“18 Seconds of Dawn” Episode 4: When Memories Awaken [Creative Awards 2025, Fantasy Novel Category]

Prologue - Episode 1 A Small Sense of Unease and a Snowy Day
Episode 2 Irreversible Time
Episode 3 One Person's Memory, Two People's After School

Episode 4: When Memories Awaken

It felt as if my memories had awakened.

It was the end of winter, when the snow had finally begun to melt. At that time, Yoake and I followed the animal trail that continued from the side of the treehouse until we reached a small spring.

In the sky spanning between night and morning, remnants of stars still lingered, as if casting their final light. The surface of the spring was as still as a mirror; there was no wind, and there was no sound. Yoake took out a silver pocket watch and gently placed it in my hand.

“...The light of the beginning shines here. 6:41:18. Probably exactly.”
“How can you be so precise?”
“Just watch, you’ll surely understand.”

The hands of the watch pointed to 6:41. And then, the second hand began to move slowly.

Tick, tick, tick...

As if marking the seconds of the watch, Yoake began to count.

“...1, 2, ...10, 11, 12............”

My voice quietly overlapped with hers.

“...15, 16, 17, 18...”

That was the moment. A single ray of light that had pierced through the trees touched the surface of the spring. The cobalt blue lake surface trembled as if shattering, and a golden shimmer rose from the deep bottom.

It was as if the sleeping world had begun to breathe for just this moment. It was so beautiful that I couldn't find the words. My chest was quietly filling up.

“See, I told you, didn't I?”
“Yeah. Yoake... that's amazing.”
“This is the time of the world's beginning. Don't forget it, Nao. Someday, when the dark night ends. When you're lost, you'll surely remember.”

The light on the water's surface illuminated Yoake's eyes. They were the same color as the clear, straight spring.

“This watch has been passed down for generations. From my grandparents, and from even further back in my family. This is the only watch that creates the time that makes yesterday, today, and tomorrow. It's like we're living inside this watch.”

Yoake laughed, her face crinkling, and after stroking the watch as if it were precious, she tilted her head and looked at me. Her brown hair shone through the light and made a soft sound.

“Nao. I'll come to pick you up again tomorrow.”

—

With that voice remaining in my ears, the memory cut off abruptly.

“Yoake. Misha was there too. At that time, I'm sure you said you'd come to pick me up again.”

Perhaps Yoake and I were remembering the same thing. In front of this cold spring. Naturally, and slowly, I nodded as if trembling.

“By the shore of the fountain of time. It's a secret from Mom and Dad. Nao. I said that. I'll come to pick you up.”

I felt like I could still see the color of the spring shimmering in the dappled sunlight.

Yoake's eyes suddenly looked at the distant sky. Deep within those eyes, a landscape that no one else could see was emerging.

“Do you remember the story of ‘Kranefeld’?”

When I said that, Yoake nodded slightly.

“Yeah. It was a town inside a book, right?”
“The town of beginnings. That's what it said.”

Yoake narrowed her eyes just a little. The depths of her pupils were swaying as if turning pages one by one.

“In this world, there are two clocks. The silver clock, and one other.”
“A black clock.”

Our voices overlapped.

“One illuminates the path forward. One traps the present to protect someone. When you wish strongly to change the world. It splits into two. The one that transcends time exists only within a wish exchanged for a life.”
When we were still young, Yoake and I would huddle together in the treehouse, opening that book. Cat footprints on the corners of the pages, gentle snow over the town. A story about a white cat walking through a town without clocks, searching for the “train to the past” that only children can ride.

“Kranefeld...”
I said the name of the town out loud. The book that had suddenly fallen from the bookshelf. That was the memory itself, the time I had shared with Yoake.

“That book is surely a guidepost. I feel like there is something deeper than our memories, from even before yesterday. Isn't it strange? We read it with such intensity, didn't we? It was a bit difficult, and old...”

“But we couldn't help but read it.”

