The Lost JournalShaina TranquilinoSeptember 1, 2024

The Lost Journal Shaina Tranquilino September 1, 2024

Lilian had lived in the old family house for as long as she could remember. A sprawling, vine covered estate on the outskirts of town, it was filled with memories and secrets passed down through generations. On a cool autumn afternoon, while rummaging through the dusty attic, she stumbled upon an ancient, leather-bound journal. Its cover was worn and cracked, the pages yellowed with age.

Curiosity piqued, Lilian gently opened the journal. The handwriting was elegant but faded, the ink barely legible in places. It belonged to Isabella Hawthorne, an ancestor she’d heard whispered about in family stories—rumours of a mysterious disappearance and an even more enigmatic life.

As Lilian read, she discovered that Isabella had been a woman of immense intelligence and ambition, living in a time when such traits were often suppressed. But it wasn’t just Isabella’s character that fascinated Lilian; it was the secrets the journal revealed. Isabella had documented her life in vivid detail, describing strange visitors, hidden rooms, and most intriguingly, a treasure buried somewhere beneath the estate.

According to the journal, the treasure was no mere chest of gold coins. It was something far more valuable—a collection of rare, priceless artifacts from around the world, acquired by the Hawthorne family over centuries. Isabella had taken it upon herself to hide these items when she suspected that a betrayal within the family threatened their safety.

The final pages of the journal were filled with clues: cryptic riddles, symbols, and a map that was barely discernible. Isabella had written that the treasure was buried deep underground, beneath the house itself, in a place “where the past meets the future.”

Determined to uncover the truth, Lilian spent days poring over the journal, deciphering its secrets. She mapped out the house, comparing it with the drawings Isabella had left behind. Finally, she identified a spot in the basement, beneath the old stone floor, where the treasure might be hidden.

Armed with a shovel and a flashlight, Lilian descended into the basement late one night. The air was cool and damp, and shadows danced on the walls as she chipped away at the stone. Hours passed, and just as she began to lose hope, her shovel struck something solid. Heart racing, she cleared away the dirt and uncovered a large, ornate chest, its wood still surprisingly intact after all these years.

Quivering like a leaf, Lilian pried open the chest. Inside, she found relics from across the globe—intricately carved statues, ancient manuscripts, and a crown encrusted with jewels. But there was something else, something that sent a chill down her spine: a second journal, this one addressed to her, as if Isabella had known she would one day find it.

The journal’s message was brief but profound. Isabella warned of the burden that came with such a discovery, urging Lilian to protect the treasures from those who would misuse them. She spoke of a legacy not just of wealth, but of responsibility—one that Lilian was now a part of.

As she stood in the dim light of the basement, holding the journal close, Lilian knew her life had changed forever. The secrets of her ancestors were now hers to keep, and the weight of the Hawthorne legacy rested squarely on her shoulders.

But Lilian was ready.

The Secret Garden Shaina Tranquilino September 15, 2024

Isla had always been a curious girl, the kind whose boundless curiosity led her to places no one else dared to go. On a crisp autumn afternoon, she wandered far beyond the old churchyard, through the woods, until she stumbled upon something peculiar—an iron gate, half-buried in brambles. It was strange; she had played in these woods for years, yet she had never seen this gate before.

A gentle breeze seemed to beckon her. Isla pushed aside the overgrown vines and felt a strange chill as her fingers touched the cold, rusty bars. With a creak, the gate opened, revealing a hidden path that wound deeper into the forest. Compelled by an unspoken force, Isla followed it, until the trees parted, and there it was—the garden.

It was unlike any place she had ever seen. The garden lay in the middle of a sun-dappled clearing, surrounded by ancient stone walls that were far too old to belong to any house still standing. But it wasn’t the isolation of the garden that made Isla’s breath catch in her throat. It was the flowers.

