Everything goes white.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
Night has long since fallen. The constant sound of ticking strikes out around the man sitting alone, hunched over his dust-coated desk, working under dying lantern light. The many voices of the clocks fill the room, as if he were surrounded by the heartbeats of his many children.
Oriol turns the screwdriver, trying to tighten this last screw just the right amount. If he makes it too tight, the mechanism in the pocket-watch won’t be able to move. If he makes it too loose, the mechanics of it will be imprecise. It is a delicate process, made only possible because of his many years of work and his well trained hands and sharp eyes, even in his old age. He has to finish this watch now. The customer will be here tomorrow morning with the money.
“Papa?” calls a tired voice from the corner of the room. Oriol says nothing, focusing on his work. Only after he has finished turning the screw to the perfect position does he lift his head to look at the pale-faced child sitting with crossed legs on a chair. She is covered with a blanket; it is his only daughter, Evita. “Can we go home? I’m tired.”
Oriol looks at her before turning his face down to the watch. He turns the mechanism, winding it up, and then lets it spin.
The watch runs perfectly, and he can feel its tiny heart beating in his hands.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
Smiling a tired, relieved smile, Oriol sets the watch down and rises to his feet. “Yes, forgive me, my Evita,” apologizes the man to his only remaining child and blood. She had to be here with him. There was nobody else to take care of her anymore, not since the accident. On top of that, because of her sickness, she couldn’t be left alone. Not working isn’t an option for him either. Her treatments are expensive.
Grabbing his coat from the rack, he throws it over himself. Walking over to the chair, Oriol picks the girl up in one arm, which in his younger years wouldn’t have bothered him at all. But he’s older now and frailer. A child shouldn’t be so light for someone of his age. “Let’s go home,” he says, smiling as he carries her.
They blow out the lantern together, and as they walk out of the door, Evita grabs the hat from the rack and sits it on top of his head. They do this every night, and it is his favorite part of the day.
Everything goes white.
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The sale is more than just a success. The customer, apparently a low-born, traveling noble, is beyond thrilled with the work and pours coins onto his desk, promising to spread his name to everyone that he knows. This has been his first break in years, and before the nobleman has even fully shut the door, Oriol falls to the floor and cries in his confused daughter’s lap.
With this money, she can not only get the best treatment for the rest of the year, but she can eat enough to gain some real weight.
He has to work harder. He has to work more to make this kind of money to provide enough for her while he is still able to work. He doesn’t have many years left himself, and what will she do if he passes and she isn’t well enough to live alone yet?
He has to do it for her. He promises himself, as he listens to the beat of her heart overpowering any of the clocks in the room, that he’s going to provide for the last of his bloodline. He’ll give every last second of his life to that cause.
Everything goes white.
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Tick. Tick. Tick.
Oriol works. It is more than late. Evita is asleep. He had thrown out the old chair and bought her a real cot. It isn’t the most luxurious thing, but this way, she can at least rest here properly while he works. He looks up at the clock. It is well past midnight — far past time for them to go home.
Looking back over to her, he watches as her sleeping chest pushes itself up and down. She hasn’t awoken once yet. The medicine is helping. She’s sleeping deeper than ever now, and after these last few weeks, her ribs are finally starting to fill in. Oriol composes himself, sure that he is about to cry again.
He gets up, but not to leave. Instead, he grabs his hat and puts it on his own head, as a reminder of his duties, before sitting back down at his desk, sparing one more glance towards her. He returns to his work, turning the lantern up a little brighter.
His own heart feels as if it were growing weaker every day. He needs to take care of her. There isn’t much time left.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Tick. Tick.
Everything goes white.
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“Papa?” asks Evita, sitting in her cot. With tired eyes that can’t resist her call, Oriol looks up to her. His hands, looking far shakier and pale than they did a few months ago, rest down on the desk as they find a rare free-second.
“Yes, my Evita?” asks Oriol.
“Can we go home?”
“I need to work for your medicine,” explains Oriol.
“I don’t need it. I want to go home,” she protests. “You look unwell, Papa,” says Evita. “You can have my medicine.”
Oriol laughs, happy to see her slowly starting to regrow her mother’s defiant spirit. “I am not sick, I am old,” he explains to her.
“You are older because you do not sleep!” argues the girl.
“I do not sleep for you,” notes Oriol, turning back to his work. “Forgive me, my Evita. You will understand when you are older yourself,” he explains, turning the screw in the watch. He notices that his fingers have been tingling lately. Still, saying that sentence fills him with a deep warmth.
‘When she is older.’
Oriol smiles, repeating the phrase in his mind again. This expression on his face brightens even more so, as she leaves her cot to walk over to him, on legs that function well, placing the hat onto his head and her arms around him in a hug. He picks her up, setting her on his lap as if he were about to carry her home. He notices how heavy she feels. In this second, as he feels the strong beating of her heart against himself, he is the happiest man in the entire world.
Just this one watch. Then they’ll leave. He has to finish this last one. For her. For Evita.
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Tick.
Oriol screams, his hands swiping over his desk. The lantern, burnt empty, shatters down on the ground together with the rest of his implements.
Evita lies breathless, her life having simply vanished in her sleep. She rests peacefully in her cot across from his desk. The desk he had been sitting at for hours, obsessed, lost in his work. How long ago had it been? When did she stop breathing? Five minutes ago? Four hours ago?
