The Clock Struck One

TW: Psychological torture, referenced abuse/death of both anthropomorphic and non-anthropomorphic animals, referenced child death, briefly mentioned cannibalism, referenced dead bodies, blood, mentions of starvation, description of suicide and suicide attempts, suicidal thoughts, swearing, and graphic description of a person dying slowly.

Note: This is a supplemental story to a longer story I've been writing for two years called "Hickory Dickory Dock", following an anthropomorphic mouse named "Era" in the apocalyptic, purgatory bound world of Grimmtail, which is completely at the mercy of an eldritch clock entity known as Cronos, which mysteriously appeared on the New Years Eve of 2599. Yes, the events of story involve a mouse climbing a clock, hence the title "Hickory Dickory Dock". The story itself is a much darker retelling of the nursery rhyme though, so your discretion is advised.

Era sat on the edge, looking down at the city below, her whiskers twitching in the mild air. She could no longer see the streets, nor could she hear the incessant rambling of the mindlessly wandering city dwellers anymore. 'Finally, peace.' She thought, knowing for a fact that within 15 short minutes that would no longer be true. Era took a long sip of water from her canteen, looking up the sides of the ancient clock tower, taking in the intricate designs carved into the stone and brick that lined her long climb up. Thin vines trailed down asymmetrically from between the stone several of miles higher and higher until the little mouse could barely make out the shine of the iron cast making up the gothic-style turrets framing another tall concrete platform shrouded in mist. "Not the top," She knew for a fact. "Not by a long shot..." Era had climbed this tower a thousand times by now. Standing 470 meters above the city, she knew she had climbed higher on attempts before. The clock had changed its appearance once again, it always did, and it was always annoying. Era hated this clock, hated it with a deep, paralyzing fervor that she'd rarely ever waste on another living, breathing, sentient being. She hated the clock more than she hated anyone in all her 30 years of life, more than her step father who would drink all day and berate her mother late at night, more than her mother who abandoned her with the deranged alcoholic at the tender age of 12 years, more than her high school gym teacher who always made her feel insecure about her strength and uncomfortable as a woman, and even more than her ex-girlfriend, who had cheated on her not once, not twice, but three times before breaking into her home to try and kill her when Era had finally given up and broke up with her. This hatred was tremendous, and as much as Era hated to admit it, alarmingly overwhelming and terrifying. It was like an ancient rivalry between two Gods, though as far she knew, the clock was not ancient, despite how it looked on the outside. But as far as anyone who still cared knew, the clock had perhaps been there for centuries. At one point, Era had tried to keep track of the time from when it had first appeared; December 31st, 2599, right on 11:59. New years, calling in the year 2600, or at least it should have. Era counted the days herself, keeping track of them in her moleskine, as she did with most things.

3,456 days, Nine and a half years. Nine and half years since this monstrous clock appeared and destroyed her home, her entire world. The City of Grimmtail. A city she once knew for it's friendly community, it's wonderful street art, it's music festivals and the exquisite smell of exotic street foods, now a null wasteland of empty streets, broken bottles, cigarette butts and corpses. So many corpses that stained the streets with their spatter, of all ages, of all species, of all genders, of all shapes and sizes. "Cronos," She cursed the name of the clock, the eldritch being whose appearance she only ever saw in small pieces every time she'd climb a new story of the towering giant. He had told her his name, she believed. The first day she climbed. The first day she started this hellish cycle. 'My name is Cronos, Keeper of Purgatory. This is my world now.' She remembered it so well. It was real, she believed. His voice sounded exactly like what her own mother had described the voice of Satan himself could possibly sound like to the living ear; A grating, pitched growl, too rough to be a whisper, but too quiet to be sincere, and unmistakably surly, lacking an ounce of charm or dignity. If she were still a young girl, Era would believe without an inkling of a doubt that such a being of malice was Satan. But she knew better. There was thousands, maybe even millions of entities in the universe, all possibly more capable of evil than the earth-bound deity they called 'Satan'. The keeper of Purgatory, for example. A being capable of manipulating time however he pleased, whenever he pleased, and for whatever reason he pleased to. Why else would this happen? Why else would it seem that the year never ended, always repeated, day after day, right before the minute of New Years, when this loop of torment would start again? The same, predictable and endlessly agonizing coil of chaos and disorder, for the last nine years in a row. But why did it happen? And why to the people of Grimmtail? Era thought she'd never know the answer to that question. The people of Grimmtail were wonderful, kind people. Selfless even, or so she had always thought. But this evil monster, this Cronos, had shown her the darkness hidden within the people of her home. A darkness she would've never anticipated, even if she had been warned several years in advance.

