The Hour Before Midnight

What can I share about the place where time stood still? What can I reveal about the boy who would vanish at the stroke of midnight, with brown eyes that glowed hazel in the moonlight? What can I do with this wound that yearns to return to those days frozen in time? What can I do but slice open my heart and pour out these memories—too painful to recall, yet too important to forget?

My hometown of Ahrbol was just a few thousand people short of being called a city. It shared all the characteristics of one though, with high housing density, declining industrial activity, and a steady crime rate that tended to spike around the holidays. But, at some point, it took a turn for the worse. Suddenly, it seemed like everyone you knew was either on rake or knew someone who'd overdosed on it. It was no longer safe to go out at night, and my parents struggled to make ends meet. Growing older, I watched my home turn into a place I couldn't recognize, so I left as soon as I turned 18.

It wasn't always like that. Ahrbol used to be a farm town—flat land, open skies, and neighbors who helped each other out without expecting anything in return. Then came the man with the mine. He bought a stretch of land east of town and started digging. The town grew, but it also split. There were the people who worked for the man, and the ones who didn't. That old farm-town unity got buried under wages and hierarchy.

The man built a wooden mansion on a hill just outside of town. His family became the town's version of royalty—untouchable, remote. That lasted a few generations, until the lightning strike.

It hit during a thunderstorm so violent that people still talk about it like it happened last week. The bolt didn't burn the place down. Instead, it carved branching scars through the mansion's wood—those jagged, tree-like burns called Lichtenberg figures. The great-grandson of the mining baron was the only one inside at the time. They found him barefoot, fried from the ground up. No heirs, no will. Just a haunted house no one wanted to claim.

The mansion should've rotted, but it didn't. The lightning had seared the moisture out of the wood, preserved it like something pickled. Electronics never worked there after that. No power, no cell signal, nothing. Over time, the house became something between a landmark and a warning.

I came back with a few bestsellers under my belt and more money than I knew what to do with. Bought the mansion outright. No one tried to talk me out of it—they just looked at me like I was volunteering to disappear. And I was. It was for my new book. A story about a man who lives in the big city yet feels suffocated by loneliness. So I figured, what better place to write it than in a house where the world can't reach you?

I thought the silence would be perfect. The mansion creaked and settled as I unpacked my few belongings. My laptop—useless without internet or reliable electricity—sat on the kitchen table like an artifact from another world. The floorboards whispered beneath my feet, each carrying stories I couldn't yet understand.

That first night, I lit candles and oil lamps, their glow casting strange shadows on the walls. My fingers traced the grooves in the wood—those branching scars that ran from floor to ceiling. They felt warm under my touch, almost alive.

I'd almost finished setting up my writing desk when it happened. The wind outside died completely. Sudden, absolute stillness. The flame in my lamp didn't flicker. Then the Lichtenberg figures began to shimmer, glowing from within with a soft blue-white luminescence.

The grandfather clock in the hall—which hadn't worked since I arrived—suddenly ticked. Once. Twice.

"Eli?"

A voice behind me. Soft, uncertain. My name in a stranger's mouth.

I spun around, knocking over my chair. A young man stood there, maybe twenty-five, his clothes oddly formal—a white shirt with high collar, dark vest, and trousers that belonged to another time. But it was his eyes that caught me: deep brown that captured the candlelight and turned it to amber.

"Who are you?" I managed, fingers searching blindly for something to defend myself with. "How did you get in here?"

His expression shifted from confusion to a strange, sad recognition. "You don't know me," he said. "Not yet."

"I'm calling the police," I lied, knowing full well my phone had no signal.

"No, you won't," he said, not threateningly. Just... certain. "And anyway, I'll be gone in—" He looked at the clock. "—two minutes."

"What is this? Some kind of prank on the writer who bought the haunted house?"

He stepped forward. The Lichtenberg figures pulsed brighter.

"My name is Auren Vale," he said, "and tomorrow night, I die in this house."

The clock chimed. Midnight. I blinked, and he was gone. The figures faded back to ordinary scars. The candles flickered in a sudden draft.

I didn't sleep that night.

The next evening, I was prepared. Or thought I was. I'd spent the day convincing myself I'd hallucinated the encounter—exhaustion, the unfamiliar house, too many ghost stories. But I still set a voice recorder on the table and kept my flashlight close.

As the hour approached, the house seemed to hold its breath. The Lichtenberg figures began to glow again, brighter this time. The clock ticked loudly.

When it happened, it wasn't like before. The air split with a crack so loud I dropped to the floor. A blinding flash filled the room. Thunder shook the walls.

When my vision cleared, he was there—Auren—sprawled on the floor. This time, his body convulsed in agony. Blood seeped from his bare feet, traveling upward in the same branching patterns as the scars in the wood. Lichtenberg figures etched in blood and pain.

"Oh god," I gasped, rushing to him. "I need to call an ambulance."

