Every morning at 6:07 a.m., the clock in the old library on the edge of town would stop. Not just for a moment, but for exactly three minutes. No one could explain it, and no one had ever managed to restart it. The librarians would simply leave it be, as if it were some kind of sacred ritual. The library itself was an odd place, built in the early 1900s, its wooden floors creaking with every step. The shelves were filled with books that seemed to whisper when no one was around, though no one could tell if it was the wind or something else. The air always smelled faintly of ink and decay, like the scent of a forgotten memory. One day, a new librarian named Clara arrived. She was young, curious, and had a habit of asking too many questions. She noticed the clock stopping each morning, and she asked the previous librarian about it. He only smiled and said, “It’s just part of the library’s rhythm.” That wasn’t enough for Clara. She began to study the clock, trying to figure out what caused it. She found an old journal in the archives, written by a librarian from the 1940s. It spoke of strange occurrences—books rearranging themselves, shadows moving without a source, and the clock stopping every morning. The writer mentioned a “presence” in the library, something that watched but never spoke. The final entry was dated April 7th, 1948, and ended with the words: “It knows when I’m watching.” Clara became obsessed. She started staying late, hoping to catch the clock stopping again. One night, she was alone in the library, the lights dimmed, and the silence so thick it felt like a living thing. At 6:07 a.m., the clock stopped. She held her breath, waiting for something to happen. Nothing did. Just the sound of her own heartbeat echoing through the empty halls. But then, the books began to rustle. Not from the wind, not from her movement. They moved on their own, pages flipping, spines bending. A book fell from the top shelf, landing right in front of her. When she picked it up, the title was unfamiliar, but the name inside the cover was her own. She opened it, and the pages were filled with entries about her life—her childhood, her job, even her dreams. It was as if someone had been writing about her long before she arrived. Her hands trembled as she turned the pages, searching for an explanation. Then she saw a date at the bottom of the page: April 7th, 2025. She ran out of the library, heart pounding, but when she reached the street, the clock on the wall showed 6:07 a.m. again. She looked back, but the library was gone. In its place stood a crumbling brick building with no sign of a library. The streets were empty, the sky a deep, unnatural shade of blue. Clara wandered through the unfamiliar city, searching for someone who might know where she was. No one answered her questions. People passed her by without looking, as if she weren’t there. She tried to find the library again, but it was as if it had never existed. Days passed, or maybe hours—she couldn’t tell. She found a small café, and the owner gave her a cup of coffee. “You look lost,” he said. “Are you okay?” “I don’t know where I am,” she said. “I think I’m stuck somewhere… between time.” The man frowned. “That’s impossible.” “No,” she whispered. “I think it’s real.” She returned to the library, but it was still gone. All she could do was wait for the next 6:07 a.m. She didn’t know if it would come, or if she would ever escape the cycle. And every morning, the clock ticked. It never stopped again.