The Mystery Of Room 67

Every year on October 31st, at exactly 6:07 PM, something mysterious happens in our town. All the clocks stop for six minutes and seven seconds, and if you listen closely, you might hear soft whispers in the air, six or seven of them! This year, I decided to find out what was going on. I followed the sounds to a crumbling old house at the very end of Sixty-Seventh Street, a place no one had visited for six or seven years! Inside, the air was dusty and still. On the rug, I found a little note. It said: “I’m watching you ” Just then, the door to Room 67 creaked open... and then shut again! I took a deep breath and walked up the staircase. The door to Room 67 was locked, but I heard a voice from downstairs say,“Hello there! My name is Mr. Vincent!” When I turned around, Ms. Clark was standing behind me! She smiled and said, “I think Mr. Vincent wants us to solve his puzzle!” We hurried downstairs and found a trail of glitter and notes leading to a table. On the table was a big key and a riddle: “To open the door, find where the floor squeaks!” I ran upstairs, listening carefully. Creeeak!  there it was! Beneath the squeaky floorboard, I found a tiny treasure box. Inside was another note that said, “Happy Halloween! Mystery solved!”  The clocks started ticking again, and everything felt normal but from that day on, I couldn’t help but wonder... Who really wrote those notes in the first place? 

Part 2: The Missing Minute

The day after Halloween, everyone kept talking about candy, costumes, and parties but no one said a single word about the clocks stopping. When I asked my friends, they just shrugged like nothing strange had happened at all. Even stranger, when I mentioned the whispers, they looked at me like I was the weird one. But Ms. Clark didn’t. In fact, she pulled me aside after class. “I think Mr. Vincent left more than just riddles,” she whispered. “Meet me after school. We should check the house again.” So later that afternoon, we walked together to the end of Sixty-Seventh Street. The house looked even older in the daylight windows cracked, paint peeling, roof sagging. But when we stepped inside, something was off. The air wasn’t dusty anymore.

It smelled like… old paper and candle smoke. And the glitter trail from the night before? It was gone. “Look,” Ms. Clark said, pointing at the wall where Room 67’s door should’ve been locked. It wasn’t locked. It wasn’t even closed. The door stood wide open. I stepped inside carefully. The room was empty except for one small brass pocket watch lying in the center of the floor. It wasn’t there last night. I picked it up and realized the time on it was frozen at 6:07 PM. The exact moment the clocks had stopped. A little note was tucked behind it. Same handwriting. Same mysterious scribbles. I unfolded the note carefully, as if it might crumble in my hands. The writing was the same as before, but this time it seemed to pulse with an eerie urgency, like the ink had been written just for me to read at that very moment. "Time is not a straight line. You can walk it backward, but only if you remember the key." I turned the note over, hoping for more clues, but it was blank. Ms. Clark stood behind me, observing. “Do you understand?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper. I shook my head, feeling the weight of her words pressing against me like a wall. "The key... What does it mean?" Before she could answer, I heard something creak behind us. Slowly, I turned around, expecting to see the door creaking shut. But no. The air seemed to ripple around the doorframe, and for a split second, the room felt... different. Like time itself was bending. I glanced back at the watch in my hand. 6:07 PM. Something wasn’t right. This wasn’t just about a missing minute anymore. Ms. Clark's face had turned pale. "We need to figure this out. Fast." I nodded, a cold shiver creeping down my spine. This wasn’t a simple riddle, and it wasn’t about just solving it for a grade. Whatever was happening here had bigger consequences than anyone was willing to admit. "So," I asked, keeping my voice steady, "where do we even begin?" Ms. Clark bit her lip, her eyes flicking to the watch in my hand. "I think the answer is hidden in the place where time stands still. We need to go back to where it all started."

Part 3: The Place Where Time Stands Still

We left the house and stood on the cracked sidewalk, the fading light of the afternoon casting long shadows across the street. Ms. Clark didn't say anything at first, but I could feel the tension in the air like she was trying to piece something together in her head. I looked down at the pocket watch in my hand. 6:07 PM. It felt almost like the watch was alive, pulsing in my palm, as if it were calling me toward something. But what? Ms. Clark finally broke the silence. "There's one place we haven't checked yet. The clock tower." "The old clock tower on Maple Hill?" I asked, surprised. I'd heard stories about it—how it hadn't worked in years, how no one had dared go near it. People said the gears inside were cursed, but I never believed any of that. "Yes," Ms. Clark said, her voice firm. "It’s the key. I’m sure of it now. If time is connected to this place… then it’s our only chance."