They walked without talking for a while, which was fine. The party faded behind them into nothing, then just the city doing its regular thing. Cars, someone laughing on a corner, wind coming through at intervals.

The clock tower showed up the way it always did, suddenly and too large, rising out of the street, in front of a lake. Juno stopped when she reached the base of it.

She leaned against the stone, arms crossed, and looked at nothing in particular.

Yves stopped beside her. Tilted his head back to look up.

After a moment he said, “Do you think I could climb that?”

Juno slowly turned her head, raising an eyebrow. “What?”

“The clock tower,” he said. “I'm just saying. I have long legs. Good balance.”

She blinked at him. “You'd be dead in twenty seconds.”

He nodded. “Probably. But the view.”

“Yves.”

“What? You've never wanted to do something completely stupid just to have done it?”

She looked at him flatly. “I just destroyed someone's birthday cake and ran out of a party.”

He paused. “Okay. So we're both in that category.”

She didn't say anything. Above them the clock hands moved the way they always moved, too slow to see, too fast to stop.

He turned to look at her.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” She kept her eyes on the middle distance. “Tired.”

He was quiet for a second. Then: “I mean, you did sprint out of a social event. Calorically speaking–”

She turned to look at him.

He caught whatever was on her face and immediately held up a hand. “No. That came out wrong. I wasn't– I meant it was kind of impressive, actually. Like. Cinematically. You left with panache.”

She let that sit in the air for a moment. “Panache.”

“Yeah.”

“That's the word you went with.”

“Non-ironically,” he said, nodding too fast. “You have it. Not many people do.”

She looked back at the tower. He tried to fill the silence, because of course he did.

“For what it's worth,” he said, “you were– I mean, when you walked out, you looked–” He stopped and started again. “You always look– I mean not always, I don't– I'm not, like, cataloguing–”

“Yves.”

“I have very normal eyes, I just–”

“Yves.”

He stopped.

“Stop talking,” she said.

He stopped talking. For about four seconds. “Are you running a fever? Because I said something and now you have a look, and the look could mean several things, and one of them is that you're sick-sick and not just– you were coughing earlier, maybe it’s a flare-up or... or something? I don’t know how your condition works! Is that offensive? I just– are you sick-sick right now?”

“I'm not sick-sick.”

“But you were coughing–”

“I'm always coughing.”

“Right, but–”

“I don't have a fever,” she said.

She didn't add anything else. She just gave him a long, unreadable look.

Yves stepped back. “See? There! You keep doing it!”

“I'm not doing anything,” she said calmly.

“You're frowning.”

“I'm not.”

“You absolutely are. You look like you just saw me kick a kitten.”

“I have no idea what you're talking about,” she said, her face still visibly frowning.

Yves covered his face with both hands, visibly blushing, and let out a groan.

“Why do I keep doing this?” he muttered through his fingers.

Juno's lips twitched at seeing him, and before she could stop it, a laugh escaped her, a quiet reluctant sound.

Yves lifted his hands from his face. “Yes! There it is. That's what I was looking for.”

“You were going for public humiliation?”

“I was going for you to sound like that.” He pointed at her. “Took a few wrong turns but we got there.”

She shook her head.

“Come on,” he said. He tilted his head down the street. “I'll walk you home. I meant it.”

“You already walked me here.”

“This was the scenic detour.” He extended a hand. “Now for the actual part. Door to door. There are things out at this hour.”

She looked at his hand. “Things.”

“Monsters,” he said, completely serious. “Demons. Creatures with bad intentions and probably bad breath.” He paused. “Okay, I don't actually believe in demons. That's insane. I'm just saying the streets are weird at night and I've seen enough horror films to know that the girl who walks home alone is never the one who–”

“I walk home alone every night.”

“And every night I didn't know about it, so it didn't bother me.” He kept his hand out. “Now I know. So.”

She looked at him for a moment and he didn’t retract his hand, just held it there with patience.

She didn't take it. But she pushed off the wall and started walking in the direction of home.

Her gaze did stay on him for a moment longer. There was something disarming about his casual and silly behavior. It was refreshing. He wasn't trying to be anything more than himself.