His hand shot out, gripping my wrist with surprising strength. "No time," he whispered, voice raw. "It's already happened."

"What are you talking about? You're hurt, you're—"

"Dying." He finished. "I've been dying for eighty years, Eli."

I shook my head, panic rising. "This isn't possible."

He smiled, blood at the corner of his mouth. "Nothing about us is possible."

"Us?" My voice cracked. "There is no us. I don't know you."

The light in his eyes dimmed. "Not yet. But you will. And I've known you for... so many times now." His fingers tightened around my wrist. "I need you to listen. I'm not afraid of dying. I'm afraid of never seeing you again. And when this hour begins again tomorrow, I'll fall in love with you all over. You have to stop me."

"Stop you from what?"

"From loving you." His body seized again. "Because when the lightning strikes, it all restarts. For me. I live these last days over and over. I meet you. I fall for you. I die. And it begins again."

The blood patterns on his skin glowed, matching the figures in the walls. A perfect, terrible symmetry.

"How am I supposed to stop this?" I asked, tears blurring my vision.

"I don't know," he whispered. "But you have to try."

The clock began to chime. Midnight approached.

"I'll find a way," I promised. "I'll help you."

His smile was radiant even as his body began to fade. "I believe you. I always do."

The final chime sounded, and I was alone, kneeling on a floor that showed no trace of blood, no evidence that Auren Vale had ever existed—except for the lingering warmth in my palm and the impossible ache in my chest for someone I'd just met.

The nights began to blend together, each starting with the shimmer of those lightning scars and ending with the hollow chime of midnight. But what happened between varied endlessly.

Some nights, Auren appeared unaware of me, wandering the mansion as if I weren't there. Other nights, he knew me instantly.

"You're wearing your glasses today," he said one evening, appearing in the doorway of my study. "They suit you."

I touched the frames self-consciously. "I've had them since college."

"I know," he said with a gentle smile. "You always push them up when you're thinking hard about something."

He was right. I did.

"Have we had this conversation before?" I asked.

His smile turned sad. "Not exactly. But something similar. You told me that night in the library."

"What night? What library?" I felt a chill run through me.

"You don't remember. But you will."

That night, he told me about his grandfather, the baron who built this place. About growing up with expectations he never asked for.

"I wanted to write poetry," he confessed, sitting cross-legged beside my desk. "My grandfather thought it was a waste of time."

"Was it good poetry?" I asked.

He laughed, a sound that made the Lichtenberg figures pulse brighter. "Terrible. But I loved it anyway."

I told him about leaving Ahrbol, about my first book, about coming back. The words flowed easily between us, as if we'd known each other for years instead of hours.

When the clock began to chime, he stood, resignation in his eyes. "I hate this part," he whispered.

I reached for him, but my fingers passed through air. He was already fading.

"Tomorrow," he said, the word both promise and fate.

Another night, I found him in the library, pulling books from shelves and throwing them to the floor in frustration.

"It has to be here," he muttered, not seeing me at first. "The answer has to be somewhere."

"Auren," I said softly. "What are you looking for?"

He spun, eyes wild, hair disheveled. "Eli." He crossed to me in three quick strides, gripping my shoulders. "You have to help me look. There has to be a way out of this."

"Out of what?"

"This endless loop. This purgatory." His voice broke. "I'm so tired of dying."

"My grandfather," he said, running his fingers along book spines, "was obsessed with time. With controlling it, bending it. He thought electricity was the key."

"Is that what happened that night? An experiment?"

Auren paused, staring blankly at the book in his hands. "I don't remember. It's like trying to recall a dream. But you're part of it. Somehow, you're always part of it."

That night, we found nothing. When midnight approached, he sat on the floor, leaning against a bookshelf, exhausted.

"Maybe there is no way out," he said quietly. "Maybe this is what I deserve."

"For what?"

"For wanting too much. For thinking I could have things I wasn't meant to have."

The clock began to chime.

"You were meant to have something," I said desperately as he began to fade. "Everyone is."

His sad smile was the last thing to disappear. "Then maybe you were meant to have a better ghost than me."

On the seventh night, Auren appeared in the kitchen while I was making tea.

"I remember something," he said without preamble. "About the night I died."

I set down the kettle. "What is it?"

"I came back for something important. I'd left something here, and I needed to get it before my grandfather returned."

"What was it?"

He shook his head, frustrated. "I can't remember. But it was important enough to come back during a storm."

We moved through the house together. In the library, he paused, turning slowly.

"It was in here," he said. "Whatever it was."

I thought about what he'd told me about his poetry. "Could it have been your writing?"

His eyes widened. "Yes. My journal. My grandfather had found it, and he was going to burn it. Said it was distracting me from real work."

"Where did he keep it?"

Auren moved to the fireplace, kneeling. "There used to be a hidden compartment here, behind this brick." He pointed, but the fireplace was different—newer, remodeled.

