Right. I'm interested in any feedback you may have on this piece, so fire away. My first piece posted on this forum.
I was in agony then. I was chained to many walls, unable to be free. Their incessant chatter brought nothing but torment to myself. And then one final day I was free. My chains were gone. All by one act I committed. Even now I still feel the liquid over my hands, which warmed me and comforted me.
And none were left after that incident. They had shut the exit, sealed it against my will and efforts, leaving me alone here in the house. No! Not alone. There is... the clock. It was left there by a former patient of mine, obviously for a grotesque joke. I still remember his green hair, and skin as white as snow. It has been there ever since, a silent sentinel of all the events that had occurred in the house.
Tick.
Tock.
The ticking clock; it's ringing in my ears. That sound, that pattern is what I can only hear. Day or night, sunset or sunrise, the rise and fall of nations unknown, it permeates throughout. Never hesitating, never silent. It seemed eternal once; the whole universe had revolved around that clock. Copernicus was wrong. It is the only constant in my life, yet soon it shall never be heard again.
How long have I been in this darkness? Days? Months? Years? This rat-hole of a mansion, this dreary hell; I have walked through it countless times. The doors are locked. There is no way out. I have shut myself into the darkest corners of my mind. This is my world, and it shall be all that is left.
Ever since that incident, this place has been empty of everything but me. Do I still hear them? They who once resided here? Do I hear... their screams? Their laughter? The bloodstains remain, but they are gone. Yet the ever-observant ravens glare at me from their posts on the walls, and they are the silent sentinels of this house.
I trace the scars on the walls, the gouges in the rooms, the still-sharp edges of the ruined furniture. My fingers cannot bleed even as I touch the edges. They are calloused, and even knives cannot pierce them. There is nothing except darkness. The shades of the past gather about me, but they have been ignored long ago.
My mouth opens, my tongue moisturising my cracked lips, softening them. There is no more taste. I am too old to experience such a thing. All I have left is the Clock, and it is cold and dreadful.
Tick.
Tock.
It is slower now. It has been four and twenty rounds around the house since it started to slow down. My ears are still perfect and, having attuned to the metronome of my universe, are able to detect even a picosecond's worth of difference. For it is my life, and I live by it. It is my oracle, my Bible, for in its beats there is meaning. There are an infinite number of words I hear in that sound itself, and it all makes sense. It always does.
Stumbling through the house as always, I peer with my eyes into a room I had never entered ever since that day, but have walked past it numerous times. The straitjackets are lying in the corner of the room. My eyes are drawn to the rust, crimson-red, on the fabric. I no longer see what seemed to be a morgue in that room. The clock giveth and taketh; it gave its rhythm, but took my visions. But it shall not take away what has happened, for the past is encased in adamant and cannot be removed from the dingy corners of the sewer that is my mind.
Tick.
Tock.
The sounds are gradually getting slower. It seems as if they were pushing against the second hand of my Clock, to stop it and destroy all that I stand for. Who are they? They look like they wear those white uniforms, yet covered in a layer of dust. Their faces are masked. I feel I know them, that I have delved into their minds before, but I cannot recall their names.
I see them! They are holding up sledgehammers; they blaspheme in all tongues, laughing in their insane laughter, as they did perhaps eons ago. They stand around it in a circle, lifeting the Devil's blade up, ready to snatch my soul away!
I run! In a mad dash through the maze-like corridors of my mansion. I slip, I trip, I fall, but I feel only a tinge of pain, indiscernible through my insane rush. In my hands there is the Great Knife, which savours the air it is in, ready to do my will, as it had done so many years ago.
The iron doors that lead out from the wards to the entrance hall lie broken on one hinge. I step on the sharp hinges and propel myself towards the Clock in the center of the room, where they are lifting up the sledgehammers. A cry escapes from my mouth. I am momentarily stunned; for it had never once emerged from my throat ever since I treated my asylum patients, and was attacked by them. Then the sledgehammers started to fall in an arc towards the clock, and I leap towards them.
Foam drips from my mouth as I am running through them what I have in my hands. I feel the warm fluid on me as I madly swing my arms, as if possessed by the Devil. One! Two! They fall at my touch; the incident repeats itself again. I run everywhere, not constraining myself, into the rooms, the toilets, repeating my act. The clock has just started to sound the twelfth hour.
Eleven long strokes of the clock, each latest stroke twice as slow as the one before it. I fall to my knees. Is this it? Would this be the end? My heart has slowed, but my eyes dart uncontrollably all over the main hall, and they finally rest on the Clock.
Dong.
And it seems that the Red Death held sway over all, for it became silent.
My mind could hardly comprehend this vast silence, this dulling of the world, this feeling my ears were experiencing. The Knife drops from my hands. It pierces through the rotten wood, even though it is dull and rusty. My hands are shaking, as I slowly stand up and walk to the clock.
My fingers roam all over the carvings on the clock. They are macabre. I feel Baphomet presiding over the ball of the Red Death. A cat is draped over the clock, black as midnight. And the now immobile pendulum hangs over a man that falls into the void. But it does not make a sound. It is cold and not shaking.
It is gone! Gone!
I cannot stand this silence, this drowning of reality! It hurts me, torments me, but it cannot end! I scratch my cheeks with fingernails as hard as iron, feeling my own blood on my fingers. It does not hurt. I pick up the Great Knife and slam it into the clock furiously, repeatedly, but it never makes a sound.
Why wouldn't it? Why wouldn't it tick, why wouldn't it make sounds when I did to it what I did to everyone in the incident, as they laughed and screamed? Why? I am in denial; I slam my fists onto the ground, breaking the flimsy planks in my rage. My teeth cut into my lips and tongue, but nothing compares to the void that has formed.
It is gone! It will never come back. Even if I were to pray, earnestly with all my heart, no one would listen! It has never abandoned me before; why has it taken everything away now?
My rage grows to a climax, and I madly run through the corridor of nails - from my throat comes a hoarse but loud shout, resounding through all the rooms, as I fled from the vacuum. But I cannot!It is in myself, I can only remove it by one way! I see a wall of blade, and I run towards it.
It is closer! I can feel the oblivion that is to come! No more pain, no more emptiness!
"Enough! Enough!"
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