But… the ticking.

It was there again. Just beneath her thoughts. A pulse she couldn't ignore.

Her heart beat to its rhythm, a constant beat she couldn't escape, and suddenly she felt as if the shadows around her were darker, as if something was moving in the corners of her vision again.

Dong.

The sudden, loud toll of the bell echoed through the city.

Juno flinched; it wasn't subtle. Her entire body tensed as if the sound had detonated right behind her. Her head snapped upwards and her breath caught in her throat.

Yves blinked, eyebrows lifting. “Whoa, easy. It’s just a bell.”

Juno didn't respond. Her eyes were fixed on something high above their heads.

Yves squinted. “Wait, did that actually scare you? Are you, hold on, are you jumpy right now? That’s kind of adorable.”

Still, she remained silent. The light starting to drain from her face.

“Hey…” His tone softened. “Juno?”

But she wasn't looking at him. Instead, her gaze was fixed on the roof of the clock tower. Her expression had turned pale and her mouth was set in a tight line.

Yves followed her line of sight, now feeling curious. “What are you–”

Then he saw it, perched on the edge of the tower's stone balcony. A cat. But not just any cat. This one was darker than shadow, darker than the night around them. It was like a hole had been torn through reality itself. Its fur left nothing behind. Its eyes glowed violet, fixed on her.

Yves took a step towards her. “…Juno?”

She spoke without taking her eyes off it. Her voice was quiet and broken, filled with dread.

“It’s here.”

Dong.

A burning pain ignited in her chest, sharper than ever before, it felt like invisible hands were crushing her ribs. She gasped as the world tilted.

It wasn't just her lungs collapsing; her heart was too. It was beating irregularly, first frantically, then faltering like it forgot how to beat properly. Each uneven beat splintered through her chest until she felt as though she was cracking right down the middle.

Her time was up. This whole night… no, this whole day, it’s been building up to this and she didn’t even notice. She didn’t pay attention to her body that had been giving up on her.

Pressing her palm to her sternum, she felt her vision blurring at the edges as her fingers dug into her blouse. The pain radiated outwards into her arms and throat, it was too much to bear.

Yves lunged forward, grabbing her by the shoulders. “Juno! Hey, look at me. What’s wrong? Talk to me!”

She tried to speak, but only a ragged breath escaped her lips. Her body trembled as sweat and goosebumps filled her skin.

“I… can’t…” she began, trying to speak.

Yves's brow furrowed. His voice rising with panic. “Breathe with me. In, out… come on, stay with me.”

Juno forced herself to comply, finding each inhalation a struggle and each exhalation rougher than the last. But the pain was relentless, tightening its grip on her heart.

Dong.

Yves looked over his shoulder and froze.

Across the street, he saw something moving in the alley. Shadows peeled away from the walls. First one, then more, sliding and reshaping themselves into impossibly tall figures. Their long, inhuman limbs bent. Faces,or rather the lack of them, stared back with glowing eyes.

Yves squinted. “Okay, what the– What the heck is that?!”

One of the shadows tilted its head.

“Oh my god,” he yelled. “Nope. Nope! That’s a demon. That is an actual demon.” He looked wildly at her, shaking her by the shoulders. “Juno, there’s demons! Like, plural! Demons with limbs and breath and that one has way too many teeth–”

The nearest creature began to crawl toward them. Yves screamed.

“Nope! No thank you. Absolutely not!”

He reached down, grabbed Juno’s hand, gentler than his panic should have allowed, and hauled her to her feet. “Okay! Time to go. I’m not about to let you get eaten by whatever that ugly thing is,” he said with a nervous chuckle.

Juno stumbled forward, one hand pressed tightly against her chest and the other gripping Yves' fingers. With every other step, her legs buckled, forcing her into a half-running stumble where she nearly pitched forward onto the pavement. The burning sensation in her chest worsened and spread up her throat, but she never let go of his hand.

“This is not what I signed up for,” Yves panted as they ran. “I thought we were having a moment. I was being charming. There was banter. But now demons are real. Great!”

