literature

Clock is ticking

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All I remember are the screams and hysteria of people, a loud crash and finally, a bright green light looking down at me. I didn’t move, I didn’t fight back, and I barely struggled. With the stories I had heard, I thought that perhaps complying would give me a better chance. People around me had been shot with poison as they convulsed and their bodies petrified. Their eyeballs pushed upwards as liquid metal began pouring out of their eyes, nose, mouth and ears. I hadn’t struggled, so I witnessed everything. I was grabbed and lifted upwards by the drone’s claw. Dear Lord, help me.

I hadn’t fought back, I kept telling myself, and now I am a witness to all of this. As I looked around, I could see the recently deceased were pinned by the creature using magnets to bond themselves with their metallic liquid. I looked around as the moon shone bright over me and the clouds grazed us from bellow. I was terrified; I could only utter prayers that I feared no one would hear. We flew around in circles as other drones brought back their own specimens, some awake as well, watching it all unfold and screaming for mercy. The moon allowed us to realize we were over an ocean with nothing on the horizons. The sea appeared to be a black abyss ready to swallow us whole before it began to part. A loud hiss and clank emerged from deep bellow, like a sea monster, and a hatch was finally seen. It opened slowly and the drones began to fly us in.

The inside was vast. Along with what seemed to feel like an endless hundred-floor drop, vast numbers drones of all shapes and sizes flew around past us, working together to maintain the ship running. We were taken down to the first floor, securing us in place to prevent any escaping as others took the stiff to another room. We were there in the dark. Cold and alone, none of us wanted to speak. We were too afraid. A few tried to control their sobs and their mutterings, begging for them to be let go. Asking what they had done to deserve this fate.

But all had gone quiet when a single door opened and light crawled in the room. Steps echoed through the metallic floor and faints whirs were heard from something other than the ship and its droids. I closed my eyes. I knew who it was. No one had to take a guess. The solitary sovereign of his own make-believe empire; the man responsible for all the deaths and pain countries and people had suffered without solid reason as they gave away the victims with no judgment of sin, race, color, or sex. He was average-height, or so I could speculate, and wore an odd assortment of clothing. But what stroke fear in the hearts of everyone was the helmet. Living up to his name, the front held the top-half of a clock as it covered his forehead, his eyes were covered with lenses as he studied his victims, the top had gears that assisted the movement of 4 extra arms that whirred around building whatever he could think of, and the most prominent feature, was the golden gear in the back of his head, making him appear somewhat holy. This was the Clock.

I didn’t dare to look at him straight in the eye. I looked down as he approached me and tilted his head, muttering about how my right arm was weaker than my left.

“Your Highness, please…” a voice interrupted his examination. The Clock stopped and turned to the one who had spoken. A slim man in his early 30’s, stammered in fear, never daring to look at his capturer. “…We are all good people”, he continued, “No one knows what you want, sir. We can’t offer you the answers you seek; we can only say that…we want to help. Whatever reason you may have, please, you shouldn’t needlessly kill. We can try and reach a compromise”.

The Clock stood still; appearing almost as a statue, before he slowly approached the man. He stopped in front of him as the helpless captive turned his gaze away. The Clock slowly reached out to his jaw and pulled him closer to look at him eye-to-eye. None of us could look away at the scene. The man shook in fear as the Clock stood there unfazed and unmoved by his pleas. “I am no king”, he finally spoke, “I am not deluded in ruling over purposeless lives that I shall never benefit from”.

“You can all be easily replaced to work in the role society has given you by mere automatons. That is not my purpose, however, I honestly require your help. My compromise is that in the end, you’ll return to your loved ones, but I need all the variety, all the different attributes I can study from. Do you want an apology?”

The man said nothing, tears rolled down his eyes, as he knew he stared at Death in the face.

“I deeply apologize,” the man couldn’t open his eyes as the Clock finished, “but I also thank you”. He let go of the victim and walked away. Having made his decisions on what to work on with whom. The man finally broke into sobs, as others joined in screaming for help. As final words, I don’t remember what I said. I could only think about what I felt, how I knew I’d never see my family or friends again. I felt alone. All I could say to myself was: “at least you loved…at least you loved…at least you loved”.

