Brass frame, heavy hands, a face yellowed with time, still ticking.
Lena found it in the attic. Her grandmother’s house was empty. Or maybe it wasn’t. Dust tasted like old breath. The light didn’t fall right. The stairs behind her creaked, though she lived alone. She hadn’t meant to keep the clock. Wound it once. It started. It kept going. Better than her phone. Better than anything. It didn’t care if you believed in it. It didn’t care if you didn’t. Then it spoke. Not aloud. Seconds. Patterns. Truths. Three ticks before midnight, the lights flickered. Always three. Always cold. One night, the flicker spelled her name on the wall.
2:17 AM.
She was always awake. It was always in the hallway. Same hour. Same shape. No features. No origin. No consequence. No reason. She unplugged it. Still ticking. She smashed it. Still ticking. She buried it. Still.
Each hour rewrote the rules. Dust in her lungs. Hands cold no matter the season. Shadows whispering in rhythms only she could decode. Then came the numbers. Not numbers. Pacts.
12:03. 2:17. 4:44.
Times that arrived like bruises. Times that left marks on people she hadn’t touched. She watched a man fall at 12:03. Her neighbour’s roof ignited at 4:44. Smoke curled like handwriting. The clock said nothing. It never said anything. It didn’t need to. She covered it with a towel. The sound came through. Through fabric. Through walls. Through her. She threw it in a lake. It didn’t drown. She saw bubbles for hours. They spelled something. She blinked and forgot what. The clock kept time. The clock wastime. It wasn’t a metaphor. It was literal. It was a throat. It was a throat that ticked. She hasn’t slept. Time breathes now. Through the ceiling, beneath the tiles, in her food, in her name.
And then…
The ticking...
On and on.
Slower now. Heavy. Each tick like a footstep. Like a countdown. Like a closing. Clocks break when she enters a room. Phones die in her pocket. People ask her the time. She just stares. The hallway is shorter. The shadow, closer. It no longer waits until 2:17. It arrives when it pleases. It arrives. It has no face. It always has. She doesn’t know what it wants. Or if it wants. She no longer keeps track of days. Just ticks. Some arrive backwards. The sound is louder inside her skull. The world around her still moves, but slower.
She stopped blinking yesterday.
She breathes when it lets her.
She does not know how long it’s been. No one does. No one will. And when they ask, She will answer.