They bloomed in colours Isla had never imagined—unnatural shades of deep violet, shimmering silver, and hues that seemed to change depending on how the light hit them. Their petals moved, though no wind stirred. Each flower seemed to pulse with life, as if they were breathing. And the fragrance—sweet and intoxicating, yet heavy, like old secrets clinging to the air.

She knelt beside a midnight-blue rose, the darkest of all, drawn to it by a strange compulsion. The moment she touched it, a whisper filled her ears.

"The child in the river... she was pushed."

Isla snatched her hand away, her heart racing. She looked around, expecting to see someone standing behind her, but the garden was still. Her fingers tingled where they had touched the rose, and the whispered words echoed in her mind. She remembered the old town legend about a young girl who had drowned in the river fifty years ago. Everyone said it was an accident. But now... Isla wasn’t so sure.

Her eyes scanned the other flowers, a gnawing feeling growing in her chest. One flower for one secret.

A few feet away stood a tall, silver lily, its petals gleaming in the sunlight. She hesitated, but her curiosity overpowered her fear. As she stroked the petal, a new voice emerged, soft but unmistakable.

"The baker never acted alone."

Isla gasped. There had been whispers in town for years about Mr. Hobbs, the town's kindly old baker, who had disappeared one winter’s night. The rumour was that he had been involved in something shady, but no one knew the truth. The flowers did.

She stood, trembling, unsure if she should continue. Each flower represented a secret, a piece of the town’s dark past that had been buried, forgotten—until now. She looked down at a cluster of blood-red carnations. Did she want to know more? Did she dare?

Against her better judgment, she touched another flower.

"They buried him beneath the willow tree."

The voice was cold, filled with malice. It chilled her blood. Isla knew which willow tree it meant. The ancient one that stood on the edge of town, where people left offerings for good fortune. Was someone buried there? Who?

Panic set in. This garden was no ordinary place; it was a tomb for the town’s sins. And the flowers, beautiful and haunting, were keepers of those sins. She stumbled back, desperate to leave, but as she turned, her foot caught on something—a small, marble plaque hidden beneath the ivy. Brushing the leaves aside, she read the engraving:

"For those who carry the weight of truth."

Isla’s breath hitched. The whispers weren’t just telling her secrets—they were pulling her into them. With each truth she uncovered, she felt the weight of it press against her heart. It was as if the garden demanded she carry the burden of the town's past, as if the flowers were sowing their secrets into her very soul.

A rustling noise caught her attention. The flowers seemed to sway toward her, their colours darkening as if they were feeding on the very air she breathed. She needed to leave—now.

She bolted toward the gate, but her path was no longer clear. Vines had twisted together, blocking her way. The more she fought, the tighter they seemed to grow. Panic surged through her chest. The garden didn’t want her to leave.

"She knows too much," the wind seemed to whisper.

With one final, desperate tug, Isla broke free from the vines and burst through the gate. She ran, heart pounding, until she was far from the garden, far from the whispers. Only when she reached the safety of her home did she stop, collapsing onto her bed in a breathless heap.

That night, Isla dreamed of the garden. The flowers spoke to her in her sleep, their secrets curling around her like smoke. She woke in a cold sweat, a feeling of dread weighing on her.

The next day, she tried to tell someone about what she had seen, but no words would come. It was as if the garden had stolen her voice. And deep inside her, she felt something shifting. The secrets she had touched, they weren’t gone. They were alive inside her, growing, festering like the flowers in that cursed garden.

As the days passed, the whispers followed her, haunting her every step. The more she tried to forget, the more they clung to her. It became clear—she had carried the truth out of the garden, and now it was hers to bear. The garden had chosen her.

And so, Isla became the keeper of the town’s darkest secrets, just as the plaque had warned. She could never go back to the garden, nor could she forget it. But she knew that someday, someone else would stumble upon the iron gate, curious and unsuspecting, and the garden would bloom again.

And the flowers—those beautiful, cursed flowers—would whisper their secrets to a new soul, just as they had to hers.

