On his fifteenth birthday, the clock lied.
Oz Vessalius knew the rhythm of the clock better than his own heartbeat. Growing up in the austere mansion of the Vessalius dukedom, the grand clock in the main hall was his only confidant. Tick. Tock. Each swing of the pendulum was a promise—that time was linear, that cause preceded effect, that a boy could grow, change, and eventually earn his father’s approval.
He wasn’t a boy. He was a doll. A perfect, living automaton crafted by the original Jack Vessalius—the hero who sealed the Abyss a century ago. Jack, desperate and grieving, had not been able to save the girl he loved, the first Alice. So he had done the unthinkable. He had wound back the gears of time, broken the original Alice into pieces, and used her soul as a core to create a new child—Oz. A perfect, immortal vessel. A living key to the Abyss.
On his fifteenth birthday, the clock lied.
Oz Vessalius knew the rhythm of the clock better than his own heartbeat. Growing up in the austere mansion of the Vessalius dukedom, the grand clock in the main hall was his only confidant. Tick. Tock. Each swing of the pendulum was a promise—that time was linear, that cause preceded effect, that a boy could grow, change, and eventually earn his father’s approval.
He wasn’t a boy. He was a doll. A perfect, living automaton crafted by the original Jack Vessalius—the hero who sealed the Abyss a century ago. Jack, desperate and grieving, had not been able to save the girl he loved, the first Alice. So he had done the unthinkable. He had wound back the gears of time, broken the original Alice into pieces, and used her soul as a core to create a new child—Oz. A perfect, immortal vessel. A living key to the Abyss.