Enrique stared into the box.
Nothing.
No mountains.
No winding road.
No strange figure.
Just darkness.
He slowly turned the box in his hands, examining every corner.
“Okay…”
He took a breath.
“That’s it. I’m done.”
He set the box down.
For several seconds, Enrique simply stood there.
Then he laughed nervously.
“Yeah. Sure. A portal inside a wooden box.”
He shook his head.
“That’s completely normal.”
He turned away.
Tick.
Enrique stopped.
His smile disappeared.
He slowly looked back.
Tick.
There it was again.
A clock.
But there wasn’t a clock in the room.
Tick…
Enrique looked around.
Nothing.
The sound seemed to be coming from everywhere at once.
He stepped toward the box.
The ticking became louder.
He leaned over the opening.
And froze.
The world inside the box had changed again.
This time there was no beautiful sunset.
No mountains.
No ancient ruins.
Instead, Enrique saw a massive stone city stretching across a dark valley.
Buildings rose impossibly high into the sky.
Bridges connected towers that seemed to float above the streets.
And everywhere he looked…
there were clocks.
Hundreds of them.
Maybe thousands.
Some were enormous.
Others were no larger than coins.
Some moved normally.
Others spun backward.
One clock had no hands at all.
Another appeared to be melting.
Enrique whispered:
“What is this place?”
Then he noticed something.
A road ran directly through the center of the city.
And standing at the end of it…
was the man.
The same man he had seen before.
The dark coat.
The shattered clock symbol.
The impossible stare.
The Chrono Tyrant.
Enrique instinctively pulled away.
“No.”
The figure didn’t move.
Enrique looked down.
The box was sitting on the table.
He looked back.
The man was still there.
Then the figure raised one hand.
Slowly.
Almost casually.
He pointed directly at Enrique.
The ticking stopped.
Everything inside the box became completely still.
Enrique’s heart raced.
Then something impossible happened.
The man’s image began moving toward him.
Not walking.
Not running.
The entire world inside the box seemed to move.
The city stretched.
The road lengthened.
The buildings bent toward the opening.
And suddenly Enrique understood.
The box wasn’t showing him another world.
It was looking back at him.
The opening began to glow.
Enrique stumbled backward.
“No, no, no…”
A voice emerged from the box.
Quiet.
Almost a whisper.
But unmistakably the same voice.
“You looked.”
Enrique couldn’t breathe.
“You opened the door.”
The glow intensified.
“You saw me.”
A crack appeared across the wooden surface of the box.
Enrique stared at it.
The crack wasn’t in the wood.
It was in the space surrounding the box.
Like reality itself had fractured.
Then the voice came again.
“And now…”
“…I can see you.”
The room went silent.
Enrique looked toward the window.
For the briefest moment, everything outside seemed frozen.
A bird hung motionless in the sky.
A car sat completely still in the street.
Even the dust floating through the sunlight had stopped.
Enrique turned back toward the box.
The figure was gone.
The city was gone.
The clocks were gone.
Only one thing remained.
A small golden clock symbol.
It floated in the darkness inside the box.
Then it began to spin.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
And suddenly—
CLICK.
The room came back to life.
The bird continued flying.
The car moved.
The dust settled.
Enrique stood completely still.
He looked at the box.
Then at the room.
Then back at the box.
His hands were shaking.
He reached toward it.
Stopped.
And pulled his hand away.
“No.”
He whispered.
“I’m not touching that thing again.”
Behind him, something made a sound.
Tick.
Enrique slowly turned around.
There was nothing there.
Tick.
His eyes moved toward the wall.
Nothing.
Tick.
Then he noticed something that hadn’t been there before.
A shadow.
Standing in the corner of the room.
Tall.
Motionless.
And shaped exactly like the man inside the box.
Enrique’s eyes widened.
The shadow slowly raised its hand.
And pointed toward the box.
Enrique didn’t move.
Neither did the shadow.
Then, from somewhere deep inside the wooden artifact, came a final whisper:
“Find the others.”
The shadow disappeared.
Enrique stood alone.
For the first time, he realized something far more frightening than the box being a portal.
The box hadn’t found him by accident.
It had brought him here for a reason.
And apparently…
he wasn’t the only one.
TO BE CONTINUE
Flair Affair Entertainment 
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