The old rusted doors clicked loudly as she pushed them open with great effort. As she looked around the clock tower, sweat began to bead on her forehead. The tower was dark, its stone blackened with age and streaked with moss. Tall, narrow windows were cracked, letting in only slivers of light that illuminated swirling dust and draped cobwebs. The air smelled of forgotten years, heavy and stale. Broken gears and beams littered the floor, remnants of the tower's original purpose, long abandoned.
At the center of it all stood the strangest sight, an old clock facing directly opposite the entrance as if welcoming it's guest, Its faint ticking was easy to miss, if one wasn't attentive, yet it lent the room a peculiar weight, as though time itself had stopped, but what her eyes missed was the clock hands that weren't in motion, but instead was frozen at a mournful hour.
"Let's go up," he whispered, from behind her, he's breath fanning her ear.
"Uh, uh, yes… sure," she replied, eyeing the narrow spiral staircase hugging the inner wall.
The worn steps creaked under each footfall as they ascended.
"So, June, how do you like it?" he asked, his tone light, as if they were in an arcade rather than an abandoned and ghosted clock tower.
"to be honest, its s...scary, very " she said truthfully making him laugh from behind.
"Don't worry. I'm here. Nothing could possibly happen," he reassured her.
"Okay," she said, trying to steady herself.
The staircase led upward into a slightly brighter space, where the clock heart and bell chamber would have been, but instead at the center rested an old coffin, ancient and forgotten. Its presence heavy, as though it carried the weight of countless untold stories, shadows clung to every surface, twisting and dancing unnaturally.
Horace stood at the entrance of the upper chamber, as he watched june move forward, ahead of him. Her body tensed up, her gaze locked on the coffin, she moved like a broken doll, drawn irresistibly toward the object at the room's center. As she stepped further into the illuminated chamber, it felt as though her soul had left her body, leaving room for something unfamiliar, dark, and foreign to take over. She could hear and feel nothing as she inched closer and closer towards the coffin.
"I guess Allan was right," Horace muttered to himself, his tone oddly detached, as though watching a comic show. He observed intently as she approached, until her hands abruptly stopped above the coffin, and he heard her mutter to herself,
"Don't, d... don't, touch it "
"it's not yours"
"go away, get back outside".
Her body trembled violently, as if something inside her was stirring, and faint noises seemed to emanate from the coffin itself. But then, calm returned. And every traces of june vanished entirely,as a smile which didn't belong to her, etched on her face, it was one filled with much Malice, wickedness and hate.
Her hands this time was swift to get hold of the lid ready to push it open, when suddenly her body froze, unable to move.
She turned her head just in time to see Gwen materialize at the doorway, standing firmly between her and Horace.
Horace's eyes narrowed, he tched with distaste, his usual charming and polite smile turning into something completely different.
"You do like to ruin the fun, don't you?"