Borrowed Time E-Book

Margot Elise Winters

• Herausgeber: Twist & Tether Press
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

Struggling artist Cole has always lived in the shadow of regret. When a mysterious pocket watch arrives on his doorstep—capable of turning back time one hour for every hour he sleeps—he seizes the chance to rewrite his mistakes.
What begins with small corrections soon spirals into obsession. As Cole manipulates time to rescue lost relationships and alter fate, reality around him starts to fracture. People disappear. Memories warp. And the cost of each borrowed hour grows unbearable.
But Cole isn’t the only one using the watch. Someone else is pulling the threads of time—and they may be undoing everything he’s fought to reclaim.
Now trapped in an ever-thinning world where cause and effect blur, Cole must confront the haunting truth about his own actions.
Can he stop the unraveling before there’s nothing left to save?
Or has the watch already claimed more than just borrowed time?

Leseprobe

Borrowed Time

Every Wish Comes with a Countdown

TURNING POINTS: Twisted Tales for the Bold & Curious

Margot Elise Winters

Copyright © 2025 by Margot Elise Winters

All rights reserved. This book, including all individual stories and original content, is protected under international copyright law. No part of this publication may be copied, reproduced, distributed, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without prior written permission from the author, except for brief excerpts used in reviews or academic commentary, which must be properly credited.

Fiction Disclaimer:

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

Creative Tools Notice:

Some aspects of this book including cover artwork, illustrations, or other visual and creative elements were developed with the assistance of licensed generative technologies under appropriate commercial-use terms. These elements are original compositions intended solely for this publication.

Thank you for reading this book. I hope you enjoy every page inside.

Table of Contents

Borrowed Time

Description

Prologue: Echoes Through the Gears

Chapter 1: The Gift of Time

Chapter 2: Shifting Hours

Chapter 3: Fractured Realities

Chapter 4: The Cost of Rewind

Chapter 5: The Other Side of the Clock

Chapter 6: Borrowed Life

Chapter 7: The Last Reset

Epilogue: The Watch Awaits

Borrowed Time

Description

Struggling artist Cole has always lived in the shadow of regret. When a mysterious pocket watch arrives on his doorstep capable of turning back time one hour for every hour he sleeps he seizes the chance to rewrite his mistakes.

What begins with small corrections soon spirals into obsession. As Cole manipulates time to rescue lost relationships and alter fate, reality around him starts to fracture. People disappear. Memories warp. And the cost of each borrowed hour grows unbearable.

But Cole isn’t the only one using the watch. Someone else is pulling the threads of time and they may be undoing everything he’s fought to reclaim.

Now trapped in an ever-thinning world where cause and effect blur, Cole must confront the haunting truth about his own actions.

Can he stop the unraveling before there’s nothing left to save?

Or has the watch already claimed more than just borrowed time?

Prologue: Echoes Through the Gears

Cole

The attic always smelled of old paper and rust. Damp heat pressed against my skin as I climbed the last creaking step, one hand steadying the flashlight, the other clutching a faded photograph. I shouldn’t have come here not tonight, not after everything but something had pulled me awake in the middle of the night. A half-formed memory. A whisper, maybe.

The beam of light swept across rotting boxes and moth-eaten furniture. The house had been empty since Grandfather passed two months ago, the estate locked in probate, but my key still worked. I told myself I was here to retrieve a few paintings before the lawyers boxed them up. That was partly true. But the real reason flickered at the edge of my thoughts just out of reach.

Dust danced in the flashlight’s path as I moved past sagging shelves. The air grew colder the farther back I went, until I stood before an antique trunk beneath a slanted rafter. Its brass fittings were tarnished green. On impulse, I knelt and pried it open.

Inside lay a jumble of brittle papers, a stack of ledgers bound with twine, and beneath them a small velvet pouch. My fingers trembled as I drew it out. Something heavy shifted inside.

I opened the pouch.

A pocket watch slid into my palm.

The silver casing gleamed through a film of tarnish. Its cover was engraved with looping script I couldn’t read. The glass face was cracked, and the hands ticked in an erratic rhythm. Tick-tick... tick... tick-tick-tick... tick.

I swallowed. My mouth had gone dry.

It was familiar. Too familiar.

A tremor moved through my chest as I turned the watch over. Etched on the back was a single word in faded script: Tempus.

A sound behind me made me spin just the floor settling. Or so I thought.

But then I heard it.

A woman’s voice, soft and close, though no one else was there.

"Be careful. Time belongs to no one."

I froze. The words seemed to reverberate inside my skull, sending a chill down my spine. I stared into the shadows, but saw no one.

"You can’t keep what you steal," the voice added, quieter now.

I shoved the watch back into the pouch and stumbled to my feet, heart pounding. The flashlight flickered and went out.

Darkness closed around me.

***

I awoke in my apartment, tangled in sheets, bathed in cold sweat.

Morning light seeped through the blinds. My alarm blinked 7:04 a.m.

For a long moment, I lay staring at the ceiling, breath shallow.

Had it been a dream?

I looked to the nightstand.

There it was.

The velvet pouch lay beside my sketchbook, just as I’d held it hours or was it moments? ago.

I sat up, stomach twisting. My mind swam with fragmented images: the attic, the whisper, the cracked watch face.

Maybe I’m losing it, I thought. Sleep deprivation, stress it had been a rough few weeks.

But the weight of the watch in my palm said otherwise.

And deep down, beneath the rational explanations, a darker thought stirred:

This isn’t the first time.

***

Later that day, after a fruitless attempt to sketch, I found myself pacing. The watch lay open on my desk, its uneven ticking filling the room.

I should throw it out. Toss it in the river. Smash it to pieces.

But I couldn’t.

Not when a part of me remembered using it.

Not when some buried instinct whispered that the watch held power I’d already tasted.

I traced the cracked glass with my thumb, mind racing.

If there was a way to undo one moment... just one...

I caught myself mid-thought.

No. That’s not why you came here. You’re trying to start fresh.

But the lie tasted sour.

In truth, I hadn’t been painting for weeks. Not since... not since that night.

I clenched my fists.

If the watch could give me an hour back... a single hour...

What would you do with it, Cole?

"Fix everything."

The words escaped in a whisper before I could stop them.

Fix everything... or fix yourself?

I turned away, shaking.

"It’s not stealing," I told the empty room. "It’s setting things right."

The watch ticked on, each beat a hollow echo through the gears.