Aerin had always believed midnight was just a number.
Not a moment. Not a threshold. Not a doorway.
Just the time when the clock changed and most people were asleep.
That belief lasted until the night the city blinked.
It happened on a Tuesday — the kind of Tuesday that didn't deserve to be remembered. School had been boring. Dinner had been quiet. The wind outside the apartment building hummed through the cracks like a tired breath. Everything was ordinary enough to disappear into memory.
Aerin only noticed the time because the power flickered.
The light above the kitchen table dimmed for half a second, brightened again, then settled into a soft glow. The digital clock on the microwave blinked:
11:59
Aerin frowned. Power cuts were rare in the mountain town Kalenridge. The hydro plant upstream was reliable, and the lines were well-maintained. Still, strange things happened sometimes.
Aerin picked up the phone to checked messages.
No signal.
That was stranger.
The phone showed a full battery, but the connection symbol was gone. No bars. No Wi-Fi. No emergency network.
Aerin walked to the window.
From the third floor, the town looked peaceful. Streetlights cast warm circles onto empty roads. The bakery across the street was dark, its sign unlit. The old railway station beyond the houses stood quiet and unused, its tracks rusted and overgrown.
Aerin watched the microwave clock changed.
12:00
And then the town.. shifted.
Not loudly. Not suddenly.
It was more like the world inhaled.
The air seemed to tighten, like a held breath. The shadows beneath the streetlights grew deeper, streching longer than they should have. A soft golden glow rose somewhere beyond the station, like sunrise in the wrong direction.
Aerin leaned closer to the glass.
The abandoned railway platform was no longer empty.
Lights flickered on one by one along the platform's edge — small, warm lanterns that had not existed a moment before. The old brick wall behind it looked... cleaner. Less cracked. Less broken.
Then the station itself changed.
Windows that had been boarded over were suddenly clear. Warm light spilled from inside. A sign appeared above the entrance, glowing softly.
It wasn't the old station name.
It read:
WELCOME TO MIDNIGHT MARKET
Aerin's heart began to beat faster.
This wasn't possible.
Aerin grabbed a jacket, slipped on shoes, and left the apartment quietly before the rational part of the brain could stop the rest from moving.
The stairwell lights were dim but working. The front door opened without a second. The street was empty, but not silent.
Somewhere far off, there was music.
Not loud music — something gentle and distant, like bells woven into wind.
Aerin walked toward the railway station.
With every steps, the town felt slightly different. The air was warmer. Softer. It smelled faintly of spices and rain and something sweet that didn't have a name.
When Aerin reached the station, it was no longer abandoned.
The platform was clean. Lanterns hung from curved metal poles. Small shops lined the area that used to be empty concrete — stalls made of woods and clothes and glass, glowing with warm light. People walked between them, talking quietly, laughing, trading coins and objects and stories.
The tracks were gone.
In their place was a wide stone path leading into a city that hadn't been there before.
The buildings curved upwards like frozen waves, their windows glowing gold and blue. Banners floated between them, simmering gently as if touched by invisible water. Bridge crossed narrow canals where light reflected like liquid stars.
Aerin stood at the edge of it all, heart racing.
No one seemed surprised to see Aerin.
That was somehow the strangest part.
A person approached — a teenage about the same age, wearing a jacket with stiched symbols along the sleeves.
"You're early," they said.
Aerin stared. "Early for what?"
The teenager tilted their head. "Your first night."
Aerin swallowed. "Where is this?"
They smiled, but it was careful smile. "You're standing in the part of the city that remembers itself."
That was not an answer.
"My name is Ilen," the teen continued. "You're new but unexpected."
"Expected by who?"
"The city," Ilen said simply.
They gestured toward the glowing streets. "Come on. Before something forget itself."
That sentence made Aerin uneasy, but curiosity was louder than caution.
Aerin followed.
They crossed into the city proper, and the air shifted again — thicker, brighter, heavier with something that felt alive.
Every shop was different.
One sold jars of moving light.
Another sold folded paper creatures that fluttered when opened.
Another sold clocks with no numbers, only changing colours.
People passed them with friendly nods, eyes reflecti tong lantern light. Some looked human.
Some looked almost human. A few had eyes like polished stone or hair that shimmered faintly as if made from thread and glass.
"What is this place?" Aerin asked again.
Ilen pointed upward.
Above the city, the sky was not the normal sky. It was deeper, darker, layered with slow-moving constellation that didn't match any map Aerin had ever seen.
"This is the city that exists when it is remembered," Ilen said. "And disappears when it is not."
Aerin stopped walking.
"What do you mean, disappears?"
Ilen turned serious.
"Most world forget things they don't need anymore," they said. "Stories. Places. Names. Dreams. When enough people forget something, it doesn't just faded from memory. It faded from reality.
Aerin's stomach tightened.
"The city was forgotten once already. Long ago. Now it only exists from midnight to dawn. That's when memory is strongest and attention is weak."
"That doesn't make sense."
Ilen smiled again, this time more gently.
"You'll get used to that."
They walked to the centre of a wide square where a tree grew from glowing crystal instead of wood. Its leaves shimmered like thin glass catching starlight.
At the base of the tree was a plague with words that kept rearranging themselves.
Aerin tried to read it.
The letters shifted too quickly.
"What happens when everyone forgets again?" Aerin asked.
Ilen hesitated.
"Then the city sleeps," they said carefully.
Aerin looked around. At the people. The lights. The moving bridges. The shimmering canals.
"Sleep like.. gone?"
"Sleep like lost."
A chill ran through Aerin that had nothing to do with temperature.
"Why can I see this?" Aerin asked.
Ilen met Aerin's eyes.
"Because you noticed," they said. "Because you looked at something that was disappearing and didn't turn away."
The city lights dimmed slightly.
Somewhere in the distance, a building flickered.
A sign lost a letter.
Aerin felt it then — not fear, not excitement, but a strange pressure, like the weight of responsibility settling onto something that had been empty before.
"What do I do now?" Aerin asked.
Ilen smiled, and this time it was not careful at all.
"You remember," they said.
The crystal tree pulsed once with light.
The city held its breath.
And for the first time in a very long while, the forgotten city was not alone.