Untitled expulsion

The fog crept over the sidewalks of the coastal city like a living creature searching for the secrets of old houses. In a forgotten corner of the Al-Manara neighborhood, where shops with salt-eaten wooden facades stood side by side, Elias sat behind his desk, which was submerged in organized chaos. His small workshop was not just a place of work, but a mechanical refuge from the outside world, which had become saturated with touchscreens and artificial intelligence.

For Elias, truth resided in gears. Mechanics do not lie; if a gear breaks, the engine stops, and if a spring breaks, the pulse stops. He was thirty-eight years old, but his hands, stained with clock oil for years, looked like those of an old surgeon. He wore magnifying glasses fixed to his forehead and held a screwdriver as fine as a sewing needle, trying to breathe life back into an antique 19th-century pocket watch.

The ticking sound in the workshop was not noise to him, but a steady rhythm that gave him the peace he missed in the hustle and bustle. Suddenly, the sound of the brass doorbell pierced this rhythm.

Elias slowly raised his head and removed the magnifying glass from his tired eyes. Standing behind the foggy glass door was a tall figure. He opened the door to let in a young man dressed in a postman's uniform, who looked hurried.

“Mr. Elias?” asked the young man, wiping the dew from his forehead.

“Yes, that's me,” Elias replied calmly, his eyes fixed on the small wooden box the young man was carrying.

“This package just arrived at the main office. There's no sender's name, just your address written by hand... and instructions to deliver it to you personally before sunset.”

The courier placed the package on the table, and Elias signed the receipt mechanically. The box was wrapped in thick cardboard and did not bear the usual postage stamps, but rather an old red wax seal with a logo Elias had never seen before: a gear intertwined with a bird's feather.

The courier left, and Elias was left alone with the box. He felt an unnatural cold emanating from the paper. He hesitated for a moment; the philosophy he lived by urged him to be wary of anything unknown. But his professional curiosity, which Block described as the driving force behind a successful fictional character, prompted him to reach out.

He used a sharp blade to open the cardboard. Underneath the cover was a wooden box made of fine ebony, with an intricate brass lock in the center that was unlike any traditional lock. It did not require a key, but consisted of a set of rotating rings bearing numbers and symbols.

“A combination lock... completely mechanical,” Elias muttered admiringly.

Elias spent the next few hours trying to understand the logic of the lock. It wasn't just numbers, but a puzzle based on balance and weight. He remembered the words of his old teacher who had taught him the craft: “A machine is a mirror of its maker's mind. If you understand the mind, you can master the machine.”

As the sun began to set, painting the city skyline copper, Elias heard that familiar “click.” The box slowly opened, revealing its contents, which made his heart race.

Inside the box lay a spherical metal device, the size of a pomegranate, made of an unknown alloy that combined the luster of gold with the hardness of steel. It was not a clock, nor was it a compass, but it contained hundreds of tiny gears that could be seen through a hard glass casing.

In the center of the sphere was a small pointer pointing to the number “30.”

Elias held the device carefully. As soon as his fingers touched its surface, he felt a slight vibration, as if the machine had awakened from a deep sleep. Suddenly, the gears inside began to spin at an astonishing speed, emitting a faint musical ringing sound, and then the number changed from “30” to “29:23:59.”

“A countdown?” Elias whispered, feeling a cold drop of sweat slide down his back.

As he tried to understand the nature of this countdown, a carefully folded piece of paper fell from the lid of the box. Elias opened it to find a handwriting he knew very well... a handwriting he hadn't seen in twenty years. It was a letter from “Engineer Saber,” his teacher who had disappeared under mysterious circumstances and was considered by everyone to be dead.

"Elias, my son, if you are reading this, the engine has started. The world thinks that time flows in one direction, but the truth is much deeper than that. This machine is not for measuring time, but is the final warning. You have thirty days to find the archive and correct the mistake we started together. Do not trust the calm, for the storm lies in the gears. Look for the point where the sea meets the mountain... That is where your journey will begin."

Elias had barely finished the last line when he heard the sudden screech of brakes in front of his workshop. Bright lights pierced the fog and glass, then the front window was smashed with a rock wrapped in black paper.

Elias backed away, clutching the spherical machine to his chest. His heart was beating faster than he had ever felt before. He looked through the gap in the broken glass and saw a black car with tinted windows parked outside. Two men wearing long gray coats got out, their features cold and stern in the dim streetlights.

At that moment, Elias realized that his monotonous life among the gears of clocks was over forever. He was no longer just a clock repairman, but the guardian of a secret that could change the face of the city... or destroy it.

The two men approached the workshop door with confident, steady steps. They did not knock, but pushed it open with such force that the antique brass lock screamed in mechanical pain.

“Mr. Elias,” one of them said in a hollow, emotionless voice, “we have something that belongs to us inside this box, and it would be best if you handed it over to us now... before time stops completely.”

Elias looked at the machine in his hand; the indicator now read: 29 days, 23 hours, and 55 minutes.

He felt the weight of responsibility and remembered Block's advice on plot construction: “The event must stem from an emotional decision by the character.” At that moment, Elias made his decision. He would not hand over his teacher's legacy to these cold faces.

The lights in the workshop suddenly went out, and Elias began to move in the darkness that preserved every corner, while the two men broke into the place. The 30-day journey had effectively begun, but Elias did not yet know that the enemy he faced was not just men in gray coats, but an entire system seeking to wipe him out of existence.

The first chapter was over.