“Hey, Nao. The white cat that appears in that book. It looked like Misha, didn't it?”

I looked at Misha in surprise. Misha was standing on the snow a little ahead, watching our exchange quietly. With a gaze that seemed to know everything.

Yoake continued.
“That story's journey, this snow, and this memory. Maybe we've been repeating it over and over. Maybe we've been searching for the continuation of yesterday, forever and ever. I have that feeling.”
Those words fell softly into the depths of my chest. The memories that should have been beyond the pages had returned to my palms, surely as our yesterday.

“I actually knew. That there were days I spent with Nao. You were always somewhere in my heart.”

Memory was not something of the past, but something that shaped the “now.” It had surely returned to our hands. “I'll come to pick you up,” Yoake had definitely said that back then.

“—Someone is coming to pick us up soon.”

Percy had said it. Time has not ended yet. As if announcing the time of the beginning.

This path is a journey to pick up fragments of memory.

A journey where we overlap the “map of the past” that we couldn't see alone. Yoake's hand touched my sleeve faintly.

“I feel scared, too. But even so, I want to know. I want to remember. I'm sure that is my true today.”

“Yeah, Yoake... remembering isn't just about getting the scenery back. It's about feeling the feelings of someone who was there at that time, inside yourself once more. Only then can you say that yesterday truly existed.”

“Yeah. If we're together, I feel like we can go to the continuation of yesterday.”
The continuation of the book overflows like scenery.

“Nao, do you remember the name of the train?”
We look at each other. I am reflected in Yoake's eyes. And then we take a breath, and our breathing overlaps.
“Never Train.”

On the snow, Misha looked up at the sky and let out a short cry. As if some light had shone into the depths of its eyes.

“Nao, we've run out of time, haven't we? Our precious time.”

Before Yoake and me, only a world of silver floats. Cold, accumulating snow. Snow that overflows and erases memories.

“What minute, what second, what hour it is now. I don't know those things. That's lonely, isn't it?”

Yoake took a small breath and looked up at the sky. Then she turned toward me and smiled softly.

“But, because of that, I feel today through things like the scenery, the smell of the wind, and the angle of the sun. That's how I can feel that I'm properly living each day. Don't you think that's very happy? I think that's because Nao was by my side.”

Her voice was very quiet.

“Hey, Nao. I don't know what it is. Memories are overflowing as if they're bubbling up... Wow. Somehow, I'm happy...”

Yoake said, looking somewhere far away.

“Nao... our bodies are still six years old. But only our bodies are growing. Isn't that right?”

Saying that, Yoake suddenly took my hand and gently placed it on her chest. The heartbeat was transmitted to my palm. And then, we closed our eyes. Facing each other, our foreheads touching.

“1, 2, 3, 4, 5...”

We counted silently together. In the snow, quietly, as if counting time.

“...60.”

When we finished counting, Yoake looked at me and smiled gently.

“See, Nao. We can properly mark time. It's okay. Let's go get it back. Our time. Together... Memory isn't the past. Every time I remember, I'm taking back the ‘now.’ Remembering yesterday is living today.”

The boundary of today is quietly wavering. That heartbeat might be the beginning of the journey for the two of us to welcome tomorrow. Memories don't melt away, but take shape and connect in our hearts.

This town where only aging progresses in the repeated today. It is a certain wound spreading in silence.

I must end this today. Yesterday and today are connected. If not, the true today would never arrive.

I squeezed Yoake's hand tightly. I don't want to forget this moment. Who was it that stopped our time? For the first time, I became more afraid of losing the present than of touching the secrets of the world. Yoake gently squeezed my hand back.

“Surely, if we follow Misha, I feel like something will change. Don't you think? Let's go, Nao.”

If Misha is the shadow that guides the past, Yoake might be the light that chooses the future. The snowy landscape was definitely flickering.

We held hands just like that and started walking.

Picking up the fragments of distant memories one by one. To welcome the morning that hasn't come yet, which we promised someday. And, before the world ends —.