The Zero-hour Tavern

The exit from the Temporal Scaffolding felt like being spit out by a hurricane. Elias and Clara tumbled through the blue rift, landing hard on a floor made of mismatched wooden planks—some polished oak from the 1800s, some reinforced steel from the 22nd century.

Clara gasped, the metallic gold in her eyes fading as the "Grey" was replaced by the smell of roasted malt, cheap tobacco, and ozone.

​"Welcome to the Zero-Hour," Elias said, dusting off his trench coat. "The only pub in London where the 'Now' never ends."

Clara stood up, smoothing her emerald dress, and froze.

The tavern was not built; it was accumulated. The floor was a mosaic of history Roman limestone transitioned into the scarred metal grating of a spaceship’s engine room, which bled into the plush, moth-eaten carpets of a Regency-era parlor.

Clara looked up and felt a wave of vertigo. The ceiling didn't exist. Instead, thousands of clock gears were there, some as small as a fingernail, others the size of windmill sails, ground together in a silent, golden dance. Between the teeth of the gears, she could see glimpses of different skies: a bruised purple twilight, a prehistoric sun, and the terrifying black void of deep space.

Don't stare at the ceiling for too long, Elias said

As he guiding her toward a booth made from the hull of a Viking longboat. Your brain will try to sync its pulse to the gears. That’s how people end up as permanent furniture."

Clara scanned the room, her magical eyes twitching. The tavern was divided into neighborhoods of time.

To the far left is the "Iron Row." This was the territory of the 14th century through the 17th. It smelled of wet soot, horse leather, and stale ale. Here, men in rusted chainmail sat shoulder-to-shoulder with 1920s gangsters in pinstripe suits. A knight with a scarred face was currently using a futuristic laser-lighter to ignite a wooden pipe, his eyes vacant, staring at a world he no longer understood.

In the center was "The Static Zone." This was where the "Liners" people plucked from the middle of the 20th century, The air here hummed with the white noise of a thousand dead radio stations. 1950s housewives in floral dresses sipped martinis next to haggard soldiers from the Great War, their uniforms still caked with the mud of the Somme.

To the far right, near the hearth where a fire burned with blue, heatless flames, was "The Neon Fringe." This was Elias’s territory. The people here were jagged and bright. They wore shimmering fabrics made of liquid light and had chrome interfaces embedded in their temples. They didn't speak; they shared data-shards by touching forefingers, their movements twitchy and hyper-accelerated.

As Elias stepped away to negotiate with Barnaby the bartender, a man slid into the seat opposite Clara.

He was a walking contradiction. He wore a suit of blackened plate armor, but over it, he had draped a high-tech tactical vest filled with glowing vials of blue fluid. A digital monocle was strapped over his left eye, clashing with the long, medieval beard that reached his chest.

"You have the 'Aureum Visus,' the man said. His voice sounded like grinding stones. "The Gold Sight."

Clara blinked, her eyes flaring bright metallic gold in response to his presence. "Who are you?

"I was Sir Thomas of York," the man said, leaning forward. Now, I am just a scavenger of seconds. I’ve seen those eyes before. They belonged to the woman who burned the Library of Alexandria because she couldn't bear to read how the world ended.

He reached out to a gauntleted hand but stopped before touching her. A piece of advice for the heiress of a dead man: Your eyes don't just see time; they anchor it. To everyone else in this room, time is a river that sweeps them away. To you, time is a tether.

He leaned in closer, the digital monocle on his face clicking as it zoomed in on her pupils. When the Weavers come, and they are coming ,don't try to look at their faces. They don't have faces. They are made of the 'In-Between.' Look at the shadows they cast. A Weaver’s shadow always points toward the moment they were born. If you want to kill a god of time, you have to strike where their shadow begins.

Clara felt a chill that had nothing to do with the tavern’s draft. Why are you telling me this?

Sir Thomas smiled, revealing a tooth made of glowing quartz. Because Elias Thorne is a man who wants to save the future. But "us" The zero-hour tavern people, just want to make sure that the end of the world is quiet. You, little Anomaly, are going to be very, very loud.

Before Clara could ask more, the blue fire in the hearth turned a sickly, ashen grey. The jukebox is a machine that plays echoes of songs not yet written and screeched into silence.

Barnaby’s third arm reached for the heavy lever behind the bar. "Elias!" the bartender roared. "The perimeter is collapsing! Something is eating the 1895 anchor point!"

Elias ran back to the table, his face pale. Thomas, get the girl to the back and you Barnaby, blow the seals!"

The windows of the tavern, which usually showed the white vortex, suddenly went black. Thousands of tiny, pale white hands began to press against the glass. No bodies, just hands.

"The Weavers," They found us! whispered Thomas,

He drew a broadsword that shimmered with a jagged energy field.

It doesn't seem like they are here for negotiating, I think they've decided to stitch the Tavern shut.

Elias grabbed Clara’s hand. Barnaby, get the cellar trapdoor open! If the Weavers get in here, they’ll stitch this entire tavern out of existence!

The tavern windows groaned under the pressure of the white hands. Then, with a sound like silk tearing, the glass didn't shatter, it dissolved.

Three figures drifted into the room. They were tall, draped in robes that looked like they were woven from funeral shrouds and spiderwebs. Where their faces should have been, there was only a swirling vortex of ash. These were the Weavers, the silent tailors of reality.

To the other patrons, the Weavers were terrifying, featureless gods. Barnaby fired his shotgun, but the lead pellets simply slowed down as they approached the robes, eventually stopping and falling to the floor like harmless raindrops.

Don't look at them, Clara! Elias shouted, while shielding his eyes. They’ll overwrite your memories just by standing near you.

But Clara didn't look at their faces. She remembered the scavenger knight’s words. She forced her gaze downward, her metallic gold eyes burning with such intensity that tears of warm gold began to track down her cheeks.

She looked at the floor.

On the mismatched planks of the Zero-Hour Tavern, the Weavers cast shadows that defied every law of physics. The light in the room was coming from the blue hearth, but the Weavers didn't move away from the fire. They moved toward the corners of the room, stretching out like long, jagged umbilical cords.

And they weren't just flat shapes. Clara realized with a jolt of horror that the shadows were film strips.

Inside the shadow of the leading Weaver, Clara saw a flickering image of a nursery in a house that hadn't been built yet. She saw a mother crying over a cradle. In the second Weaver’s shadow, she saw a battlefield in the far past, a soldier dying in the mud.

They aren't monsters, Clara whispered, her voice amplified by the temporal resonance in the room. "They’re tethers."

^^^To be continued ^^^

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