He stared at his hands.
The dirt beneath his fingernails was dark and damp. Clumped. Smelled like rain and rot.
He wiped them on his pants out of instinct. But the stain stayed. Like it had been there longer than he noticed.
The bench was empty beside him.
The swing creaked once in the still air.
And then stopped.
He stood.
"She was just here."
His voice fell flat. No echo. Like the garden had stopped listening.
He walked the path she'd taken—between the trees, under the low branches, past the stone arch.
The air changed with every step. Grew thinner. The warmth faded.
He kept going.
There was no sign of her. No footprints. No bend in the grass.
Only the faint sound of water dripping. Somewhere it shouldn't be.
Eventually the path ended, not in a clearing, but in a corridor.
A long one.
The kind that didn't belong outside. Smooth walls. Hanging bulbs. No windows.
He looked back—only trees.
Forward—hallway.
So he walked.
His shoes scuffed the floor louder than they should have.
Somewhere ahead, something was breathing. Not human. Not threatening. Just… present. The kind of sound a room makes when it's remembering something.
He passed a door.
It had no handle.
He passed another. Same.
Then a third.
This one had a crack in the bottom.
Smoke was leaking out, slow and blue. Not fire-smoke. Not choking. Just… drifting.
He knelt, curious.
There were words scratched into the base of the door:
You asked too soon.
He didn't know what that meant.
He didn't know why it made his throat tighten.
He stood and kept walking.
The corridor twisted.
The lights above began flickering. Not violently. Rhythmically. Like they were blinking with a heartbeat.
At the end of the hall, another door. Wood. Old.
Something about it felt wrong.
Not dangerous.
Just… personal.
He reached for the knob.
Stopped.
Something tugged at the back of his mind. Something the girl had said—or hadn't.
He closed his eyes.
"You're trying to remember what didn't happen…"
That line again.
He opened the door.
The room beyond was filled with clocks.
Hundreds of them. On the walls. On the tables. Hanging from invisible wires in the air. None of them told the same time.
Most were ticking.
Some were ticking backward.
One, on the floor, had shattered.
In the center of the room, a chair.
A coat hung over its back.
It looked like his.
He stepped inside.
Something underfoot crunched.
He looked down.
Burnt paper.
Torn edges. Nothing legible.
He knelt and picked up a piece.
It flaked in his fingers.
There were shapes on it—maybe letters. Maybe drawings.
He thought he saw the curve of a child's shoe. A red one.
But the paper disintegrated before he could tell.
Behind him, a ticking sound stopped.
One of the clocks had gone silent.
Then another.
And another.
He looked down at his hands again.
The dirt was still there.