The Thirteenth Minute

Every morning at 2:13, the world stops.

For thirteen hidden minutes, rain hangs motionless in the air, vehicles freeze in place, and ordinary life becomes a silent landscape where something ancient moves unseen. Most people never remember these minutes. The evidence disappears, the clocks correct themselves, and the world carries on as if nothing happened.

Kieran Orvek knows something is wrong.

A forensic signal analyst accustomed to finding truth in corrupted recordings, Kieran has spent years trying to hold his fractured family together. When his younger sister, Noa, vanishes, the world begins erasing every trace of her existence. Records change. Photographs blur. Neighbors forget her name. Even the people closest to Kieran struggle to remember she ever existed.

Only Kieran refuses to forget.

A strange audio recording leads him into the Stillpoint, a hidden world operating inside the thirteen stolen minutes. There, secret civilizations move through frozen cities, dangerous forces guard the boundaries of time, and a powerful organization called Custody will do anything to keep the hidden world concealed. Its Warden, Caldris Mourn, knows more about Kieran's family than he should-and insists that Noa is the key to something buried beneath the world.

As Kieran follows the evidence, he uncovers a devastating truth about his father's supposed death and the promise that has shaped his life. But rescuing Noa may do more than expose the secrets of the Stillpoint. It may damage an ancient lock protecting Earth from the Empty Tide, a force capable of erasing entire civilizations from existence.

With reality beginning to fracture and the people he loves caught between truth and manipulation, Kieran must decide how far he is willing to go to save his sister-and what he is willing to sacrifice when the hidden minutes finally refuse to end.

The clock says 2:13. The world is no longer safely asleep.