Dong.

“Left! Left!” Yves barked, sounding very much like someone one bad scare away from sobbing. “I am never going to another party again!” he wheezed. “Remind me next time someone says ‘casual get-together’ to bring holy water and a bat!”

That's when they saw it.

It was standing at the mouth of the narrow side street. It was a demon unlike any they had seen before. It was enormous, black as pitch, covered in dozens of eyes fixed on them.

Yves skidded to a halt. “Oh. Oh no. No no no no.”

It leaned forward and Yves acted without thinking. He gently but urgently shoved Juno hard to one side.

“Yves–!”

“Down, Juno!” he shouted, flashing a panicked grin. “I’ve got this! No, I don’t! But go!”

And then the demon moved.

Faster than something that size should. It opened, not a mouth, but something that stretched too wide and it swallowed him whole.

One second he was standing there, trying to look brave like an idiot. The next, he was gone.

Dong

The sound was deafening now.

Juno clawed her way forward on trembling limbs, her skin torn by the pavement and her palms embedded with sand. Her muscles screamed with every inch she gained. Her knees were slick with blood and her breath was a ragged gasp, barely escaping her throat. The cold tore through her clothes and sank into her spine like needles, but she barely felt it.

The demon was still there. She didn't need to look to know. It pressed into her bones, her lungs and her mind. Like it was inside her skull, cracking it from within.

It’s getting closer.

Juno's body jerked into motion. Her legs screamed with each step and each breath cut her throat. Her arms ached, her side hurt and her body refused to carry on. It wanted to give up and die.

But she ran anyway.

Dong.

Wind howled against her cheeks. Then the snow started; fat flakes that hit her face like little slaps, each one stinging more than it should. She could barely feel her fingers anymore.

Somewhere, deep beneath the panic, a thought broke through:

Wasn't this what she had been waiting for?

She had always thought she was running out of time. Always waiting for the end to come quietly. She had convinced herself that it wouldn't matter when it happened because she had already let everything go. Let everyone go.

Hadn't she accepted it? The emptiness, the loneliness, the inevitable silence?

So why were her feet still pounding against the pavement? Why did her chest ache like it was fighting to stay whole? Why were her hands shaking with fear and not relief?

She was supposed to be ready... but she wasn't. She was terrified.

Dong.

Her legs buckled beneath her. Pain flared through her knees as they hit the frozen pavement. She was still drowning, her esophagus tightening every second. Her arms trembled as she tried to push herself up, but she couldn't.

The demon's presence was everywhere now, in the cracks of the concrete, in the snow that scratched her skin, in the ticking of that damned clock.

She was going to die here, so she turned onto her back and closed her eyes, and just waited for death to come.

But then…

“I can save you, Juno.”

Her body went still. Her eyes cracked open.

The cat.

No longer perched on high, but sitting now, directly on her chest, its weight pressing down on her racing heart.

It tilted its head, a mockery of sympathy in its expression. She heard its voice inside her skull. “You have a choice,” it murmured. “One thread left to pull.”

It raised a paw, placing it gently on her sternum. The touch was light as a feather, but she felt it inside her like a needle sewing through her ribs.

“I can give you more time,” the cat said. “But you'll be bound to me. To the Time Devil.”

She couldn't breathe. Her body screamed to crawl away, to fight, but all she could do was lie there, wide-eyed, the world collapsing inward, snowflakes falling on her face.

“You can escape death, Juno,” the cat whispered. “But you'll never be free again.”

Its eyes gleamed, waiting... and she knew deep in her marrow, that there was no other door left to open.

One choice, one curse, one second chance.

Her lips barely moved, but the words came out.

“...I accept.”

The world shattered.

She was falling. It felt like sinking through black ice into water so cold it felt like burning.

The ticking of the clock exploded in her ears as she sank deeper, reality folding and buckling around her like ripples on a dark surface.

And as time twisted around her, Juno, who had never been shown mercy, never been given time, who had lived like a question mark in the margins of everyone else's story; finally, impossibly, was getting another chance.