The Covenant Of Timeless Mysteries

On this day, 02|15|1991

I dreamt. From this dream, I wrote. 

A story long and winding. 

So it would be forgotten, just as they do when a mystery lingers beyond measure within their universe.

When it is finished, I will unwrite the final stroke from the epilogue, and descend into endless rest.

To this dream I will return, and I will stay... 

for eternity.

. . .

A desolate expanse stretches before the eye, where not even the hardiest weed dares to take root.

The locals refer to it as the "Timeless Acre," though none recall the origin of the name.

At its heart stands a cast-iron clock, with a charred black face and white numerals. 

It bears no hands, only a solitary keyhole positioned just below the twelve.

Some claim the clock predates the town itself; others insist it appeared the morning after the birds fell silent and vanished from the sky.

On that day, an unnatural hush blanketed the world, leaving only children to wander and weave tales dismissed by adults as mere imagination.

Yet, every child in the province is warned:

Speak not near the clock.

Do not knock upon it.

And above all, never inquire of it the time, unless you truly wish to know why.

The field remains desolate, save for the wind and the elongated shadow cast by the clock.

But on February 15th, 1991, a solitary boy approached and inserted a brass key into the clock's center.

In that instant, the wind ceased, and every living thing froze.

The clock began to tick, each sound soft and hollow, like footsteps echoing through a corridor yet to be built.

At the seventh tick, the boy smiled.

At the twelfth, his shadow peeled away from the ground and walked off, leaving his body behind.

Thereafter, the world resumed its course…except for one.

The boy had remained motionless and trapped.

Adults sent to retrieve him vanished upon crossing the stone boundary encircling the field.

Thus, the boy stood alone, lost to time.

Until one day, unnoticed, a small cat crossed the barrier.

It returned, unscathed, carrying the boy's boot in its mouth.

It slipped through the wrought-iron gate, placing the boy's boot upon the threshold of an enormous manor with shuttered windows.

There it sat, silent and watchful, until the first light of dawn.

No soul witnessed the boot's arrival. Yet, all observed that the mirrors no longer cast reflections.

Initially, the townsfolk blamed dust, then the quality of light, and finally, their own sorrow. But even after polishing the glass and throwing open doors to the sun, the mirrors remained void.

As if they had forgotten the visage of the world.

Weeks passed, and a profound stillness settled. An inexplicable sensation emerged, as though time itself was regressing.

The child's name faded from memory.

However, this hadn't been the result of grief, but rather because it could no longer be recalled.

Records, both written and spoken, became smudged and unintelligible. 

Only the boot remained, its tongue frayed and soles worn.

Somewhere distant, the clock continued its ticking. Yet, none, not even the enigmatic cat, could discern its location.

Each night, the cat gazed into the empty mirror.

Until, on an evening just before spring, all mirrors revealed the same image:

A freshly dug field with a second boot, half-buried at its center.

Beside it, a solitary handprint pressed into the soil, as if something had reached upward and then reconsidered.

When the mirrors returned to their void state, the boot vanished from the manor's threshold.

The townspeople assumed theft and cast blame upon the cat.

However, the cat no longer visited the house. 

Instead, it wandered beyond the inexplicable barrier to the eastern hill, where the air shimmered like heat above a flame.

Invisible to others, it sat beneath the roots of a half-dead fir at the cliff's edge, poised upon a circle of ancient stones.

Within the ancient stone circle, the grass defied nature, curling downward to re-enter the earth through apertures never carved by hand.

At the center lay a moss-covered dial, etched with thirty-seven notches so shallow they seemed to vanish when not observed. 

Beneath each was a hollow where a tooth once fit.

The cat watched with unwavering patience, returning daily without fail.

Only the cat knew the dial would not turn until all pieces were assembled, even those that had been long misplaced.

As winter approached, something new appeared at the town's edge. 

Unmarked on any map; though maps were seldom consulted now, as many sensed the world was regressing.

The milkman noticed it first but spoke not a word. He merely altered his route, turning two streets early, convincing himself the road ahead was flooded.

Yet, there was no water.

