Chapter 1: "The Broken Clocks Club
In the city of Elliptica, everything seemed perfectly symmetrical, yet annoyingly unsettling. The buildings were so aligned they caused vertigo, the streets echoed with footsteps that were eerily synchronized, and even the cats seemed to meow in unison, like an out-of-tune opera. It was a city that felt too organized to be real.
And that’s where Alvin lived.
Alvin, 29 years old, was the kind of person you’d notice for being absolutely normal. Perhaps that was the strangest thing about him—he seemed out of place in his own lack of uniqueness. Working as a clock repair technician, Alvin spent his days fixing other people’s timepieces but never his own. His routine was so predictable that if he disappeared, no one would notice until the next electricity bill was due. However, Alvin had a secret: he hated clocks. Mainly because, according to him, “life only starts getting interesting when they break.”
It was a cold Tuesday night—because in Elliptica, every Tuesday night was cold. Alvin was sitting in his apartment, surrounded by piles of broken clocks, when he heard a strange sound coming from his TV:
"You do know you’re being watched, right?"
He froze, holding a cheese sandwich. That wasn’t an ad. It was a woman.
She was staring straight at him from the screen, wearing round glasses and sporting faded blue hair. She blinked, as if she were alive.
— Uh, can you... hear me? — Alvin asked, feeling ridiculous.
— Yes, you idiot, I’m talking to you. My name is Zoé, and I’m your only chance to not die crushed by your own boredom.
Zoé, the self-proclaimed "goddess of nonsense," was a woman who looked like she had stepped out of the fever dream of someone who drank way too much energy drink. Her personality was a mix of sharp sarcasm and childlike enthusiasm, and she was there to turn Alvin’s life upside down.
Before he could respond, Zoé stepped out of the TV as if it were the most normal thing in the world. Literally, she walked through the screen, carrying a toaster she had apparently stolen from the cooking channel.
— First, you need an adventure. Second, you need romance. And third, you need to stop looking like someone who only eats instant noodles, because seriously... disgusting. — Zoé snapped her fingers, and the toaster turned into a backpack full of absurdly useless items, including a rubber duck that sparked when squeezed.
Alvin blinked, incredulous.
— What are you doing in my house? And why do I need a backpack full of... this? — He picked up the duck, and to his horror, it started singing an off-key version of "La-La-La."
— The question isn’t what I’m doing here. It’s what YOU are going to do now that the "Chronometers" are after you.
— The what? — Alvin raised an eyebrow.
At that exact moment, the sound of footsteps echoed down the hallway. Alvin opened the door to find two men wearing impeccable suits—but with melted clock faces instead of heads. Their "faces" were a mosaic of clock hands moving at random.
— Mr. Alvin, your presence is required to repair the Primordial Time. Come immediately, or... well, you don’t want to know what "or" means, — one of them said in a monotone, cold voice.
Zoé laughed.
— Ah, I love these guys! Always so dramatic. Time to run, Alvin! — And before he could protest, she pulled him out of the fifth-floor window.
Character 3: Rico, the Pirate Taxi Driver.
They landed on the roof of a floating taxi piloted by Rico, a former pianist who had given up music to live off adrenaline. He wore an eye patch but insisted it was purely for style.
— Zoé, darling! Brought another sucker for your crusade? — Rico shouted as he swerved to avoid a flying ice cream truck.
— Shut up and floor it, Rico. The clocks are going to kill us.
As the taxi sped through the night sky, Alvin began to feel something he hadn’t felt in a long time: alive. He looked at Zoé, who was holding a map drawn in crayon, and thought that maybe, just maybe, breaking a few more clocks wasn’t such a bad idea.
END OF CHAPTER 1.