The Clockmaker's Secret Shaina Tranquilino September 5, 2024

The scent of polished wood and the ticking of countless clocks filled the air as Samuel Delaney stepped into his father’s workshop. The room was a symphony of time, each clock contributing its own steady beat to the overall rhythm, a chorus that had been the backdrop of Samuel’s childhood.

His father, Elias Delaney, was a master clockmaker, known throughout the region for his precision and skill. People came from miles around to have their timepieces repaired or to commission a custom creation. But there was something else about Elias, something unspoken, that had always shrouded him in mystery. It was in the way he would sometimes disappear for hours into the depths of the workshop, leaving Samuel to tend to the customers. When questioned, Elias would offer a quiet smile and a vague explanation about delicate work requiring solitude.

Samuel, now in his twenties, had begun to take on more responsibilities in the workshop, his own hands becoming adept at the delicate work of clockmaking. Yet, his curiosity about his father’s secretive behavior had grown over the years. One day, when Elias was out running errands, Samuel found himself alone in the workshop, the ticking of the clocks more ominous than usual.

He wandered through the familiar space, his fingers brushing over the worn surfaces of workbenches and tools, until he reached the far wall. Here, a large, ornate grandfather clock stood sentinel, its polished face gleaming in the dim light. It was a magnificent piece, one Elias had always been particularly protective of, discouraging Samuel from tampering with it.

But today, something was different. Samuel noticed a faint scratch in the wood at the base of the clock, a detail that seemed out of place in the otherwise immaculate workshop. Curiosity piqued, he knelt down to inspect it more closely. His hand traced the outline of the scratch, and to his surprise, the base of the clock shifted slightly.

With a mix of apprehension and excitement, Samuel pushed harder, and the clock swung away from the wall with a soft creak, revealing a narrow, hidden door behind it. His heart raced as he reached for the brass handle, a hundred questions swirling in his mind. What could his father possibly be hiding?

The door opened into darkness. Samuel hesitated, then reached for a lantern from the workbench and lit it. The warm glow revealed a spiral staircase descending into the unknown. Gathering his courage, Samuel began his descent, the sound of his footsteps echoing off the stone walls.

At the bottom, he found himself in a small, dimly lit room. The walls were lined with shelves filled with old, dusty books, strange mechanical parts, and objects Samuel couldn’t immediately identify. In the centre of the room stood a large worktable, its surface cluttered with blueprints and tools unlike any Samuel had ever seen.

But what caught his attention most was the large, intricately designed clock dominating the far wall. It was unlike any clock Samuel had ever encountered. Its face was covered in mysterious symbols, and its hands moved in erratic patterns, seemingly disconnected from the normal flow of time.

As Samuel approached the clock, he noticed a leather-bound journal lying open on the table. He picked it up and began to read, the words revealing a story he could hardly believe.

The journal detailed his father’s secret life as a member of an ancient order of clockmakers, guardians of time itself. They were not just craftsmen but protectors of the very fabric of reality, ensuring that time flowed smoothly and without disruption. The strange clock on the wall was no ordinary timepiece but a device capable of manipulating time, a tool his father had been tasked with safeguarding.

Samuel’s mind raced as he read about his father’s adventures, battles fought in the shadows to prevent those who would misuse the power of time from bringing about chaos. But there were darker entries too, hints of a betrayal within the order, and of a looming danger that had driven Elias to hide the clock and its secrets.

Suddenly, the ticking of the mysterious clock grew louder, more insistent. Samuel looked up just in time to see the hands of the clock align, and the symbols on its face begin to glow. The room around him seemed to warp, the air thickening as if time itself was being distorted.

In that moment, Samuel understood the true weight of his father’s burden. Elias had been protecting not just the town or their family, but the entire world from forces that sought to unravel time itself. And now, with the discovery of the hidden room, that responsibility was falling to Samuel.