Finally, a cold rush went from my arm to my head. A cold sensation like brain-freeze paralyzed me and thoughts began to dissolve. Everything went dark in a flash. My final thoughts echoed into oblivion.

“…At least you loved”.

----------------------

About two weeks had gone by since the attack. No one had fully-recovered yet as they saw 4 silhouettes in the distance approaching our town. I felt my stomach sink when I heard the news as I had come back from work that day. Lucy, a co-worker, had been the one who told me as she pulled my arm telling me, “they saw him”, she cried, “They saw Simon”. Everyone had gathered in the entrance and waited, clasping hands, as the four missing friends walked back into our town. No one moved, no one greeted them; everyone simply stood still wondering if the rumors were true, and if so, what were they going to do.

Mark Thomas, around a 40-year old woodcutter, was the first to react. He picked up his axe and approached the third person from the left, and looked deep into his eyes. His hand shook in fear and he pressed the boy’s shoulder as hard as he could; surprisingly, the young man did not flinch or react to the pain. In fact, all four seemed to have been in a trance. Mark looked down and took a deep breath, “Miriam”, he softly said with a broken voice, “Turn around”.

The woman named Miriam was in tears, she could barely make out what Mark had told her as two others helped her turn around. “Cover her ears,” he ordered and the other two obeyed; they even covered her eyes. Mark lifted his axe slowly and, with a strong swing, hit the poor boy on the shoulder. Everyone gasped and Miriam stumbled a bit as she had had a hunch of what had happened.

However, the boy still did not flinch.

The man went and repeated the process about three times before dropping the axe. He placed his hands where a wound should be and placed his hands on the opening gap. There wasn’t a single drop of blood on his hands, and Mark proceeded to pull the flesh off the young man. A lot of people had turned around by now, some had even ran away to vomit somewhere at the sight of a father tearing off the flesh off his only child. Mark managed to pull off enough amounts and walked away to show the spectators what he had already expected: the boy, named Daniel, still had his bones, but clockwork and mechanical body parts had replaced everything else. Everyone yelled in horror and some went to embrace the poor victims of the disaster. I was one of them. I ran toward Simon and forced him to look at me, but his stare seemed empty. I called him over and over again and played with his short black curls as I often did to his annoyance. Nothing.

There he stood, the five-foot-ten field-worker I had known my entire life, was now one of Clock’s victims. My hands shook and I stepped back while Simon’s mother embraced him and cried. Saying over and over again that her baby was still there. I placed my hands on her shoulder and she slapped them away, telling me there was no comforting from her part, that Simon was still there. Simon’s mouth opened and closed like a puppet as it whispered, “the second box…next to the bed…” I felt like I had been the only one who heard it, as everyone was busy pulling the family members and friends from the four victims as Mark began ordering more axes to ‘get these abominations off everyone’s sight’.

I ran away to the nearby woods to get away from the hysteria happening nearby. I felt weak, I needed silence, and I needed to think. Something was wrong with those automatons, but I couldn’t admit that I heard it speak. I stayed there, in fetal position, face between my legs and arms covering me and I cried even harder than I did two weeks prior. It was now confirmed as Simon’s mother yelled one last time before she fainted: her little boy was dead.
Oh my god, those 1 in a 100 times I actually write stuff other than scripts and 1 in a 1000 times I actually decide to show it online.

I was going through a laptop clean-up when I found this 12-page story I wrote last May. I forgot I even started that, but it helped establish a setting so...yay!

I picked my two-favorite parts (the latter being my favorite) and decided to share them because...I dunno. Just enjoyed it. Also, you guys seem to be curious about the Clock and I think this is the best answer I can give for now.

There are two narrators (which will be obvious when you finish with the first one) It's a LITTLE morbid, so a slight warning.

So yeah. Enjoy. C: -Back to work-
© 2013 - 2024 cosmographia
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LunaShadow's avatar
Wow, very interesting and very sad. i loved it.