A Flaw in Time

It began as a rumor.

The kind that crawls through a school like a slow, whispered secret, half-truth, half-joke, told by seniors to freshmen on late, nervous orientation nights. The kind of story that thrives in the shadowed corners of hallways and locker rooms.

They said beneath our school gym lay a forgotten swimming pool, sealed off, buried beneath layers of concrete and silence. It was said the pool was haunted, cursed even, because decades ago, a swimmer named Eli Mercer, heartbroken after losing a massive competition, had drowned herself there in despair. The school supposedly shut it all down, erased every trace, and sealed every door. But if you pressed your ear to the locker room floor at midnight, they said you could still hear the faint splash of water.

I never believed the rumors.

They felt too neat, too cinematic, like something made up for a ghost story podcast or a cheesy horror flick.

I’m not the type for stories like that.

I’m a facts person. I like what I can see, measure, and prove. Blueprints, reports, solid evidence.

Our school was built in 1992. The cornerstone by the main office says so. I even checked the blueprints, twice, in boring civics classes. Not a single swimming pool marked anywhere.

So, none of this made any sense.

But nothing could have prepared me for that Saturday.

Being valedictorian means spending a lot of your life in school.

Saturday was no exception. I had volunteered to help organize materials for the upcoming graduation ceremony, which meant sitting alone in the library, surrounded by musty books and the constant hum of the air conditioning.

I tried to study, but my mind kept wandering. The silence pressed in too hard.

I felt the familiar ache of loneliness, surrounded by classmates in passing but still feeling miles away. It wasn’t that I didn’t want friends; it’s just… I hadn’t figured out how to connect without stumbling over words or losing myself.

After one too many failed attempts to focus, I gave up. I needed to clear my head.

Volleyball helped. The rhythm of the ball hitting the gym floor, the repetitive bounce, soothed me in a way no book ever could.

I used the brass emergency keys Coach Miller trusted me with, one of the few perks of being “the golden student”, to unlock the gym door.

Inside, the gym was a small world of chaos. Basketballs spilled from cracked bins like forgotten planets. The floorboards creaked underfoot, scarred from decades of sneakers. Ancient trophies and faded ribbons were shoved between folding chairs in the storage room.

I was about to pick up a volleyball when something caught my eye.

Buried beneath a pile of old nets, frayed, stained, and smelling of damp and dust, was a small metallic object.

A stopwatch.

Not new. Not modern.

It looked like something from the ’60s or ’70s.

Cold and heavy in my hand, the chrome casing was dented and scratched, but the glass face was surprisingly clear, numbers sharp and precise, as if waiting for someone to press start.

Something about it sent a shiver down my spine.

Our school was built in ’92. This watch belonged to another era entirely.

I stared at it, heart thrumming in an unfamiliar rhythm.

Suddenly, the silly rumors about the haunted pool, about Eli Mercer, flooded back into my mind.

I pocketed the stopwatch, its cold weight anchoring a growing sense of unease.

I made for the girls’ locker room, planning to leave, but everything felt… off.

The tiles beneath my feet seemed to shift, the walls subtly twisting in a way that didn’t make sense.

My breath caught.

Was I imagining it?

Then, the stopwatch ticked.

Just once.

A sharp, unnerving tick louder than it should have been.

I yanked it out of my pocket. The second hand spun backwards, mocking the natural flow of time.

My skin prickled.

Suddenly, a splash echoed from somewhere below.

My heart jumped to my throat.

I bolted for the door, but it was locked tight.

Saturday. No one was around to hear me scream.

I patted down my pockets—no phone.

Panic and logic tangled in a desperate dance.

The splash came again.

And then, tick.

Remembering Coach Miller’s safety drill, I sprinted for the secondary exit.

But it wasn’t there.

In its place was a rusted metal plate, scratched and dented.

With shaking hands, I pried it open.

A staircase descended into darkness.

A damp, musty smell, mildew mixed with chlorine, filled the air.

I took a deep breath and stepped down, the wooden stairs creaking beneath me.

At the bottom was a swollen wooden door, barely legible letters carved above:

POOL FACULTY

I pushed it open.

The room beyond was vast and empty.

A long, wide swimming pool sat there, untouched and still.

Cracked tiles lined the edges, and the water was black glass.

I stepped closer.

Then, voices.

Footsteps echoed down the stairs.

Three figures entered.

Principal Lee. Coach Miller. And a man in a black suit holding blinking equipment I didn’t recognize.

“Strength of readings this month is stronger,” the suited man said, kneeling beside the water.