As the clock’s ticking reached a crescendo, Samuel felt a strange sensation, as if he were being pulled in multiple directions at once. Then, with a final, deafening tick, the clock stopped, and the room plunged into silence.

When Samuel opened his eyes, he found himself back in the workshop, the hidden door behind the grandfather clock sealed once more. The journal was still in his hand, its leather cover cool against his skin. The clocks in the workshop ticked in unison, the familiar sound somehow comforting amidst the unsettling revelations.

Elias returned later that day, his face betraying nothing of the extraordinary events that had transpired. But when Samuel handed him the journal, their eyes met, and in that moment, a silent understanding passed between father and son.

The clockmaker’s secret was now theirs to keep, and the duty to protect the flow of time had been passed on to the next generation.

Samuel knew that his life would never be the same, but he also knew that he was ready to face whatever challenges lay ahead, armed with the knowledge his father had fought so hard to preserve. The legacy of the Delaney clockmakers would continue, and with it, the world would remain safe from the unseen forces that sought to unravel it.

The Disappearing Room Shaina Tranquilino September 9, 2024

Daniel Mercer stood before the grandiose facade of Ashgrove Manor, his newly purchased estate. The towering spires and weathered stone walls exuded an air of mystery and history. It was an impulse buy, something that felt right the moment he saw it in a listing online. The price was suspiciously low, but Daniel, newly retired and seeking adventure, found the idea of owning a mansion irresistible.

The real estate agent, a thin man with an unsteady smile, had been eager to hand over the keys. “There’s just one thing, Mr. Mercer,” he had mentioned almost as an afterthought. “This house has a… peculiarity. A room that appears and disappears at will. No one knows when or where it’ll show up next.”

Daniel had laughed at what he assumed was an eccentric marketing ploy, but as he stood in the cavernous entrance hall, he wondered if there was some truth to it. The house was silent, the only sound the ticking of an ancient grandfather clock. Sunlight streamed through the dusty windows, casting long shadows across the polished wooden floors.

For the first few days, Daniel explored his new home. It was filled with forgotten rooms, each one more intriguing than the last. He found a library lined with books whose spines were cracked with age, a ballroom with a chandelier that sparkled with forgotten grandeur, and bedrooms filled with antique furniture. But there was no sign of the disappearing room.

On the fifth night, as a storm raged outside, Daniel was awakened by a low rumble. The house seemed to groan in response to the wind. As he climbed out of bed, he noticed a faint light seeping from beneath a door at the end of the hallway. A door that hadn’t been there before.

Heart pounding, Daniel approached the door. The handle was cold under his fingers, and as he turned it, the door swung open soundlessly. Inside was a small, dimly lit room that looked like it hadn’t been touched in decades. The walls were lined with old photographs, and in the center of the room stood a table with a single item on it: an old leather-bound journal.

Daniel stepped inside, feeling an inexplicable chill. He picked up the journal and opened it, revealing pages filled with neat handwriting. The entries were dated from the 1920s and told the story of a man named Edward Ashgrove, the original owner of the mansion.

Edward’s journal detailed his obsession with discovering the secret of the house. He wrote of a room that would appear without warning, containing clues to a mystery that had haunted his family for generations. The journal entries became increasingly frantic as Edward described following the room from one end of the house to the other, piecing together cryptic messages left within.

The final entry was particularly chilling: “The room holds the truth, but it comes with a price. I fear what I must do to uncover it.”

Daniel set the journal down, unease creeping into his thoughts. He looked around the room and noticed a photograph on the wall that hadn’t been there moments before. It was a portrait of Edward Ashgrove, standing with a woman and a young child. The woman’s face had been scratched out, but the child’s was clear. It was a boy, no more than six years old, with a striking resemblance to Daniel.

