The world was frozen.
Not just still in the way of silence after a storm, but wrongly paused, like reality itself had pressed its own "stop" button.
Salem's body was locked inside the Ferris wheel carriage, breath shallow, heart hammering in his ears. He tried to move a finger—just one finger—but it felt like he was wearing stone for skin. The air was heavy, pressing down like liquid iron.
"Your next choice… will not be yours."
That voice. Deep. Cold. Vast. Not the watch, not the carnival's trickster whispers—this was something else. Something that didn't joke, didn't mock, didn't smile.
Salem's throat burned. "I… I don't take orders."
"That's the point," the voice replied. "You won't have to."
A shiver cracked through him. His eyes darted to the pocket watch, still hovering at his side. Its hands spun furiously, ticking so loudly it sounded like war drums.
"Okay, confession time," the watch said, voice unusually panicked. "That wasn't me. That's—uh—bigger than me. And I hate when something's bigger than me."
Salem grit his teeth. "Then undo this. Free me."
The watch tilted, almost sheepish. "Yeah, about that… not my circus, not my strings. I keep the clocks turning. That thing? It's pulling at the threads of your soul."
Threads.
Salem felt it then—fine, invisible filaments coiling around his wrists, ankles, neck. He couldn't see them, but he knew they were there, tugging with the precision of a master puppeteer. His breath quickened.
"Relax," the voice murmured. "It will be easier if you don't resist."
"Easier for you," Salem spat. His voice cracked but the defiance felt good. It was his.
The Ferris wheel creaked, groaning under an invisible weight. Down below, the carnival had frozen too—the skeletal horses mid-lunge, shadows mid-whisper, neon lights mid-flicker. Time wasn't just slowed. It was… strangled.
"Why me?" Salem rasped. "Why the strings?"
"Because you never belonged to yourself," the voice said. "You've always been shared. Borrowed. A piece here, a piece there. Did you really think your life was yours alone?"
The words hit harder than Salem expected. He had felt like that—skipped days, fragmented memories, conversations with shadows. Was this proof?
The watch, however, refused to let the mood get too heavy.
"Cheer up! Look on the bright side—most people never realize they're puppets. You're special because you get to watch it happen! Oh, wait… bad phrasing."
Salem's jaw clenched. "I'm not your puppet. Not anyone's."
The strings pulled tighter. His arms jerked, not by his will, but by someone else's. His hand rose to his own throat, fingers trembling as they brushed his skin.
"No… no, no, no—stop—"
"Struggle if you must," the voice said, almost amused. "But the more you fight, the deeper the strings go."
The carnival lights flickered once, twice, then warped into scenes from Salem's past.
—His mother calling him for dinner.
—A classroom clock ticking too loud.
—A stranger on a bus staring at him like they knew him.
Each memory bled into the other, overlapping, shuffling out of order. Salem couldn't even tell if they were his memories anymore.
The strings yanked again. His body rose, standing in the carriage though his muscles screamed. The Ferris wheel groaned louder, spinning backward, each carriage showing a different version of himself: laughing, crying, bleeding, silent.
"Wow," the watch muttered. "This is worse than jury duty."
"Shut up," Salem hissed. "Help me!"
The watch flickered, gears spilling sparks. "If I could cut strings, I'd be a pair of scissors. I'm a clock. Totally different job description!"
"Time cannot save you," the voice said. "Because time belongs to me."
And that's when Salem saw it.
Through the cracked sky above, a hand pressed against the glass of reality. Vast. Shadowed. Its fingers were made of thousands of writhing strings, each one attached to a person, a place, a moment. Salem wasn't just trapped—he was one of many.
His stomach twisted. "There are others?"
"Everyone," the voice answered simply.
The strings around his arms jerked, forcing him to lift his hand toward the glowing crack in the sky. His palm pressed against the invisible barrier, and for a second, he felt it—something ancient, endless, watching him with interest.
The watch screamed—yes, screamed—in a voice too sharp for gears. "Don't touch it! Don't you dare—"
The strings tightened, dragging him closer to the crack. Salem's mind blurred. His thoughts weren't his. His voice wasn't his. He felt himself speaking words he didn't choose:
"I… submit."
The moment the phrase left his lips, the strings loosened, melting into his skin. Not vanishing. Embedding. Like tattoos beneath his flesh, unseen but permanent.
His chest heaved. His mouth trembled.
"I didn't say that. I didn't."
The watch's ticking slowed, like a heartbeat faltering. "Oh no. Oh no. Salem, you didn't… but you did."
"What does that mean?" His voice cracked, panic thick.
The Ferris wheel lurched violently. The sky split further, revealing the faint outline of a face—a face that looked disturbingly familiar.
Salem's stomach dropped. The cheekbones, the eyes, the jawline—it was his own face. But older. Colder. Smiling like someone who had already given up the fight.
The voice thundered once more:
"The next time you resist… remember—your strings are mine."
The Ferris wheel shattered. The world fell. Salem plummeted into darkness, screaming silently as strings yanked him in every direction at once.
And then—just before the blackness swallowed him whole—he saw one last horrifying truth:
The face above the cracked sky was not only his.
It was him.
The puppeteer was Salem Grey.