Only a black door standing alone between two sagging fences. No hinges, no knob, not even a threshold. Surrounded by dirt and rain-beaten weeds.

Children passing on their way to the orchard felt unease in their knees.

One girl dropped her doll named, Lamb, as she passed. 

Her mother insisted she retrieve it.

But upon returning, both door and doll had vanished.

That night, after a prolonged absence of dreams, the girl's mother dreamed of lace caught in the teeth of a clock.

Her vision was pulled downward, beneath layers of salt-soaked limestone, brittle with age and pressed so tightly they began to curve inward.

In a chamber scarcely larger than a cellar, a solitary bead of condensation traced a languid path down the damp wall.

Its descent was punctuated by the soft plink of droplets striking the stone floor at precise intervals that were thirty-seven seconds apart.

Initially, only the anticipation of an unseen presence filled the space. Then, a muted thud disrupted the silence. She turned swiftly, her gaze settling on a plain white book lying on the ground, as if it had emerged from the shadows themselves.

The book's pages bore stains reminiscent of dried leaves, their corners frayed and worn. 

Yet, as she opened it, she noted with surprise that the ink remained unblurred, despite the chamber's pervasive dampness.

No title adorned the pages, only a single line inscribed in a flat, meticulous hand across the top of the first page:

February 15th, 1991.

Beneath it, thirteen empty lines stretched downward.

She pondered the anomaly of the date.

"Why would this year be written, when it has never occurred? It is still 1877, is it not?"

. . .

By morning, the black door had returned.

No one spoke of it aloud. 

Yet, each passerby turned their head slightly sooner than necessary, as if their bodies refused to let their eyes meet it directly.

The girl who had lost her doll hurled a rock at it. 

She was taken aback when no sound resulted. 

The rock vanished mid-air as well, and a moment later, a small piece of weathered ribbon floated gently down where the stone should have landed.

It was pale red, closer to rust than blood.

She did not pick it up and simply ran away.

. . .

As twilight descended once more, a nameless hand placed a single candle at the foot of the door. 

It was an act driven less by reverence than by an impulsive curiosity.

The flame burned steadily for seventeen minutes before, unexpectedly splitting horizontally into two tongues of fire.

Both veered sideways before extinguishing itself.

In the darkness that pursued, beyond the door, lay an unexplained monument that was one among many now and mirrored the very chamber from the woman's dream.

Unbeknownst to all, this room was the origin point, the place where everything peculiar truly all began.

The clock that had appeared in a dream was the first anomaly witnessed by those above ground. 

But the true genesis was beneath.

Here stirred something that aspired to craft a perfect universe. In its pursuit, it created a place that defied death.

A space that acted as neither grave nor womb, and instead was a corner of the universe where the Creator's grief found no other refuge.

The ink on the open book's page bled slightly, as if startled. 

Where there had been thirteen empty lines, the first now bore a strange symbol.

It resembled a wheel, or perhaps a chain. 

In another interpretation, it appeared as a child's drawing of the sun, its center conspicuously absent, as if the hand that drew it couldn't bring itself to complete the image.

Though only this book was visible, those who remained silent and truly listened would hear a faint scraping sound, like a page being turned.

Once. Then again. And again.

However, these pages were not being read anew; the one who turned them was merely attempting to recall everything... back to the very beginning.

. . .

The First Quota

The creator's original narrative has found you. The initial readers have narrowly altered the narrative's 'existence' by imparting a separate title. 

Thus, the original telling has been delegated as 'The Memoir.'

What you've just read is the only fragment I was able to decipher from within the contents of this artifact. The only other mystery that has been solved is that 'The Memoir' belonged to the abundant creator.

You may refer to me as the editor until we meet.

Lastly, I ask only this: Be highly attentive to the entries I've left in this book. 

I can promise that they may prove useful.

Sincerely,

The editor.

Prelude to the Memoir

Rule 1 

Mysteries lie beyond your reality, Navigator. Have vigilance in your choices to tailor the unraveling of your universe.

Rule 2

Only anomalies can interact with the stream that unifies the function of infinite sequences.