached his bed. The clock on the wall had no hand. She opened her pouch, and the whispering swelled like a wave of voices. She took out 27 minutes—exactly the number he had loved before he had to leave. Carefully, she sewed them into his dream: one to his mother, one to the sea, one to a girl whose name he had never spoken. As the last minute unfolded like a flower of dust, the soldier smiled and spoke what could no longer be heard. Then silence fell over the room, and Mirenna stepped out into the mist. Her bag was lighter, but her hands still clung to the warmth of a life she would not save. She looked up at the sky, where the stars moved backward, and murmured, "I sew so they won't be forgotten." Sometimes, they say, in the hours just before dawn, a wind blows that burns like pinpricks on the skin. That's when Mirenna is out.