In a quiet village nestled between misty hills, there lived an old clockmaker named Elias. For fifty years, he repaired every clock brought to him - grandfather clocks, pocket watches, cuckoo clocks. Each tick was a heartbeat to him. Each gear, a tiny miracle.

Elias had no children, but one day a boy named Theo began showing up outside his shop window, watching the tiny tools with wide, curious eyes. Elias invited him in.

"You want to learn how time works?" the old man asked.

Theo nodded. "I want to understand how it keeps moving, even when everything else stops."

So Elias took him on as his apprentice.

Years passed. Theo grew from boy to man, and Elias grew slow, his hands shaky. The day came when Elias could no longer work. He handed Theo a watch he'd never finished - a masterpiece he'd planned to complete at the end of his career.

"I never got to finish this," Elias said. "But maybe that's the point. Time always needs someone to carry it forward."

Theo completed the watch and placed it in the shop window, not for sale, but as a tribute.

From that day on, the village clocks never missed a beat.