Welcome to Gaia! :: View User's Journal | Gaia Journals

Please check back here because, unlike Unlucky (my other story), I will just put it in one Journal entry. Thankyou.

Danger... I sit bolt upright. A noise of pain escapes my lips. My head thumps painfully and my back is stiff. Where am I? When is it? Who am I? I tighten my hands into fists and look around at the glaring grey room. Nothing but grey. Except one thing. I clamber to my feet slowly, stretching my aching body. My footsteps make dull thuds on the grey floor as I creep closer to the only thing that is not grey. I stop a metre away. An hourglass? It is mostly glass, the top and bottom being painted wood and with two braces running between the two ends. Black and white swirl confusingly on the wood. I couldn’t tell what colour was the base. Probably neither. The design is fine and intricate. The pattern seems to dance into different shapes as I look closer. I take in my breath sharply when I swear the spirals spell ‘DEATH’. It curls away into a nondescript shape. And then I notice the white sand trickling through that small hole. About half of it has already passed through. My heart beats faster. What is it counting down to? I reach out tentatively to touch it before thinking better of it. Who knows what has been done to it. I look at my hands. They’re the only colour in the room. Black metal bands enclose my wrists tightly, about two fingers wide. I click them together and the noise seems impossibly loud in the silent empty room. I sit down in front of the hourglass and gaze at it. It seems very normal now. Still. Counting. Secretive. I take a deep breath and exhale slowly. The silence closes in around my ears. I lean in, the hourglass luring me. There is the quietest noise. It takes me a while to figure out that it is the sand in the hourglass. Like the whisper of wings through air or a light brush of a feather on skin. More crystalline though.
I shiver suddenly. Something is wrong, so very wrong. Unnatural. The hourglass sits there innocently. I scowl at it, the only thing other than me, for all I know, that exists. I stand quickly and move away from it. The noise doesn’t fade and it starts to dig into my mind. I cover my ears. Nothing happens to the noise. I back into a grey wall. I press my palms into it, my wrist manacles scraping harshly against the cold stone. Still the noise goes on. The sand still flows.
Some time ticks by and I start to calm. My breathing slows. It can’t do anything. But it is, it’s counting down something and I’m not going to like what. I start to pace, uneasy. I count my steps of each wall. They seem to change lengths each time I pace them. The thud of my feet only adds to the irritating noise of the hourglass. I stop suddenly, in front of the middle of a wall, and face the ever timing hourglass. I scream my anger and annoyance at it. I want it to smash; I don’t care what’s been done to it!
I swiftly move to it and pick it up. It’s surprisingly light and cold. A bad, bad feeling creeps through me like poison. I throw it as hard as I can against the nearest wall. I hold my breath expectantly. The hourglass flies to the wall and smashes into a million glinting shards of glass, the wood frame thunking solidly and sand spilling everywhere. I smile. Then, as if times runs backwards slowly, the shattered hourglass draws itself back together. I gape in shock. Every grain of sand goes back into its place and the whole hourglass sets itself quietly on the floor, right below where it smashed.
I drop to my knees then fall back to sit down. That is impossible. I don’t know much else, but I do know that that is impossible. The noise of the white sand is there again. My hands shake. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Bad, bad, horrible. Unnatural. Unearthly. It could possibly be cursed. The loneliness is starting to get to me. I stumble to my feet and shuffle to the hourglass. I pick it up, no longer worried, no longer thinking rationally. The bad feeling fills me again but I push it away from thought. I sit in the middle of the room, the cold hourglass clutched firmly in my hands. I look up to the grey ceiling. I blink in the glow that comes from there. My eyes are drawn back to the hourglass. I hold it up to eye level. The pattern seemingly twists. The white sand falls quietly, whispering tales that my ears can’t hear.
Something comes over me and I turn it upside down. The sand doesn’t defer from its falling motion, still being drawn to the now top of the hourglass. I suck my breath in quickly. Not possible. I try to turn it back but my arms don’t obey. The white and black curl madly around each other and I try to look away as words are formed. The white sand makes noises – words – that I can now hear.
Be afraid, you will die. We know when, we know why, we know how. We know who you are. Listen to us count to your death. We listen to your panic and fear. We watch it gleefully as it grows and consumes you. We know what your future holds. We know what your past holds. We know what your heart holds. We know what the time in this monochromatic world means. Each breath you take is closer to your last. Each beat of your frantic heart draws your blood through cycles closer to when it runs cold. Be scared.