Their desperation, their depravity. She hadn't believed it the first time, until she saw the smiles of the people she once trusted and cared for, once full of genuine warmth and kindness, now tainted by wickedness, unnatural and unsettling. She'd seen them kill, some in defense, some in provocation, some out of sheer desperation or even just boredom. Seen them tear apart and devour their neighbors and their neighbors' children. She knew why; no food would grow in a year time. Nothing to harvest but root plants, small herbs and weeds. She'd seen them steal from the weak, the helpless, killing those who tried to fight back, or even being killed themselves. Seen countless of them give up, indulge in their vices, drink and drug themselves into a stupor, do whatever the fuck they pleased until they inevitably succumbed. But it never changed anything. No matter what was done, how it was done, it never changed a thing. December 31st, 11:59, they'd all wake up, all in one piece, in the safety of their own homes. Like it had never happened, like it was all some twisted, simultaneous nightmare and not some omnipotent, malicious entity endlessly crucifying them for crimes they had not initially committed. But they all remembered it. The betrayal, the sacrifice, the pain, they all remembered it. Because it was real. She knew it was real. No nightmare in the world was as real or as inescapable as this. If kindness still existed, down there in the dull city remains, she had seldom seen it, though one would tell Era she spent too much time in the shifting body of the titan clock tower. It never mattered to her; no one had bothered to check on her in weeks, months even. She couldn't remember the last time she had real water in her canteen, and not the grey, copper tasting droplets from the abnormal rain showers and storms that she haphazardly collected within it. She couldn't remember the last time she had a real meal, as she had spent so long foraging the nearly barren decks, turrets and domes, snacking on any dandelion, chickweed, bittercress, ferns, and small cattail she could find and scrounge on the way up. She had gotten lucky today, for whatever reason she deserved, as she had found a small cluster of wild strawberries and a nest with a mourning dove dead within. By some miracle, the dove must've recently died, as no maggots were visible on it, and within its nest, three pristine eggs out of five, the other two having shattered their sterile yolk across the limp twigs and pine needles.

"Sorry, mama," She had whispered to it as she retrieved the bird and her eggs from their flimsy grave. "Better luck next time." Though she severely doubted it. The meal took longer to cook than it had to eat, though the overarching sense of emptiness and impending starvation had been quelled, at least for the time being. She took her time to relax, massaging and flexing her calloused paws, hissing at the deep blisters and bruises that swelled and throbbed beneath her obtunded flesh, turning it an angry red instead of light pale pink. Her shoulders were tense, her arms ached, and her hips and tail were sore from the tightness of the crudely makeshift harness she had fashioned a long, long time ago. Her legs were long used to the strain, however, knees no longer buckling, no longer twitching or aching even after hours of exertion. She had killed them not long ago, she knew. Era didn't care. It was the only part of her she could kill permanently. She had tried, maybe over 5 times, within the first two years of this new reality. The first three times, she had failed, a cruel coincidence. The fourth time, she succeeded. She hadn't left it to chance, doing it the old-fashioned way that time - a gun, a bullet, right to her temple, her brain. It was instant, and painless. She was relieved. She had escaped. But it wasn't that simple, she soon discovered, as she had awoken one dark, chilly morning, to the gentle, hammering cacophony of hail. She couldn't believe it. Was it all just a dream? She had looked out the window, glared down the clock tower in the distance, still standing strong and proud like a trophy, like it had always been in the middle of the city. She saw her wall, tainted in blood. Her blood, now flaky and rust brown, a permanent part of her honey oak walls. And the gun, pathetically sprawled on the ground. Once a weapon she feared, then a tool she had hoped would free her...now just a piece of useless trash. Her fifth attempt was accidental, the first time she had climbed the tower, early one humid August morning. She hadn't made it that far past 25 meters, nearing the 7th story, out of how many she hadn't known then, and still didn't now, when the clock struck 1 AM, a resounding, tumultuous knell reverberating throughout the desolate Grimmtail, almost resembling a rapid, fleshy heartbeat. It shook the very core of the tower, causing nestling birds to scatter, stray stones and loose boards to fall.