A sudden dizziness overtook him, and when he blinked, the room was gone. He was back in his bedroom, the journal clutched tightly in his hands. The storm outside had intensified, lightning flashing through the windows. Shaken, Daniel realized that the room wasn’t just a figment of his imagination. It was real, and it was playing with him.

Over the next few days, the room appeared and disappeared at random, each time in a different location. Each appearance brought with it new clues—fragments of letters, faded photographs, and strange symbols etched into the walls. The puzzle pieces began to fit together, revealing a dark secret about the Ashgrove family.

Daniel discovered that Edward Ashgrove had been trying to save his family from a curse, one that condemned the firstborn of every generation to a tragic fate. The curse was tied to the house, to the very room that now tormented Daniel. Edward had believed that solving the mystery of the room would break the curse, but he had disappeared before he could finish his work.

The final piece of the puzzle came one night when the room appeared at the very top of the house, in the attic. This time, the room was bare except for a single sheet of paper on the floor. Daniel picked it up and read the words scrawled hastily across it:

“To break the curse, the firstborn must make a choice: Sacrifice the room or themselves.”

Daniel’s blood ran cold. The resemblance between him and the boy in the photograph was no coincidence. He was a descendant of the Ashgroves, the firstborn of his generation. The curse had followed him to the mansion, and now the room was demanding his choice.

With a heavy heart, Daniel knew what he had to do. He couldn’t allow the curse to continue, to let another generation suffer as Edward had. He returned to the room one last time, the journal in hand. As he stepped inside, he felt a sense of finality.

The room seemed to pulse with anticipation as Daniel placed the journal on the table. He whispered a prayer and made his decision.

The next morning, Ashgrove Manor was empty. The neighbors would later claim that they had seen a flash of light from the attic that night, but no one dared investigate. Daniel Mercer was never seen again, and the mansion was left to decay.

Years later, when the estate was auctioned off, the new owner discovered a small, dusty room hidden in the attic. Inside was a single photograph of a man standing before the house, a man who looked strikingly familiar. Beside it was a leather-bound journal, its pages blank, as if waiting for the next chapter of the story to be written.

The Shadow House Shaina Tranquilino September 18, 2024

Dr. Marie Landers had always been drawn to anomalies. As a researcher specializing in quantum phenomena, she was used to puzzling through the inexplicable. But nothing had prepared her for the enigma of the Shadow House.

It was a sprawling, decrepit mansion on the outskirts of town, standing alone on a barren hill. Built in the early 1900s, the house had long since fallen into disrepair. The locals whispered about it—how it had never been occupied for long, how strange noises echoed at night, and most of all, how its shadow didn’t match its shape.

That was why Marie had come. For weeks, she had pored over reports from townspeople who swore that the house cast a shadow too large for its size, with angles and shapes that didn’t belong to the physical structure. Some claimed to have seen movement within the shadow, a flicker of something otherworldly. And yet, no one had ever dared investigate.

Until now.

Marie parked her car at the bottom of the hill, clutching her bag of equipment. The air was unnaturally still, and the sun, hanging low on the horizon, cast the house in an eerie light. From a distance, she could already see the shadow—a looming, dark mass that stretched unnervingly far across the land, its contours sharper and more jagged than the house itself. It bent at strange angles, as though the sun were shining through a different structure altogether.

Marie approached, her breath shallow with anticipation. As she walked around the perimeter, the shadow didn’t shift as expected. It clung to the ground in defiance of the sun’s movement, frozen in place like a dark stain on the earth.

She reached the front door, old and weathered, and pushed it open with a groan. The air inside was thick with dust, and the wooden floors creaked beneath her boots. Sunlight streamed through cracked windows, but even inside, something felt wrong. The shadows in the house were too long, too deep, as if they were not merely the absence of light but something more tangible.

Marie set up her equipment, a mix of sensors and cameras designed to detect electromagnetic anomalies and disturbances in the fabric of reality. She moved through the house, her mind racing with possibilities. Was this a quirk of physics? A natural phenomenon? Or something else entirely?

