Brammelwurz and the Wheel of Impossible Time

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It began with a tremor beneath his boots. Not a tremor like roots or worms—but a faint vibration that sang through the stones, as if the earth itself were about to remember something that never happened. Brammelwurz raised his lantern. The amber light danced across a shallow hollow in the forest where no moss grew, no fern breathed. The birds were silent. Only the ticking of his portable chronograph could be heard—and even that suddenly seemed out of place. Then the ground rose. Not loudly. Not violently. More as if an invisible watchmaker had decided to reveal the forgotten work once more. From the moss rose a wheel. Large as an old mill wheel, but made of gleaming gears, spiral rings, and tiny mechanical skulls, their mouths moving silently. The entire structure rotated slowly—not in space, but in something else. Time, perhaps. Or the shadow of a time that never was. Brammelwurz stepped closer. His red cloak brushed against a wire that led to no origin. "A wheel of impossible time," he murmured. He'd read about it. In the seventh version of the Fleeting Chronicles of Velimanthe, where marginal notes carried the actual stories. The wheel turned only in lines of events that had never happened—in possibilities that withered into thoughts before they were ever thought. But who, for all their distractions, would build such a thing? He leaned forward, studied the engraving on the innermost spoke. "For that which never began—and yet ends." The air flickered. Brammelwurz felt his thoughts begin to waver. He remembered a decision he never made. A goodbye he never took. Of a conversation with Zelda that was never had—and yet the pain of it was there, like an echo without a call. The Wheel continued to turn. On a surface of brushed metal, a tiny scene appeared: himself, with a grayer beard, in a workshop he never owned. Beside him: a small wolf, unharmed, but with a scar above its eye. Together they worked on a model of the Wheel—and laughed. Brammelwurz staggered back. The Wheel showed alternatives. Not visions, but possibilities, the mere contemplation of which tore something out of one's own timeline. "Dangerous," he muttered, but his gaze returned. Another turn. Another image. An empty clearing. A table. A hand that was never his, yet still writing his script. In the center of the Wheel was a key—forged from light and dark ore. Attached to it was a note: "Please do not wind. It is already too late." Brammelwurz reached for it anyway. Not out of spite, but because history had already chosen him. When his fingers touched the key, the wheel stopped. Just for a breath. And in that breath, the forest remembered a future that never was. The leaves trembled. The earth was silent. Then the wheel began to turn backward. Very slowly. Very quietly. And with every revolution, Brammelwurz forgot a "what if" but not without a trace. When he left, a single tooth lay on the ground. Not his. Not the wheel. But from a clock that might have once fallen from his hand