Damian Brown 
February 9
 

If you'd told me I’d have to spend my entire internship with my least favorite person on earth, I’d have laughed. But it was like she was everywhere I went, doing everything I did, and somehow always doing it better—not that I’d ever admit that to anyone. This was my chance to prove I was better, but of course, Mr. Timekeeper had to take pity on little miss Nora Miller. The Timekeeper’s job was simple: keep the clocks’ times in sync, don’t mess it up. It seemed easy enough, but I was wrong. We had one shot to put our differences aside and prove we could handle the responsibility. The Timekeeper had left us in charge—for just one night. All we had to do was keep things running smoothly.

 

“All you have to do is keep these clocks on time and I’ll do the rest,” I ordered, earning a scoff from her, clearly annoyed that I had some authority over her.

 

“Don’t act like you know how to do this,” Nora shot back,

folding her arms and leaning against the wall. “You’re just lucky you’re not messing with the actual mechanisms. I can’t believe they trust you with this.”

 

I rolled my eyes. “Just stick to your corner, Miller. I’ll take care of the rest.” We were supposed to synchronize dozens of clocks, each representing a different time zone. The challenge was getting them all aligned perfectly, down to the second. Relatively—until you factored in the chaos that was Nora Miller, who insisted on questioning every single step I took.

 

As the night went on, the tension grew. Every clock I finished, she double-checked. Every clock she finished, I had some sarcastic comment for it. It felt like we were stuck in a never-ending cycle, neither of us letting the other take control. When I finished the last clock, a sigh of relief left my lips, very short lived relief unfortunately. A click rang through the room then—silence. No more ticking, no more chimes, nothing.

 

“What did you do?” I demanded, panic flashing through my usual confident demeanor.

 

“Nothing, I swear I didn’t touch anything. This isn’t my fault,” she said, frozen, as if the silence was a trap closing in on us. The room felt overwhelmingly quiet. Without the clocks ticking, the pressure only grew. We had limited time before we'd fail the assignment—and fail in front of the Timekeeper. I could feel the sweat on my forehead.

 

“Someone did something, and it definitely wasn’t me,” I said, my hands automatically reaching for one of the clocks, trying to force the hands to tick, to get them moving again. Nothing worked.

 

“Does this mean time stopped?” Nora asked, though frankly, that wasn’t what I was worried about. What concerned me more was that we’d just broken time. The room seemed smaller now, and the weight of failure pressed harder. The Timekeeper would be back in a few hours. We couldn’t afford to mess this up. I grabbed the nearest clock and checked its mechanism again, working faster this time, as if the ticking would return if I just fiddled with it enough. I paused, meeting her eyes for the first time that night without any bitterness. 

 

“You think it’s the gears?” I asked, pulling a clock off the wall and flipping it over to reveal its exposed back. My fingers traced the metal grooves that should have been driving the clock’s hands. She shook her head, her usual calm demeanor replaced by nervousness.

 

“I doubt it. Unless something got stuck in every cog at the same time, it’s something to do with the power source.” Her gaze flickered nervously around the room, landing on the grandfather clock at the front—the largest one in the room. Hundreds of numbers and hands lined the inside and rim of the imposing clock. I felt my heart race faster than any second hand would. Rule number one was not to mess with the master clock. That was basic knowledge. If even the slightest thing went wrong, time would be thrown out of balance.

 

“You sure?” I asked. If she was certain, then maybe she was right and as annoying as she was, she wasn’t stupid. “You know if we mess this up, there’s no going back, right?” I stood next to her before the giant clock.

 

“Yeah, I’m sure,” she said, but her tone didn’t comfort me as much as I’d hoped. We’d already broken time. There was hardly any room for error. The clocks were ticking, metaphorically of course.