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    Tick-tock, tick-tock. The almost monotonic sound ran through his mind incessantly, drumming its way through any thoughts of rationality. And finally, this night, he had had enough. But what had made him wait thus far?

    Well of course there had been the knocking out of any possible clocks around him, in the hope that that would make any difference. Whilst his mum had not been looking, or out, the boy had begun the covert operation of taking the batteries out of them, spanning from the one in the putridly pink coloured and plumbed bathroom, right down to the kitchen, the room furthest away from his. It had taken him a week to muster the energy to do so, granted, but even still.

    He’d listened to music. First on a low volume, so he could still be able to go to sleep, then a much higher one, and then the highest as still the noise continued to pierce his eardrums. During that period of experimentation, he’d got no such sleep whatsoever. Fallen asleep in Maths, or it might have been Science. Maybe both? He had been too tired to remember.

    He had invited one of his friends to stay. He had been meticulous in his choice, for he needed to find someone who thought he wasn’t completely bonkers. So he decided upon Chris. He had known him since he was in Primary, so he’d probably know him well enough to not think him as weird. However, back then, he and his confidant had been the same height, but now he towered over him. He guessed he was around six feet tall, although he may be wrong, and Chris may just look tall because he was so pathetically short in contrast. But then he always had been small, and always had been ridiculed for it. In any case, the night had gone soundly, although the ticking noise had still remained. For him, anyway. His friend had heard nothing.

    But now, Alister Fletcher was out of options. The boy had been for around a week and the purpose of this week had been desensitisation, hoping it would just go away if he stopped worrying, or he would get used to it, but it had just got worse. And worse. And worse still. But now he was going to resolve it. He was going to find this bloody clock, find it, and make sure it could tick no more.

    He sat up slowly, his body still half asleep though his mind wide awake, pulled his legs round though still under the covers to the edge of the bed, before pulling himself up and patting down his pyjamas. Stereotypically, they were plain white with blue stripes, so affectionately; his mother called him ‘the Snowman’. Although, in that animation, the snowman in question hadn’t been wearing the pyjamas, the little boy had. But he still annoyingly got what she meant, and still, every single time got that annoying tune bombarded into his head at each mention. He padded over to the door and opened it quietly so as not to wake up his mother. She was a light sleeper and would know if he had set foot outside of his room into the hall if even for a moment. Then, he usually got a little sleepy conversation out of it in the morning. The boy then turned around, cursing his forgetfulness, and began to the hunt for clothes. However much - at least from his mother’s point of view - his bedtime clothing may be rather fetching; he did not fancy venturing out in it. Nor, for that matter, anyone seeing him in it. Once dressed in rather dark attire, dark jeans, and navy T-shirt with no logo and on his feet black socks, followed by black trainers, he slowly crept back out of the door again. He had not really gathered much of a taste for colour nor fashion, due to a number of rather embarrassing outfits his mother had placed him in in his youth, outfits that, well, were too embarrassing even to recall.

    He covertly made his was across the upstairs landing, keeping tight against the railing as if he were a secret agent on some far-flung mission of discovery, before hearing it creak uncertainly at the small amount of weight he was putting upon it. He stopped and held his breath, in anticipation of the next few moments. If he was unlucky, then a light would shine through the gaps in the closed door opposite him, before it would open, revealing his mother, who would ask why he was dressed at this hour, and probably spring into a whole lecture on the perils of running away. If he was lucky, then all would stay calm, and he could escape with ease. And if he was really unlucky, then he would continue, get to the door, only to find her stood at the stairs behind him, and then be grounded and still get the lecture on running away. But, either to his advantage or disadvantage, all stayed quiet, allowing for Alister to carry on.

    As if to bring him even more uncertainty, the stairs, if anything, creaked even more than the banister had. He cautiously looked back up to the landing and his mother’s door. It was still quiet, and still suspended in darkness, which meant that she had not awoken.

    Reaching the bottom of the stairs and his trainers sinking into the plush and revolting shagpile carpet his mother had placed at the bottom of it, he paused again. He was actually going to make it out of that door. He was going to stop that clock for good. He could spend the rest of his days in peace until, probably a week later; he found something else to rile him. But it would be worth it. Thinking that leaving a note would cost too much precious time, he picked his keys silently up from the hook on the door, stuffed them into his pocket, before slowly clicking the latch as quietly as he could. Alister Fletcher had successfully made his way out into the great outdoors that was Torquay at night time.

    Tick-tock tick-tock tick-tock. It was still there, even out here. And if anything, it was louder.

    It was quite chilly out, with a slight breeze, although it was too late for him to run back and get his coat. The boy just rubbed his arms before stuffing his hands into his pockets as he walked out of the small front garden, mainly consisting of patio slabs with a waist high wall at one end and a black iron gate. A dismal looking plant in a pot sat in the middle of it with yellowed leaves rustling quietly in the chilled night’s wind. They weren’t very keen gardeners, and they had probably gone for minimalism in the front for the fact of the overgrown masses of bushes, weeds and grass that invaded the back, even spanning up to the bottom of the kitchen window. Well, it wasn’t as if they went out there, maybe once or twice on a perilous trip to take old junk they were too lazy to dispose of and place it in the rundown shed at the bottom, but that was beside the point. He guessed David Attenbrough would be knocking on their door sometime asking if they could film a wildlife documentary in it. Who knew what the grasses hid? There was probably a new species lurking in the undergrowth.

