In the heart of a crumbling city, time was everything. Embedded in their skin, glowing "time chips" displayed the hours, minutes, and seconds each citizen had left to live. Every breath and every step was a withdrawal from their finite balance. The wealthy, with centuries on their chips, lived in luxury, while the poor fought daily for just one more hour. When your clock hit zero, there were no second chances.
Elin had watched her father's chip hit zero when she was ten years old. His lifeless body collapsed on their kitchen floor while she screamed for help. That moment drove her, fueling her desperation to escape the slums and study engineering. Years later, working in a repair shop that catered to the wealthy, she began secretly studying the Master Clock: the device that controlled time for the entire world. She noticed an anomaly in its schematics an unused function buried deep within its design.
It was a reset function, a failsafe left by the Clock's creator. If activated, it would redistribute time equally....100 years for every person, regardless of their wealth or status. But there was a catch: the Master Clock couldn't handle the surge. Everyone with less than ten hours on their chip would burn out instantly. The price of equality was death for the weakest.
Elin hesitated. She spent weeks poring over the schematics, hoping to find another way. However, the injustice she witnessed every day....the children begging for scraps of time, the elderly collapsing in the streets....made her decision clear. She couldn't allow the Clockmasters, the elite rulers who hoarded endless time, to maintain their control.
Through whispers in the Grey Zone a lawless wasteland where time had already run out she found the Chronos Rebellion. This underground group had spent years plotting to overthrow the system, but they lacked the necessary means. When Elin revealed her discovery, they embraced her plan. Their leader, a charismatic but ruthless man named Auron, saw the reset as the revolution they needed.
But as Elin worked with the rebellion, doubts crept in. Auron's vision for a new world felt more like chaos than justice. He spoke of tearing down the system completely, even if it meant thousands would die in the process. Meanwhile, another unexpected ally emerged: Mara, a disillusioned Clockmaster, offered to help Elin infiltrate the Master Clock. Mara claimed to want change, but her motives were unclear.
With time running out [ literally ] Elin pushed forward. The rebellion's plan hinged on infiltrating the Master Clock's fortress, a towering marvel of golden gears and glowing circuits. The night of the heist arrived, and Elin's heart raced as they breached the gates. Inside, the Master Clock loomed before them, its colossal mechanisms powered by the stolen time of millions.
As Elin prepared to activate the reset, Auron revealed his betrayal. He had no intention of letting the reset create equality; instead, he planned to seize control of the Clock for himself, becoming the new ruler of time. Auron turned on Elin, but Mara intervened, helping Elin escape his grasp.
Reaching the heart of the Master Clock, Elin faced her final choice. She could still turn back....abandon the reset and leave the system intact....or she could push the button, knowing it would cost millions of lives, possibly even her own.
She activated the reset.
For a brief moment, the world stood still. The glow of every time chip flickered, and then, one by one, they reset to 100 years. Across the city, the wealthy screamed as their centuries vanished, while the poor gasped in disbelief as time flooded into their chips. But in the Grey Zone, where so many were already on the brink, people collapsed by the thousands, their chips burning out in sparks of red light.
Elin fell to the ground, her vision fading as her chip burned out. She smiled, knowing she had done what she could. The Master Clock began to crack, its golden gears grinding to a halt. In its final moments, strange symbols glowed across its face, unreadable to anyone. The rebellion celebrated, while others wept for the dead. The world was reset, but its future remained uncertain.
Elin's sacrifice became a legend, a symbol of hope, and a warning of the cost of change.
