The old clock in the attic always ticked, but never moved. Its hands pointed in random directions, as if mocking the concept of time. Sophie spent her childhood summers listening to its persistent tick-tock, an echo in an echo, pondering the journeys it could have taken had it possessed the power to move.
It was on a Wednesday—or maybe it wasn't—that Sophie decided enough was enough. She would confront the clock, armed only with curiosity and a twist of fate. She reached out and brushed her fingers against its cold casing. Instantly, her world folded, the attic warping like fabric pulled taught and then slackened.
The air shimmered with untold stories as Sophie found herself standing not in her attic but amidst the grand library of Alexandria. The luminous parchments whispered secrets of the ages, their words indelibly etched into the fabric of her being.
"What brings you to our whispers?" a voice asked, startling Sophie from her reverie. It was a girl, cloaked in shadows and the soft light of knowledge. They exchanged tales—hers of gadgets and screens, theirs of ink and scrolls—and in their stories, they found a shared moment suspended between the ticks of eternity's clock.
Little did they know, the librarian had foreseen the convergence, written hollow verses that awaited their eyes, spinning a tale of time that time itself could not erase.
As the scroll of time unfurled before them, the girls realized their destinies were interlinked, their paths forever entwined with the tales of worlds unseen. They vowed to each other, through the hollow verses of forgotten poets, that they would guard the secrets of the time weaver.