Oriol tears down the clocks from all of the walls, throwing them all around the room, shattering everything in his rage and contempt and anguish. But no matter how much he destroys, Evita does not return.
Eventually, he lands there, hunched over her cot with his head on her noiseless chest. He weeps the last tears that he has left after a long life. The sound of his grief is one of two sounds present in the room.
The other is the ticking of a clock – one that he hadn’t managed to destroy.
The man lifts his head, turning around to look at the single clock that sits on his desk, facing him. He doesn’t remember it landing there, let alone landing as if set down with loving care. But there it is. Its heartbeat fills the room, together with his weakening one.
Oriol’s chest heaves and his breath grows frantic. He runs across the room, grabbing the clock and his tools, which are scattered all over the floor, before running back to his daughter’s side. He has one last mechanism to make. There is one last task that he must finish for Evita.
He grabs a knife, pulls down her blanket, and sets to work.
Everything goes white.
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It is done.
Oriol falls down onto the ground, his hands and body covered in the blood of his blood. His heart beats one final time, as his grip leaves the small crank on the side of her body. As he dies, he watches it start to spin the other way and he hears the ticking begin.
He smiles, feeling his head rest on top of the hat that lies beneath himself.
Everything goes white as his ticking stops. This time, it all stays white.
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Canta looks around at the familiar site of the cosmic-confessional, or courthouse, or whatever this place is. “God damn…” he mutters, looking up at the void above him. “You know, this is pretty messed up, right?” he yells at God or whoever else is up there, if anyone. “Couldn’t you guys just make a nice world? Maybe one where shit like this doesn’t happen?”
Nobody responds.
Canta sighs, turning to look at the soul floating across from himself. Oriol, the man with the hat.
“That was pretty fucked,” he says, pointing at the ball of yarn which starts to unravel into the shape of the man. “Did you really have to tear up your dead daughter like that?” Canta has decided to take his frustrations out on the only target that is here and the only one who will likely respond.
Oriol doesn’t respond, however, and instead looks around, as if lost. “Hello? Where am I?”
“You’re dead -” starts Canta, pointing at the man, who walks towards him and then through him. “Huh?”
“Hello?” cries Oriol. “Anyone?”
Nobody responds. Canta realizes that this isn’t a confession. This is still the memory. Something is wrong. Something has gone wrong. Oriol has already had his trial, yet he is still here.
“Hello?” repeats Oriol.
Canta isn’t sure what it is that comes next, exactly — a voice or a feeling, or simply the sensation of being spoken to, despite not hearing anything at all. But something fills the endless expanse. Something creeps and crawls towards them both, something… dark.
The white expanse seems to be overtaken by this ink. It is not as if the light had gone out, but rather as if some giant entity had risen and blocked out the sun, and they now stood in its shadow. Light may still exist in this plane, somewhere. But it isn’t here, beneath the overwhelming presence of the colossus, made entirely out of torn, ripped, and shredded black strings. The presence is like a fabric doll that has been mutilated by an angry dog.
“She didn’t wake up,” says the strange voice. Canta’s essence writhes as he hears it. It is as if a ripple shoots through his body from head to toe, like an uncontrolled shiver that causes his entire gestalt to spasm. His stomach twists in knots. There isn’t a smell, but there is the memory of a smell, like reminiscing of a meal long since eaten. It’s strong. The strongest thing that he has ever smelt. It is everywhere. It is staining, permeating, nauseating in its strength, and it feels like it’s coming from him himself.
“Who are you?!” shouts Oriol. “Put me back! I need to go to her!” he yells, apparently not afraid of his god or whatever else he presumes the dark entity to be. But Canta knows what it is right away. He feels it. He tastes it.
“I will save her, clockmaker,” promises the thing made up of every inch of darkness in this plane of existence. The thing that doesn’t belong here but is nonetheless here. The thing, that is all encompassing, that is all-powerful, that is clearly, undeniably, -
Canta narrows his eyes, sensing it right away.
- evil.
“…For a price,” it hisses.
“Are you the devil?!” shouts Oriol at the entity, made entirely of darkness. “If you are, then I accept!”
Canta blinks, not having expected such a straight-forward attitude from the man, who has not only titled the entity as what it likely truly is but also has not even asked for the terms of the arrangement. Perhaps this is foolishness. Perhaps this is the curse of unbridled love. Perhaps there is no difference. “You idiot!” shouts Canta, yelling at the yarn-like soul entity that is Oriol. But he doesn’t respond. This is just a memory. Canta isn’t really here. This has all already happened long ago.
The Demon-King, the shadow that he is, wordlessly creates a hole in his own mass. A tunnel, a way out.
Oriol pulls out a hat from inside his own unraveling body, setting it on top of his head. He stands up tall and walks into the shadows. “I will save you, my Evita,” he promises, vanishing into the void. “Forgive me.”
Everything turns black.
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Tick. Tick. Tick.
Canta opens his eyes. His first instinct is to shoot up off the ground. But he finds this impossible to do, as he is being held tightly by Alleluia against her chest, and inside of it, he hears the quiet ticking of the mechanisms of her clockwork heart.
Tick. Tick. Tick.