Seconds- )Prologue(

The attic was a realm of shadows and forgotten things, thick with the scent of dust and time. The young man, Alex, had never set foot in this part of the sprawling country estate he now called his own—a reluctant inheritance from a grandfather he barely knew. The air was heavy, the silence broken only by the creak of old floorboards under his weight as he sifted through the relics of a life shrouded in mystery.

His fingers brushed against an ornate box, its lacquered surface dulled by years of neglect. Inside lay an antique pocket watch, its intricate gears visible through a glass casing, frozen mid-tick. Something about it called to him, a whisper at the edge of his perception. He reached out, hesitant but compelled, and the moment his hand closed around the cool metal, the world dissolved.

It was not darkness he fell into, but everything—light and shadow, sound and silence, moments layered upon moments in a chaotic symphony of existence. He saw the unseen, felt the unfelt, as if eternity itself had opened its maw and swallowed him whole. Time was no longer linear but a swirling storm, a dimension where every possibility and impossibility collided. Alex was no longer in the attic, nor anywhere he could comprehend. He was everywhere, everywhen, and everything.... but alone.