10 Minute Hourglass Novels & Stories

"I’ll go back and get it, sir. I promise." Annabella’s father’s eyes never left him, studying every nervous twitch and anxious breath. Then, without a word, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small hourglass, filled with sand. He set it on the table between them and, with a deliberate motion, turned it upside down. The grains of sand began to trickle down, marking the passage of time. "You have until this sand runs out," Annabella’s father said, his voice low and firm. "I want you back here with the best ice cream you can find. And this time, you’re going on foot."

It was exactly 1pm in the afternoon. “Today. In the next 10 hours.” “What?” she screamed in shock. Just 10 hours. Ten hours to burn down an empire- or die, while trying to.

Thirty minutes. !!!!!CRASH!!!!!

Roughly 15 minutes. The countdown began…

Staircases spiral into nothingness, and hallways branch into portals flickering with dead worlds. Eden leads, his steps precise, as if following a map only he can see. The Hunter trails, muttering about traps and hubris. "Here," Eden says, stopping at a chamber where the walls are lined with hourglasses. Each holds not sand but *souls*-tiny, flickering figures pressed against the glass. One pulses with Kael's face, another with Lila's. The Hunter inhales sharply. "You said *answers*, not ghosts." Eden ignores him, touching an hourglass marked with a wolf's fang. "This is yours, Mom."

"I ordered your favorite soft pink wedding dress. After surgery, the designer will take your measurements. At our wedding, you'll be the most beautiful bride." I smiled and touched his face. This was my farewell. Tears streamed down my face, and a silent thought echoed. "Ethan, there won't be a wedding for us." As the doors to the operating theater closed, I kept my gaze fixed on the three people I loved most; I wanted to commit their faces to memory. Once these doors closed, I knew I would never see them again. As anesthesia dulled my senses, the world around me faded away. My death was declared at precisely 10:00 pm, as indicated by the wall clock.

The scent of disinfectant fought with the smell of rotting lilies. "The Thirteenth Hour," Dante whispered, his voice a jagged rasp. He looked at the digital clock on the wall—13:00—the numbers bleeding into the air like fresh ink. "It’s not a reset, Ivy. It’s a collapse. The layers are bleeding into each other."

They must be waiting for me somewhere. As the train jerks, slowly crawling out of the station, I settle into my seat. I’ve theorised that it must take a few days for the train to make the full trip. Maybe a week even. Just as those thoughts consumed my mind, a small screen planted into the back of the seat in front of me flashes. First Destination : Territory Of Fate Time of Travel : 26 hours. Sighing deeply, I settle into my seat. With no belongings aside from the clothes on my back, I peel off my jacket and use it as a pillow. A few seats in front of me, I hear someone’s muffled cries.

"This must be expensive, huh?" It was my pocket watch. My mom's. The only thing she ever left me. I'd cried over it more times than I could admit. I polished that thing every day like it was sacred. One scratch and it wrecked me. And Donna knew that.

29 "An hourglass!" It's beautiful but... What will I do with it? "Hourglass shows times in a fantastical way. Every grain of sand that falls down the hole is a grain that will never go back up. When you think about it profoundly, you realize it denotes every single second of time you lost. Time that will never come back. Time that you could have used to make yousselg yourself a better person." Anjelo paused as his eyes bore into mine.