She paused in front of the grand staircase. At the top was a long hallway leading to several rooms. The floor plan didn’t seem unusual, but the shadow outside suggested something different. She pulled up the blueprints she had found in the town’s archives and studied them.

Then she saw it—a subtle but significant discrepancy. The house’s shadow was casting an image of a structure that didn’t exist in the blueprints. There was a room, a hidden section of the house that shouldn’t be there.

Marie's pulse quickened. She raced up the stairs, her footsteps echoing in the empty halls. At the end of the hallway, there was a door she hadn’t noticed before, one not marked on any map. It was small, unassuming, with an old brass knob. Her hand trembled as she turned it.

The door creaked open to reveal a narrow room, bathed in a dim, unnatural light. At first glance, it was empty. But as Marie stepped inside, her skin prickled with an electric charge. The shadows in the room moved. They didn’t simply shift with her movements—they reacted to her, pulsing like a living thing.

She reached out a hand, and the shadows recoiled, then surged forward. With a flash of realization, she understood—these weren’t mere shadows. This was a gateway, a threshold to something beyond.

Marie pulled a small, handheld scanner from her bag and waved it through the air. The readings went wild. The air here was charged with energy she had never encountered before—an energy that bent the rules of reality.

Taking a deep breath, she stepped further into the room. The shadows thickened around her, and for a brief moment, the world seemed to tilt. Then, with a soft hiss, the wall in front of her shimmered and peeled away, revealing a tear in the fabric of space itself.

Beyond the tear, she glimpsed a world that was both familiar and alien. The landscape was an inverted mirror of her own—a dark, twisted version of the house and the hill, with strange structures rising in the distance, all bathed in a faint, otherworldly glow.

Figures moved within that shadowed world. Tall, elongated beings with hollow eyes and shimmering skin. They moved with an eerie grace, watching her silently from across the divide. Marie felt their gaze on her, cold and penetrating, but they made no move to cross over.

Her breath caught in her throat. She wasn’t just looking into another dimension—this place was alive, aware, watching her as much as she was observing it.

Suddenly, the shadows around her began to swirl faster, and the tear in the wall started to close. Panic surged in her chest. She needed to gather more data, to understand what she had discovered. But the portal was shrinking, and the pull of that other world grew stronger. It felt as if it was calling her, beckoning her to step through.

Marie hesitated for only a moment. With a final glance at the strange beings, she turned and fled back through the house. As she burst out the front door, the shadow outside flickered, and for a brief second, it snapped into place with the true outline of the house.

Then, just as quickly, it shifted back, once again casting its distorted, impossible shape across the land.

Breathing heavily, Marie looked back at the house, now silent and still, but forever changed in her mind. The Shadow House was more than just a mystery—it was a threshold between worlds. And though she had escaped, she knew that whatever lurked on the other side was still watching.

Waiting.

And she couldn’t shake the feeling that someday, she might not be able to resist its call.

The Time Traveler's Diary Shaina Tranquilino September 17, 2024

The storm had raged all night, beating against the windows of Diane Holzer's quiet cottage at the edge of town. It was the sort of night that stirred unease, though she could never quite say why. The wind howled through the trees, and the rain fell in sheets, but there was something else—a feeling in the air, like a change was coming.

It was just after dawn when the storm finally relented. Diane, an avid collector of antiques, decided to visit the nearby estate sale that had been advertised. The house belonged to the late Professor Edward Harrington, a reclusive man whose death had sparked curiosity in the village. He was rumored to have been obsessed with strange theories of time, but no one ever took him seriously.

Inside the dusty old mansion, Diane wandered the rooms, browsing through relics of the professor’s life—old maps, stacks of books, tarnished silverware. In a corner of his study, beneath a pile of forgotten papers, she found it—a leather-bound diary. The cover was worn, but the pages inside were crisp, as if they had been written only recently.

