Vanishing Hour

A Psychological Sci-Fi Thriller by Philip Stengel

When time fractures, only one man can hold the pieces together.

Elias Kane was once a clockmaker-now he's Chronos City's last line of defense against a temporal collapse. Gifted-or cursed-with the power to manipulate a mysterious phenomenon known as The Vanishing Hour, Elias wages a nightly war against time itself, rescuing civilians trapped in stasis or shredded by rogue ripples. But tonight, the Hour is slipping.

Victor Hale, Elias's long-dead mentor, has returned-twisted into something inhuman. Now calling himself the Chronophage, Hale is devouring time across the city, aging innocents to dust and freezing entire districts in seconds. He's building a temporal weapon powerful enough to erase Chronos City from the timeline completely.

As the minutes vanish and Elias's body breaks under the strain of his gift, he's forced to ally with Mira Voss, a relentless journalist, and Jay, a streetwise thief with a strange connection to the temporal distortions. Together, they race through collapsing subway stations, haunted hospital wards, and derelict train yards to uncover Hale's master plan.

But the clock is ticking. The Hour is shrinking. And if Elias can't stop Hale before midnight, time itself may unravel.

Perfect for fans of Doctor Who, The Peripheral, and Tenet, The Vanishing Hour is a mind-bending sci-fi thriller blending psychological trauma, temporal warfare, and the cost of guilt with cinematic action and noir atmosphere.