The Clock That Stopped

The Clock That Stopped

It stopped in the middle of the storm,

hands frozen while the windows shook,

rain slashing the glass like claws.

The air crackled,

not with thunder,

but with something crawling

under the skin of the house,

a pressure that made the floorboards groan.

I ran to it,

thinking I could wind it back,

pull the day into motion again,

but the key in the back was bent

and the tick that had lived there for decades

was gone, hollowed out.

The face was blackened,

numbers melted into scars,

the glass warm like breath from a dead thing.

The storm outside grew quiet.

Too quiet.

Not even my heartbeat moved.

I opened the clock’s wooden case,

expecting gears and dust,

but found nothing,

only a dark space stretching deeper

than my eyes could follow,

like the mouth of something waiting.

The silence began to pull,

soft at first,

then harder,

dragging the air,

the room,

me.

The last thing I saw

was the hands starting to move again.