She tucked the diary under her arm, paying for it along with a few other trinkets. Back at home, with a cup of tea in hand, she opened the diary, expecting musings on the professor’s eccentric work or perhaps personal notes about his reclusive life. Instead, what she found unsettled her immediately.

November 17, 2123

If you are reading this, then I know my calculations were correct. My name is Nicholas Harrington, and I am writing to you from 2123. You, Diane Holzer, are my ancestor—my great-great-grandmother, to be precise. And I need your help.

Diane blinked at the words, her heart pounding in her chest. This had to be some kind of elaborate joke. She skimmed the next few lines, her mind racing.

You will find this diary on the 17th of September, 2024, just after a storm. The estate sale of Professor Harrington, your neighbor, will bring you to it. I have no doubt that you will be skeptical, but I urge you to keep reading. The events I describe are real, and they concern your future—and mine.

Diane closed the diary for a moment, trying to catch her breath. The date was correct. Today was the 17th of September, and she had found the diary just as it described. But how could this be?

Curiosity got the better of her, and she opened the diary again, continuing to read.

In my time, the world is on the brink of collapse. Climate disasters, political unrest, and technological failures are pushing civilization to the edge. But it wasn’t supposed to be this way. History was altered, and I believe it has something to do with our family.

I am writing to you because you hold the key to preventing this future. In your lifetime, you will come into possession of an object—a small, unremarkable pocket watch. This watch, though it may seem ordinary, is anything but. It contains a mechanism that was developed long ago by a group of scientists working in secret—among them, our ancestor, Professor Edward Harrington.

This watch can manipulate time.

Diane stared at the page, her heart thudding in her chest. She didn’t own a pocket watch. Or did she? She hurried to her bedroom, rummaging through the box of trinkets she had purchased that morning. There, beneath the brass candlestick and faded postcards, was a small pocket watch—old and weathered, but still ticking.

The watch has the ability to create small tears in the fabric of time, allowing its user to see potential futures or even influence certain events. But it is dangerous in the wrong hands. In your time, someone will come for it—a man named Stanley Dodds. He will seem like a friend, but he cannot be trusted. He seeks the watch for his own purposes, and if he gets it, everything I know will fall apart.

Diane's hands trembled as she held the watch. The name Stanley Dodds was all too familiar. He was a charming historian she had met at a conference only weeks before. They had shared a pleasant conversation over coffee, and he had mentioned his interest in antique timepieces. He had even offered to help her appraise some of her collection.

Her phone buzzed on the table, and she jumped, startled by the sudden noise. The screen flashed with a message.

Stanley Dodds: Are you free for lunch today? I’d love to see your new finds.

Her blood ran cold. She glanced at the diary again, flipping through the pages.

When Stanley comes for the watch, you must not let him have it. You must hide it, or use it yourself. I have only been able to send this diary back through time, but with the watch, you can do more. You can change the future.

I know this is a lot to ask, but you must trust me. Your decision will shape the lives of generations to come—including mine.

Diane's mind raced. How could she possibly believe this? A time traveler’s diary? A watch that could control time? And yet—everything the diary had said so far had been true. The storm. The date. Stanley Dodds.

She stared at the watch in her hand, its surface gleaming faintly in the soft light of the morning. If what Nicholas had written was true, she had a decision to make—and quickly. Stanley would arrive soon, and she had no idea what he was capable of.

Taking a deep breath, Diane stood and walked to the window. Outside, the world seemed deceptively calm, the sky clearing after the storm. But inside her, a storm raged.

She didn’t know what the future held, but she knew one thing: the watch was hers, and she would decide how it was used.

As she turned the watch over in her hand, she felt a strange, shifting sensation in the air—a ripple, almost. The world seemed to shimmer for a moment, and then, in a flash, she was gone.

The diary lay open on the table, the ink on the last page still fresh.

November 17, 2123

Thank you, Diane. You made the right choice.