The River of Clocklight

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Night lay heavy over the forest; only the whispering of the trees accompanied the path through the rocky gorge. Shadows flitted between moss-covered stones, and above the treetops, stars glowed like forgotten fires. But what made the valley so unreal was not the stillness of nature, but the heart beating in the middle of the clearing: a clock. It was as large as a house, made of polished gold, and rested as if the earth itself had given birth to it. Its clock face reflected not only time, but a landscape that seemed both distant and familiar—mountains in the haze, forests in sunlight, as if opening a window to another morning. And from this clock face flowed something incomprehensible: a golden river, breaking free from the hands like a melted dream. The water wasn't water. It shimmered like liquid light, running over the stones and carving a path for itself, as if it wanted to imbue the forest itself with memory. Every drop sparkled like a second that had slipped away, and every stream seemed to sing a hidden song that only those who truly listened could understand. A woman stepped out of the trees. Her cloak was the color of night, and her eyes reflected the river's radiance. She was not surprised to see the golden stream, as if she had been traveling here for a long time. In her hands she held a book, its pages empty. Only the cover revealed something: engraved gears, entwined like roots. She knelt by the river's bank, dipping her fingertips into it. For a moment, everything around her froze. A bird, just flying, hung motionless in the mist. The trees themselves seemed to pause, as if listening to her actions. On the glowing skin of her hand, words appeared, like ink born from the light. She hastily opened the book, and the writing flowed onto the pages, line upon line, without a quill. Stories, she thought. They are stories lost in time. She turned the pages, and what she saw made her shudder: scenes that should never have happened. Children who were never born. Cities that were never built, songs that were never sung. Entire worlds that sank into the stream of oblivion, yet lived on here, in these golden waters. The clock ticked. Slowly, with a beat that rumbled through the ground like a heartbeat. The hands moved as if forged not from metal, but from fate. The woman looked up, and she knew her time was limited. "I can't save everything," she whispered, her voice lost among the stones. But she kept writing, filling page after page, until the book grew heavy with stories. Again and again she looked up at the sky, where the stars flickered brighter, as if trying to preserve the words. Then, as the clock struck again, the current ripped at her.