Skip to content
Inkroost
Join Free
Dead Hours
The Long Second · Ch.16
/
Wide night view inside a 24-hour convenience store. Kaito stands behind the register and glances up over his shoulder at a round wall clock whose hands sit at the top.
Close-up of the store's plain round wall clock. Its thin second hand is frozen pointing straight up, with small motion marks showing it twitching without advancing.
Rin leans on the counter, bored, one earbud in and phone in hand, giving a flat half-smirk. The stuck wall clock is visible on the wall behind her.
/
/ 3
Wide night view inside a 24-hour convenience store. Kaito stands behind the register and glances up over his shoulder at a round wall clock whose hands sit at the top.
Close-up of the store's plain round wall clock. Its thin second hand is frozen pointing straight up, with small motion marks showing it twitching without advancing.
Rin leans on the counter, bored, one earbud in and phone in hand, giving a flat half-smirk. The stuck wall clock is visible on the wall behind her.

Log in to keep reading Dead Hours

You have read 3 of 14 pages of The Long Second. Log in to read the rest — or create a free Inkroost account, which takes a moment and opens every other free chapter on the site too.

Log in to keep reading Create a free account

Free to join. We will bring you straight back to this page.

← The Cure · Ch.15
Text Version A written companion to this chapter — for accessibility, screen readers, and search.

Page 1

A wide establishing shot of the empty convenience store during the dead-of-night shift: fluorescent lights, shelves of drinks and snacks, a hot-food case, and a dark, empty street beyond the front windows. Kaito, in his striped store apron and 'KAITO' name tag, stands behind the counter and cranes his neck to look up at a plain round wall clock mounted near the ceiling. The clock's second hand is pointed straight up, twitching in place. KAITO: 'Still 2:59.'

Page 2

A tight close-up of the plain round wall clock under a buzzing fluorescent tube. The clock face has simple tick-marks and no numbers. Its thin second hand is stuck pointing straight up at the top, with tiny motion lines beside it showing that it is ticking in place but never moving forward. No one is in frame; the line comes from Kaito off-panel below. KAITO (off-panel): 'It ticks. It won't move.'

Page 3

Rin leans on the counter in her oversized hoodie and store apron with the 'RIN' name tag, one wireless earbud in and her phone in hand. Her expression is half-lidded and unbothered, with a tiny smirk. The frozen wall clock hangs on the wall behind her. RIN: 'Time isn't real.'

Inkroost