    The always-noisy gate creaked noisily upon its hinges, to which he winced. But then, if he left it open, it may look as though the wind had got it, which it quite frequently did. Looking back cautiously at the upstairs window once more, for his mother’s room faced out onto the road, and seeing the light to still be off, he followed his ears down the uneven pavement to the end of the road, before taking a right. The way things looked, it was leading him down towards the town centre. Maybe there was a shop selling clocks down there? The smaller shops were always subject to fluctuation, and when he went down there, he did not really pay much attention to the shop frontages, other than the ones he wanted to go in. The bookshop, mainly, and to buy video games. And if his mother pressed him, then he may make his way into a clothing store, much to his annoyance. Maybe dart into somewhere for a snack, or a drink, but that was all. Other than that, the rest of the small outlets may just as well be bricks and mortar. Well really, that was all they were, apart from the rather large window at the front, and the large assortment of whatever they sold on show in them and crammed inside. The path began to slope downwards, before curling round a corner and leading him down past the park, before he would hit the first street of shops.

    It was very quiet for a Friday night, apart from the tramp he saw through the railings making himself comfortable for the night on a flaking green bench, and rather feeling sorry for him, although he knew there was nothing he could do. He was really one for taking a guilt trip sometimes, and that was something his friends chided him for. Like that time in school when they had watched that video on the treatment of animals in the meat industry. It had turned him vegetarian for a week, which they laughed at, and then when he gave up so shortly after, they laughed at him even more. But there was nothing he could do right now, he had more important things to do than to argue with a tramp on a bench who really probably just wanted to go to sleep rather than be hounded at how he would help him with his problems. It would not work out rather well.

    Carrying on, he hit the first line of shops and he followed it down to the main array of stores with a turn left. No cars were allowed down where he was walking now, which was good, because the streets were usually packed with people and tourists of a daytime. Although some were so annoying that they may as well be run over. Like the drunkards he heard jeering from just a tiny bit down the street, but he just kept walking. At the moment, his mind was just filled with the incessant ticking, not the fear, wariness and slight anger which may be there if he had come across the situation at any other time. That would be when the noise was not drumming into his head and his soul purpose upon that time would not be to stop it. Well, by that time, the ticking should be gone. Completely.

    Things started to get rowdier as he reached the bottom of the row of shops, a bar to his left with a lot of noise and a drunkard coming out of it, and the modest shopping centre to his right. It was really just another row of shops on elevated grounding, but he guessed it kept the tourists and the consumers happy. Well that was if they shopped at any of the outlets up there and inside the larger ground floor of the centre a bit further on, which he had just seen in his peripheral. He took a sharp left and began to walk underneath the sheltered walkway that looked out over Torquay harbour-side like a man on a mission. Which he was, quintessentially.

    There were more night clubs in this direction, which meant more young adults tottering and ambling about, and even more noise, even the dull thud of the bass from the music blaring out of each, even though he was a slight bit away from the first at this time. He would have thought, with all this noise that he would have lost the ticking, but it remained, permeating through the drunken laughs and shouts and the thud of the music, like a little bomb ticking away in his skull. He had heard of people with brain tumours that did weird things, but then he was probably certain that the ticking was not cancerous. Although, he guessed, cynically, if things were not sorted out upon this night it may be something that he would have to contemplate.

    His instinct told him to cross the road, after a speeding white mini, obviously with someone who was drunk in it and a taxi, which probably had the same but not as a driver, in the direction of the harbour railings across from him. Usually he would have crossed further back at the crossing, for there were usually buses where he had stepped out from, and a healthy selection of grockles, - tourists, in other words, although the term he thought rather amusing - and regular shoppers, but it was quiet at night. Well, in a conflicting way to the noise and hustle and bustle of scantily clad young women despite the chill and rowdy young men that he was now faced with, but even still. He knew what he meant, even if he may utterly confuse someone else in his explanation, like he happened to do so too often for his own good.

    Alister walked alongside the chipped white railing that separated him from the dark waters of the harbour below, passing a group of drunks passed out over each other on a bench, vomit which seemed to have once been a takeaway, and a discarded newspaper full of fish and chips. The latter two had made him wrinkle his nose in disgust, the former only slightly for the fact he had walked past them too quickly to pick up the stench of the alcohol that they had drunk and impregnated their clothes. If his mother didn’t, then he would ground himself from walking out of a night time. He reached the end of the walkway across the harbour, as least as much as he needed to tread, for the ticking made him turn left, cross into the road, and reach the clock tower stood in the middle that served as a roundabout.

    Almost immediately he knew. It was this clock, this clock that had brought him here. And just as he stood in front of it, and looked up at its face, it tolled.

    Midnight…