“Can we just drain it?” Lee sighed, exhausted. “It’s been fifty years.”

“Unless you want chaos, a collision of dimensions, you can’t,” the man replied.

Coach Miller glanced around. “Someone’s been here.”

Lee’s eyes narrowed. “Check the cameras.”

The man smirked. “Like how you handled Eli Mercer in ’73?”

“We’ll deal with this on Monday,” Miller said quietly. “I think I know who it might be.”

“You’d better,” the man warned.

They left, and the pool room was silent once more.

I stepped closer to the deep end.

And there she was.

Not a reflection.

A girl, waist-deep in the water.

Her hair hung heavy over her face.

Her eyes were hollow, distant.

And in her hand?

The same stopwatch.

But hers was still ticking.

I knelt, almost hypnotized, and raised my stopwatch above the surface.

It vibrated violently.

And then, I dropped it.

Plunk.

The pool exploded in a whirlpool of arms and screams, a storm of twisted, broken time.

Then, silence.

The water stilled.

The girl was gone.

I looked down.

It was my reflection.

But my reflection was smiling.

And I was waist-deep in the water.

Trapped on the wrong side.

Above me, my real face twisted in panic. I couldn’t feel myself; I couldn’t move.

Desperation consumed me.

I clawed at the invisible barrier.

With the little strength I had left, I reached into the back pocket of my hoodie. My fingers found my X-Acto knife.

For control.

For clarity.

I jammed it into my thigh.

Pain pierced through fear and I felt my soul enter my body again.

And then, the stopwatch shot out of the water, landing in my palm.

My trapped reflection vanished.

The girl appeared again.

Bleeding, but free, I collapsed on the cold tile, heart pounding.

The stopwatch lay motionless in my hand.

Frozen.

And behind me, scrawled beneath mold and ruin, words etched deep into the wall:

KEEP TIME. OR TIME KEEPS YOU.

I was shaking.

Afraid.

And somehow… changed.

I didn’t sleep that night.

Not really.

Every time I closed my eyes, I saw her face.

My face.

That flickering smile that wasn’t mine.

The stopwatch sat on my desk, unmoving. Still. But I felt it watching.

I needed answers.

Back in the school archives, I scoured every file I could find.

But the trail ended in 1992.

No Eli Mercer.

No pool.

No mention of any school before ours.

Just silence.

So I did something I had never done before.

I took the search outside.

The neighborhood behind the school had been there long before our building.

I walked door to door, asking about the old school.

About Stonehill Secondary.

About Eli Mercer.

Most people gave me blank stares or shrugged.

Until I reached a small brick house, its walls crawling with ivy.

An old woman answered.

Her eyes were pale but sharp.

When I asked about Eli Mercer, she said nothing.

Instead, she handed me a plain candle.

And whispered a poem:

“Time forgets what hearts remember.

And echoes cling where no one goes.

Light the flame when night feels heavy,

And see the truth that no one knows.”

I didn’t ask for more.

I thanked her and left, the candle cold in my hand.

That night, I lit the candle.

The flame burned strangely, pale blue.

Shadows deepened and thickened.

The walls stretched and bent.

And suddenly, I was somewhere else.

A locker room.

Older. Dimmer.

I was invisible. Weightless.

And then I saw her.

Eli.

She wore a team jacket, young, strong, but tense.

She stood alone, watching the stopwatch spin backward in her hand.

Her face twisted in panic.

She backed into the pool room and called out.

No one answered.

Then, splash.

Water churned.

She screamed.

And then, nothing.

I woke with a gasp.

The candle had burned out.

But I understood now.

Eli hadn’t died.

She’d been swapped.

Trapped.

Like so many others.

That night, I returned.

To the gym.

To the pool.

I lit the last nub of the candle at the water’s edge.

One by one, I saw them.

Eli.

The girl.

Others.

Flickering, memories struggling to hold on.

The stopwatch pulsed in my hand.

This time, I didn’t throw it.

I stepped into the cold water.

Raised the stopwatch high and smashed it against the cracked tile.

Time shattered.

Light exploded across the water.

The figures smiled.

And faded.

One by one.

Free.

I climbed out.

Legs burning.

Thigh still throbbing.

But real.

I sealed the chamber.

Locked the door.

And never went back.

At graduation, I gave my speech.

I spoke about time.

How we chase it. Waste it. Fear it.

How sometimes, it doesn’t move forward, or back.

Sometimes, it waits.

And the only way to escape it…

…is to finally listen.

KEEP TIME. OR TIME KEEPS YOU.

THE END