Tunde didn't sleep that night.
After Aisha left through the window like a ghost, he sat in the dark, staring at the ceiling fan above. It was off, but in his mind, it spun—a cyclone of thoughts, warnings, and impossible truths.
The Fold.
A place that existed between seconds.
A realm time forgot.
Something about it sounded ancient and wrong, like a word whispered by mistake in a prayer.
By morning, Tunde had made up his mind...He needed to see it for himself.
That afternoon, between lectures, he found an empty stairwell in the abandoned Chemistry Annex and clutched the coin.
His heart beat faster than it should.
He whispered, "Show me."
Then he flipped the coin.
Time froze.
The usual stillness fell over everything—leaves paused mid-air, voices gone silent, even dust caught mid-float. But this time, something felt off.
The silence was deeper.
Hollow.
He looked at his coin: 00:04:59
He started walking.
Past the corridor. Down the staircase. Into the building's basement—usually locked, but now slightly ajar.
His phone flashlight illuminated cobwebs, broken desks, and leaking pipes. But the deeper he went, the more thin reality felt—like walking on old ice.
Then… the air warped.
It shimmered, rippled like a heatwave—and then tore.
A line across space, vertical and sharp, like someone had slit the air with a razor.
Tunde stared.
The Fold.
The tear widened, and beyond it was not the basement anymore.
It was… elsewhere.
Dark, but not pitch-black—lit by the slow pulse of green and violet glows. Shadows that moved without light. Corridors that curved into themselves. And the sense that he was being watched by things that didn't blink.
Tunde stepped forward.
One step. Two.
The moment his foot crossed the threshold, he felt weightless—then too heavy, as if gravity didn't understand him anymore.
Whispers floated through the air, faint but distinct.
"You are not supposed to be here..."
"Borrower..."
"Thief of time..."
He gripped the coin tight, its warmth grounding him.
Then he saw them.
Figures—tall, cloaked in what looked like shadow and starlight. No eyes. No mouths. Just smooth, featureless faces and long arms. They didn't walk—they floated, like thoughts.
Tunde backed away slowly.
They didn't follow.
But as he turned to leave, one whispered in a voice that sounded like grinding stone:
"One day, the debt will be collected."
He bolted.
Back through the tear, into the real world.
00:00:34
The coin ticked down. The shimmer closed behind him.
Tunde fell to his knees, gasping.
The Fold was real.
And it was waiting.
That evening, Aisha met him by the lagoon again. This time, she didn't wear the red headwrap—just a black hoodie and jeans, her braids down.
"You saw it," she said, not even asking.
Tunde nodded. "What are they?"
"No one knows. They've been called many things—Time Keepers, Borrowers, Shades.
They live between."
"They spoke to me," he said. "They called me a thief."
She looked away. "Because we are."
Tunde sat down on the concrete edge, staring at the moon's reflection in the water.
"I didn't ask for any of this."
"No one does," she said, sitting beside him.
"But the coin chose you. It doesn't make mistakes."
"Why though? What's the point of all this?"
Aisha was quiet for a long time.
Then she spoke.
"There's a balance in the world. The coin lets us break it. Pause time, bend seconds, rewrite fate. But the Fold watches because each pause leaves a scar in time. Enough scars, and something worse than Malik will come through."
Tunde turned to her. "So we're just delaying the end?"
"No," she said. "We're the line between order and collapse. The coin didn't choose you for power. It chose you for responsibility."
He exhaled. "And what about Malik? He wants more power, doesn't he?"
She nodded. "He's trying to open the Fold completely. He thinks he can harness it. Control the Shades. But they don't serve anyone. They consume."
Tunde's voice dropped. "Then we have to stop him."
Aisha looked at him, surprised.
"You're ready?"
He nodded
.
"For now," she said, "watch your steps. Malik isn't alone anymore. He's recruiting. Other Awakened. Some who don't care about the debt. They call themselves The Endkeepers."
"Endkeepers?"
"They believe time should be broken. That the world's chaos is a better truth."
A chill ran down Tunde's spine.
He looked at his coin again. The number had changed:
6
And beneath it, a new symbol had appeared—faint, but growing clearer.
Not the hourglass.
Not a number.
It was a crack.
Like a fracture in glass.
That night, Tunde couldn't sleep again.
As he lay in bed, the silence grew too quiet.
Then—tick.
He heard it.
A sound that wasn't there before.
Like something metal tapping against tile.
Tick.
From under the door.
He sat up slowly.
Then the lights flickered.
Only once.
But when he looked down...the coin was glowing.
Soft, pulsing red.
Not warm.
Cold.
And in his mind, without any voice, came a message—not spoken, but delivered.
"The Fold remembers"