The stairs ended at a door wide as a barn, its surface ticking like a clock. Ferra felt the rhythm in her teeth before it swung wide, a heartbeat made of iron.
"Do all the floors in this place have to make noise?" Rumi complained, rubbing her ears.
"It is a clock, Rumi, clocks tick," Nari whispered, "that is the entire point of them."
Beyond the door stretched a hall of identical corridors, each ending in a door with a pale dial.
Every dial read sixty until Ferra blinked, then each one dropped to fifty-nine at once.
[Floor 8]
[Clockwork Barracks]
[Time-room: sixty heartbeats]
[Resets: unlimited]
[Stream]
[Status: ON]
[Viewers: 18,570]
[Soul Energy: 108]
[CringeSlayer91: THE FLOOR IS A METRONOME. I CAN'T BREATHE.]
[ashley(mod): every door has a countdown. whoever designed this hates fun]
"Each hallway is a locked time-room," Aria said from Hajin's shoulder, her glow steady again, "the soldiers drill for sixty beats, then everything resets, including anyone inside."
