August 2025 Runner Up: The Last Clock Winder

In a city where time was outlawed, Elara’s hidden workshop hummed. Brass gears whispered of mornings and midnights no one remembered. A knock rattled the silence. She opened the door to find a child clutching a cracked pocket watch.

“My grandfather’s heart,” the child said.

Elara wound it. Tick. Tick. The city’s towers shivered, bells long silent began to toll. Guards burst in with their sabres drawn; they froze, their memories flooding back.

Elara smiled as seconds returned to the world.

“Time,” she said, handing back the watch, “belongs to everyone.”

Outside, dawn blazed for the first time in fifty years.