The old clock tower stood at the edge of the town, its gears long rusted and silent. No one remembered who built it or why, but it had always been there, watching over the streets like a forgotten guardian. Locals whispered that the tower was cursed, that those who entered after dark would never return the same. But no one ever checked, not really. It wasn’t until the summer of the strange rain that the first anomaly occurred. The rain fell in silver sheets, each drop shimmering like liquid moonlight. People reported seeing their reflections move out of sync with their bodies, as if they were being watched by someone else. Then came the clocks—every clock in the town began to tick backward, though no one could explain how. Some said they heard voices coming from the walls, murmuring in languages that didn’t exist. Lena, a quiet librarian with a habit of walking the same path home every evening, noticed the changes first. She’d always passed the clock tower on her way to the train station, but one night she found herself standing in front of it, not remembering how she got there. The tower’s door creaked open on its own, revealing a narrow staircase spiraling into darkness. She hesitated, then stepped inside. The air inside was thick and cold, like the breath of something ancient. The walls pulsed faintly, as if alive, and the steps echoed with a sound that wasn’t quite footsteps. At the top, she found a room filled with mirrors, each one reflecting a different time. One showed her as a child, another as an old woman, and another as someone she didn’t recognize at all. In the center of the room stood a small, ornate clock, its hands spinning wildly in both directions. As she reached out to touch it, the mirrors began to crack, and the room filled with a low hum. A voice, soft and familiar, whispered her name. She turned, but no one was there. The clock’s hands froze, and the mirrors shattered, scattering shards of glass across the floor. When she looked down, her reflection was gone. She ran out of the tower, heart pounding, and the next morning, the townspeople noticed something strange. Lena had arrived at the station just as usual, but when she stepped off the train, she saw herself walking ahead, wearing the same clothes, but with a different expression. It wasn’t her, but it wasn’t a stranger either. It was like looking at a version of herself that had lived a different life. Over the following weeks, more people experienced similar phenomena. A baker found himself in his bakery, but the year on the calendar was 1932. A teacher saw her students whispering in a language she couldn’t understand, and when she turned around, they were gone. The town became a place of echoes, where past and future bled together like ink in water. Some tried to leave, but the roads twisted endlessly, leading them back to the same place. Others stayed, drawn by the strange beauty of the anomalies. They spoke of visions, of memories that weren’t theirs, and of moments that felt both real and unreal at once. One evening, a group of townspeople gathered at the base of the clock tower, their faces lit by the flickering glow of lanterns. They didn’t know what to do, but they knew they couldn’t stay. Someone suggested breaking the clock, but others warned that it might be too late. The tower had become more than a building—it was a gateway, a threshold between what was and what could be. As the night deepened, the sky above the tower darkened, and the stars seemed to shift in patterns that didn’t make sense. The wind carried whispers, and the ground trembled beneath their feet. Lena stood at the edge of the crowd, watching the tower with a mix of fear and fascination. She had seen what lay beyond the mirror, and she knew now that some doors, once opened, could never be closed again. And as the last light of day faded, the clock tower began to chime—not with the sound of time, but with the sound of everything that had ever been, and everything that might still come.