The clock on the wall ticks. An incessant half rhythm, reminding me of each second. So perfectly in time that it is pure chaos: the accuracy only serving to show the world as irregular.
Each second is vastly different, each moment a millennium or a heartbeat.
Tick.
The world reasserts itself again, screaming into existence. Lesser gods are brought forth from whatever void they came, in order to momentarily flicker in the corners of my vision.
Tick.
A great howling in my earshot, a thousand dying wolves, the screams of madman and tortured.
Tick.
Another flicker in my vision. This time I am not sure what, it is thin and ephemeral, perhaps it is just the beginnings of my loss of sight.
Tick.
It must have been, because as I blink, it all flashes black. Small flecks of light pass through the underside of my eyelids, beautiful residual images of times and moments that are now quite dead.
And then it stops. So entrenched by the moment, the ticking stops for me, each tick either side the confines of my prison, one cautioning me from attempting to turn back, reminding me I can’t. The other, denial of the future, and in such it never comes.
The out lines of my hands are warped and burnt. My vision is back in focus now, but what I see is different. Little cuts and sprays, the light slices the world apart and reveals its very instinct. I blur as the world sharpens, so focused on its haze, I lose sight of my lines. Words fail, elapse into the infinite space of air always surrounding us, and then collapse inwards into me, my tongue fumbling with what should be so simple.
And then, a tick.
A whiplash of rushing light, a sound not unlike a gunshot, a throbbing in my head and the feel of vines twisted around me pressing inward. I attempt to draw breath, but my body is pressed against my own confines, the tense flesh refusing to bend.
And then a snap. The strain gives, my neck snaps. I fall, seizing as the last of it leaves me, unable to control the flailing of limbs. They crunch as they hit, and everything breaks.
Consciousness falls away.
(Image source: by Jimking on Deviantart)