I knelt beside him, feeling the bricks. Solid.

"It's not here anymore," I said gently.

Auren's face fell. Then, suddenly, his head snapped up. "The clock. My grandfather hollowed out the base to hide things."

We rushed to the hallway. Auren ran his hands over it, finding a nearly invisible seam.

"Here," he said. "Help me move it."

Together, we pulled the massive timepiece away from the wall. Behind it, a small panel had been set into the plaster. He pressed against it, and it gave way.

The space behind was empty.

Auren's shoulders slumped. "It's gone. Of course it's gone."

I started to comfort him, then stopped. "Wait. When I bought this place, there was an old trunk in the attic. I haven't gone through it yet."

His eyes lit up. "Show me."

The attic was stifling, thick with dust. The trunk sat beneath a small window, moonlight spilling over its weathered leather.

I lifted the heavy lid. Inside were stacks of papers, files, old photographs. Auren dropped beside me, hands hovering over the contents.

"These are my grandfather's," he said, voice hushed. He sifted through the documents.

Halfway down, he froze. "This is it." He pulled out a small, leather-bound book, its pages yellowed with age. "My poetry."

He opened it reverently, fingers tracing the faded ink. "I was here that night to get this back. I couldn't bear the thought of him destroying it."

I watched his face as he read words he'd written a lifetime ago. His expression softened, a small smile playing at his lips.

"It really is terrible," he said, but there was warmth in his voice. "But it was mine."

As he turned a page, something slipped out and fluttered to the floor between us. A photograph, faded and sepia-toned. I picked it up.

My breath caught in my throat.

It was me. Standing in the library downstairs, wearing clothes I'd never owned, my hair styled in a way I'd never worn it. The date scrawled on the back: April 17, 1942.

"Auren," I whispered, "who is this?"

He took the photograph, studied it. "That's him. The man I came back for that night. The man who told me I'd die here. The man who told me I'd meet you, and that I should warn you about the cycle." He looked up, eyes widening. "He said his name was Eli."

The Lichtenberg figures began to pulse, and the ticking of the grandfather clock grew louder.

"It's not possible," I said, but even as the words left my mouth, I knew they were a lie. Nothing about this was possible, and yet here we were.

"Eli," Auren said, voice urgent now. "He told me that I would tell you about the cycle, and that you would tell him, and that he would tell me. Don't you see? There's no beginning, no end. Just us, trapped in this moment."

"But I've never gone back in time. I've never met you before these past nights."

"Not yet," he said, the exact words he'd spoken the first night we met. "But you will."

The clock began to chime. Auren pressed the journal into my hands.

"Keep it," he said urgently. "And when you go back—when you find yourself in 1942—tell me to leave. Tell me not to come back that night."

"But if you don't come back that night, you won't die. And if you don't die..."

"Then we never meet," he finished, realization dawning. "Not like this."

The clock continued to chime. Seven. Eight. Nine.

"I can't do that," I said, clutching the journal. "I can't erase this. Erase us."

Auren cupped my face in his hands. "If you truly love me, you'll save me."

Ten. Eleven.

"But we'll never—"

Twelve.

"I know," he whispered, already fading. "Sometimes love is letting go."

And then he was gone.

I spent the next days in a fever of research. Town archives, old newspapers, anything I could find about the Vale family, about the night of the storm. I found the article—August 17, 1942. The night Auren died. Four months from now, eighty years ago.

I read his poetry over and over until I'd memorized every word. Found mention of a theoretical physicist who'd consulted with the elder Vale on experiments involving "temporal displacement." Found notebooks filled with equations that meant nothing to me.

And then, one night, as I sat in the library, the Lichtenberg figures began to glow again. But different this time—not the soft pulse of Auren's approach, but a violent, blinding flare. Thunder crashed directly overhead, and I felt myself pulled apart, atom by atom, scattered like dust in a hurricane.

When I opened my eyes, the library was different. Newer furniture. No electricity. A fire roaring in the original fireplace.

And on the desk, a newspaper. April 17, 1942.

I had four months to find Auren. Four months to warn him. Four months to break a cycle that had no beginning and no end.

I knew what I had to do. The right thing. I had to save his life by erasing our meeting from existence. I had to love him enough to never meet him at all.

And so, on an impossibly bright spring morning in 1942, I stood outside the Vale Industries office building, waiting for a young man with amber eyes who didn't yet know me. Who would never truly know me.

When he emerged, laughing with colleagues, vibrant and untouched by fate, my heart nearly stopped. He was more beautiful than I'd imagined. More real.

"Excuse me," I called, stepping forward. "Mr. Vale?"

He turned, surprised, curious. "Yes?"

"My name is Eli. I need to tell you something important."

"Do I know you?" he asked, tilting his head. "You look... familiar."

"No," I said, as the world around us began to blur at the edges, as time itself prepared to rewrite a story that would now never happen. "But I've been waiting for you."