The Abyss, August 26th, 1888, 3:00 am

“Just give up already, you can’t stop this mess.” Aliyas groaned.

The cold dark machinery around him continued to hum as a faint beeping sound grew ever louder. The blinding neon white clock that made up the floor continued its rotation. He had been at it for hours, he wasn’t even sure what it was. Aliyas simply glanced down at the gilded console in front of him and sighed.

He had tried every single combination of buttons on that blasted machine, yet none of them worked. His gaze then turned to the searing red display above the wretched machine. He could just barely make out the exact positions of the clock hands from beneath the sickening glow.

Yet that wasn’t exactly necessary when the clock itself was clearly visible through the see-through floor beneath him. Aliyas growled and touched one of the buttons on the console again. This time, the device chirped to life and Aliyas’s face lit up with a smile.

”Even if I shut this thing down, I can’t leave this death trap.” He chuckled.

Just as quickly as the console had turned on, it went dead again. The ticking of the ginormous clock beneath him growing louder and louder. Drowning out all of the other sounds in this hellish space. Yet soon the ticking grew quiet as the clocks hands were locked into place on top of one another.

”Twelve o’clock, stroke of midnight maybe?” Aliyas wheezed, having no idea how long he had been at this gambit for.

He groaned and turned back to his diagrams. All he knew was that this contraption, this weapon, had a timer on it. And when, not if, it expired, the presumably resulting explosion would be too large and devastating for even him to calculate.

”For all I know, this thing could be a time machine. Yet given its design, there’s no real reason for me to just assume that it isn’t a weapon of some kind.” Aliyas sighed.

As he banged his knuckles against a solid metal wall, the clock whirred to life again. This time its hands went in a counterclockwise motion. Perhaps the arming mechanism had to be prepped both ways, yet he could never be sure with this beast.

Hells, he wasn’t even sure how he had got here in the first place.

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”Last I remember I was in the catacombs beneath the cathedral. And now I’m here, in this elaborate death trap, how fun.” Aliyas growled.

He then returned to the console again and began to tinker with its mechanisms some more. And as he did, the hands of the clock temporarily ceased their motions. Before returning to the proper clockwise rotation that they had done half an hour ago.

Aliyas breathed a cautious sigh of relief and stepped away from the console. He debated whether to rest or not, given how volatile this machine could possibly be. Yet he slumped down against one of the cold walls and drifted off to sleep against his own better judgment.

While he drifted off to sleep, the contraption continued its movements. The room turning from a blinding white to a dark and hazy red. A few seconds later, the clocks hands locked themselves in the six o’clock position. The room had soon gone quiet, almost too quiet. This simple lack of any perceivable white noise roused Aliyas from his slumber.

Now he wasn’t quite sure what to do, his panic only elevated as a hideous alarm began to sound. The decibels of which measured close to that of a gunshot, stopping any future plans of sleep dead in their tracks. Aliyas groaned and frantically rummaged around in his pocket. His hand immediately finding purchase on the wooden handle of a mallet.

A devilish smirk appeared across his face as he drew the mallet and dashed towards the gilded console. Hastily smashing it to pieces in a matter of moments in a fit of rage.

”Fine! If this thing is going to finally blow up, then let it! I don’t care anymore! I. Don’t. Care!” He cackled.

The reddish haze of the room slowly died down and returned to its usual blinding white madness. Yet this did nothing to calm Aliyas, not at all.

”So James, are you mocking me from beyond the grave? You are, I know you are! This was all part of your plan wasn’t it? To blow us all to pieces! Some plan you had! And now it’s no longer going to work. All cause a senile old bastard like myself just so happened to stumble upon it!” Aliyas chuckled as a look of terror dawned upon him.

Now he knew that he was going to die. He would have to die, lest everyone else would also meet his fate. After all, it would be better to sacrifice the needs of the few for those of the masses. The life of a valiant one given to safeguard the weak many. And he was to be that sacrifice, and the thought scared him.

For as much as death was a welcome thing to his kind, a sacrifice like this was often seen as overly heroic. As there are often methods of further minimizing casualties in these circumstances. Yet here, here there was no sort of option. Either he would die, or they all would, and that provided him some strange form of comfort. The fact that he would be doing his kin a service by sacrificing himself.

So he breathed a sigh of relief as the obsidian walls around him turned gray and hardened as he pushed a nearby button. Then a slight buzzing sound was heard, droning on for a few moments before a voice filled the room.

”Ad… Maius… Bonum…” The synthetic voice choked over the intercom.

Aliyas smiled and collapsed to the floor as his knees gave out. He had done it, he had balanced the equation. All those lives, those millions of lives, would be spared. All that was left was for him to close his eyes. As the world around him slowly melted away in a quiet hiss as the room was flooded with light.

”The world… looks white…” Aliyas chuckled as he breathed his last.