Maya was the consummate procrastinator. 'Save it til the last minute!' was her motto in life, just as it had been in all the previous. The last minute of the day was her specialty after all, being the temporal guardian of the Twenty-third hour of the clock. And Maya had used it to full advantage in this modern age of time crunches and deadlines living in the Here and Now of humans. Little did she know the greatest deadline of all would soon befall her. If only she could remember what, or who, she needed to save before it was too late. _____ Author's Note: 𝐌𝐢𝐝𝐧𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐂𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 began as a fantasy-mystery submission for the 2021 Open Novella Contest. Originally titled 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝟐𝟑𝐫𝐝 𝐇𝐨𝐮𝐫, it was inspired by the contest's #54 prompt: You get a mysterious message on your phone stating, "Agent 23, you've been activated". You guess it's a bad time to have amnesia. _____ This is an original work of fiction protected by copyright. © Elisabeth Long 2022
10 parts