She had slipped, the sweat on her paws yielding to the force of the tower's shrieking tone, the nail on her pointer finger snapping off on a sharp stone, sending a sudden, stinging pain through her as blood quickly sprayed from her wound, staining the limestone as she recoiled back, plummeting down, flailing helplessly as she fell, and fell, and fell, until she abruptly stopped. Her harness had caught a stray brick, and with a sharp, sudden stop, an excruciating jolt shot through her back. Era remembered trying to scream, remembered nothing coming out but saliva and blood. She felt numb from her skull all the way down to her tail. She tried to flex her arms, move her legs, something, anything, but she couldn't. She was paralyzed. Era hung there like a spider dangling from its web as hours passed. No one had seen her, strung up like a broken ornament, and if they had, they hadn't bothered to help her, and Era believed that if someone had seen her, she'd been dead sooner than later, another victim either for someone else's cruel enjoyment or for their starving, empty stomach. There she hung, for the rest of the day, helpless and swaying in the gentle breeze, growing steadily unconscious from the pain, from the blood loss, and from the disorientation of being upside down for so long, and as the world finally faded, she heard a voice. A voice she knew all too well now. Raspy, shrill, and unsettling. The voice of the entity she now knows as Cronos goaded in a malignant, sing-song manner; "Hickory, Dickory, Dock. The mouse ran up the clock. The clock struck one, the mouse fell down. Hickory, Dickory, Dock." Era had awoken back in her bed, on the same cold, dreary morning, with the same pattering of hailstones hitting her window, as she had the first time. "Fucking clock..." That was what started it. She had gotten pretty good at it, minus the 7 times now she's fallen and died again, wasting the time she could've spent climbing on waiting in a dark abyss, waiting and waiting until she once again woke up to the sounds of frozen rain. She had a goal, she believed. He had told her, Cronos. 'Kill me, if you can. Come find me at the top. Shatter my face. Tear out my hands, rearrange my numbers until I'm unrecognizable. Come kill me, if you dare. You will fail, however. You cannot compete with time. You will always fail.' She had to kill that bastard clock, even if it ended with her dying for real.

If she was right in her own journaling, she had tried to climb this blasted tower 8 times now, now nearing the 155th story again. She still didn't know how much longer she had, as every step she took it seemed the towers would shift and contort, making it so every placement of her paws was another risk, another chance she could slip, and fall, all the way back down. Era shook her head. This time would be the last time. She believed. She had to believe, she had nothing else. She checked her sundial - 7 minutes until 1 PM. It was time to go. She snuffed the small cooking flame she had made, and with a quick twirl and a toss, she threw the hook attached to her harness up, the sound of it hitting the wall making a dull 'tink' sound. Era tugged the rope along the wall until she felt a firm resistance, the hook nestled snuggling around a dangerously sharp iron spire several feet up. The small mouse planted her feet against the wall and continued her arduous climb up, crossing over uneven and worn limestone slabs that had long been damaged by the rain, hail and fog. She heaved, both from lack of oxygen in the high altitude and from her muscles still aching and strained in spite of her period of rest, but she knew she couldn't stop. She had to make it to the next deck, for as unsteady as she knew it would become when the clock's bell rang, it was far safer than her dangling position. So she kept climbing, higher and higher, until she reached the new material of iron, her paws burning and then cooling on the cold metallic surface. Era looked down and could no longer see the mossy terrain of the deck she had taken refuge on some time ago. She sat on the steel beam, the thin, rusting bolts of the architecture squealing in protest even against her miniscule weight. She checked her sundial once again. 2 minutes. She wasn't sure if she could climb another step before the bell sounded, and she knew she wasn't going to risk it. Era tugged at her hook, wrestling it off the spire it has wedged itself home onto, preparing to hook it onto the beam to keep herself stable there for the next several hours, until she heard a sound. A sound that was not due for another 2 minutes. "No..." Era choked, looking up into the foggy skies to see the birds take off as the clock groaned and rumbled like a rousing animal. "No, no!" She cried, tossing her hook up in futile attempt to grasp the next metal beam above her. But she missed.

With an ear piercing peal that could've shaken the Earth to its core, the tower shook and trembled, dust rolling down its sides, stones and sticks falling, bouncing off its craggy multi-material surface, down and down further into the abyss below. "YOU! YOU CHEATED!!!" Era yelled at the sky, towards the clock, her iron platform giving in to the stress and collapsing, sending her hurtling back towards the earth, right back to where she started. She knew she would die again, there was no doubt about it. At this height, she would splatter like a tomato, a potent, red smear on the street for the neighborhood's children to pick and prod at in their tortured, hungry despair. "Hickory, Dickory, Dock. The mouse ran up the clock. The clock struck one, the mouse fell down. Hickory, Dickory, Dock." That voice. That horrible voice again. Era glowered, gnashing her teeth so hard she could feel them begin to crack, the pain adding to the pulsing throb in her head. "You know this isn't the last you've seen of me. You can keep killing me all you like, you know there's nothing that can stop me. You and I will be doing this for all eternity. See you next year, fucker." And then darkness. Silence. And then, the sound of hail. Clattering against her window. She was starting to really hate that sound...