Time was running out.
Not in her bedchamber. Not in any bedchamber.
But somewhere in the world's skin—somewhere in earth, memory, blood. An old, dry clock, bone and remorse hands, crawling along with the slow, dragging creak of something waking.
Margo limped along beside Gabriel in mist as thick as shame, the coppery taste of moss and blood on her lips. Her skirt had been ripped by the vine's bite. Her arm ached. Her chest, bound with ghost bruises, pounded with each step.
The garden—the location once beautiful and magical—grew stranger. More color. More vibrant.
"We have to find the portal," she said, holding her side. Her voice was fraying, tearing apart at the edges. "I won't remain here. Not another moment."
Gabriel concurred, though a thrill of fear now welled up behind his gaze.
The young man who had appeared to be carved out of starduff now looked lost in his work.
"It'll be there," he grumbled. "Just past the stone orchard."
"Stone?" Margo furrowed her brow.
He didn't answer. Just kept walking, eyes fixed on some distant rhythm only he could feel.
They walked through hedges curled like claws, whose thorns throbbed feebly like veins alive. Flowers blinked once, twice, then remained open. Grass rustled with murmurs. Trees leaned in toward them, ears open.
Time was askew here.
Light filtered sideways.
The sky pulsed with red veined fissures, and the air was filled with the smell of burned sugar and damp bones.
"Do you know for certain it's here?" she asked.
"No," he replied softly.
And that frightened her more than anything else.
They passed over wrecked buildings—columns of bone-white stone hidden under scrawls that wept ink. There was a broken statue standing askew at the entrance to nowhere: a schoolgirl in blue, roses growing out of her eye sockets, arms stretching towards nothing.
"Gabriel," Margo said, gaping. "Ever bring anyone here before?"
He slowed up.
"I…"
He cast down his eyes. The moonlight fell upon his lips, pressed in a guilty line.
"Somewhere. Not many. They didn't survive."
She stopped. "You lied to me."
"I didn't lie," he gasped. "I just didn't tell you all of it."
"But I believed you!" Her voice cracked—raw, hurting. "I believed—"
A bell wailed in the distance.
Not a church bell. Not a town bell.
A death bell.
Ding.
Then again.
Ding.
Gabriel's eyes widened. "Midnight."
They ran.
The garden came alive with fury. The ground rippled beneath them like skin. Mouths opened in the grass. Trees howled. Flowers bared teeth.
"I see it!" he shouted, pointing to a shimmer in the distance—an archway of flickering light stitched between the roots of a dying tree.
"It's 12:02!" Margo cried. "We're late!"
"GO!"
She threw herself forward into the light.
Home. But not home.
She fell hard onto splintering boards. The air wasn't the same. Thick. Wrong.
Her house loomed around her, but it was the skeleton of what had been.
The walls were rotting. The floor was creaking. A stench of mold, rot, and something very dead clung to every surface.
"Lindsay?" Margo whispered. Her voice bounced—too loud in the dead house.
Silence.
And then—a reed-thin voice. Paper-like, cracking.
".Margo?"
Someone emerged from the hall.
Thin, shaking. Wax-melted complexion. White, long locks.
Eyes—still Lindsay's eyes—wide with horror.
Margo gasped. "No."
She fell to the floor.
"Is this Lindsay?
"Margo," Lindsay wept. "You… you never came back. You never came back."
She sank into her arms. Wrinkled arms. Shaking and weak.
"They told me you died. Twenty years. Twenty years! Where had you been?"
"I—I don't know," Margo wept. "I was just… in the garden. I swear, I was there only for hours."
But on the calendar hung on the wall it said: June, 2046.
The couch was torn. Windows were dusty and foggy.
Picture frames were broken and strewn about.
It was all wrong.
Gabriel stood with his back against the wall, grinning weakly.
But when Margo glared at him—really looked—his grin disappeared.
"You think this is funny?" she hissed.
He winced. "No. I just… didn't expect the portal to collapse."
"What did you do to me?!"
Before he could answer, a voice outside shouted, "Demolition begins now!"
The End of the House
They made a run for it outside.
Construction workers in hard hats surrounded the house. A bulldozer roared to life.
"STOP!" Margo yelled. "Someone's inside!"
A man turned. "This house has been abandoned for decades."
"My sister is in there!"
But Lindsay was too old, too fragile to move quickly.
Margo tried to run in, but Gabriel grabbed her arm.
"Don't. You'll die too."
The bulldozer lunged.
Wood cracked. Walls groaned. The roof split open like a coffin lid.
Margo screamed.
"LINDSAY!!!"
The sound of crushed beams.
Then—a cry from inside the house.
The workers cried out, turned off the machine, and crawled over the wreckage.
Someone shouted, "There's a hand!"
Lindsay. Buried. Broken.
Blood smeared her face. Her legs were twisted in the wrong directions.
Margo screamed until her throat ripped apart.
The ambulance took her away.
Margo sat in the backseat. Broken. Bleeding.
Hospital. Quiet. Ghostlight.
Machines beeped. Tubes. Blood. Bandages.
Lindsay slept, hardly breathing.
Gabriel appeared again—at the window. As always.
"Margo," he whispered.
She slowly turned. Her eyes like knives.
"You did this."
"I didn't mean to let it happen like this."
"You took me there."
"I wanted to show you something beautiful," he said. "I didn't think you'd be here long enough."
"She's on death's door."
"You can fix it," he said. "It's not too late."
Margo laughed, loud and hollow. "You said that before."
"This time it's real," Gabriel said. "There's one portal. If you go with me now. If you stay with me an hour, I can return you to the correct time. Nobody will recall this timeline. Lindsay will be young again. Alive. Whole."
Her heart protested. Her mind screamed.
"You're asking me to trust you."
"I'm asking you to believe in an escape."
Tears obscured her vision. She focused on Lindsay.
Then at Gabriel.
"I hate you," she whispered.
He said nothing.
"I'll do it," she said. "Just for her."