Chapter 1: The Man of Gears
Morning crept into the clockmaker's workshop not with brilliance but with dust. The light filtered through narrow windows, painting pale rectangles on the wooden floor where shavings and screws had scattered like fallen stars.
The clockmaker rose with the hour, as he always did. Precision was his only companion. He ate at seven, swept his shop at eight, checked his tools at nine, and by ten, he was bent over some delicate mechanism, eyes narrowed, fingers steady. The town had long since stopped trying to draw him into tavern chatter or market gossip. He was the man of gears—the one who lived by ticks and tocks.
His neighbors spoke kindly of him, though none knew him well. Mothers admired his punctual deliveries. Merchants trusted his measurements. Children pressed their noses against his window, enchanted by the pendulums that swung like golden moons in miniature skies. Yet behind those walls, the clockmaker lived a life wound tighter than any spring.
Today was no different—or so it seemed. He adjusted a pocket watch, aligning its hands with the bell tower outside. The faint chime rolled over the city, steady as the tide.
"Perfect," he murmured, though the word carried no pride, only habit.
On the shelves behind him, rows of clocks ticked in uneven chorus. They were mismatched: some grand and ornate, others humble, their faces cracked or their pendulums lopsided. He never discarded one. Every clock deserved to be heard, even if its voice faltered.
Still, the workshop had changed since last night. Amid the familiar clutter, one sound dominated—the new clock. Its rhythm was impossibly steady, each tick resonating deeper than wood or brass should allow.
He tried not to look at it. His hands moved to another project: a wall clock left in disrepair. Yet each time he set a screw, his ears betrayed him, straining toward that other ticking, the one that seemed less like a machine and more like a prophecy.
By midday, his focus cracked. He stood, rubbing his eyes, and let his gaze fall at last upon the clock that had stolen his thoughts. Its hands had moved since dawn. The engraved words below the dial—Final Breath—shone faintly in the light.
He swallowed, throat dry. The hours ahead were written. His own story already etched into brass.
And yet, he turned away, forcing himself back to the wall clock, whispering as if to the wood, "Work first. Always work first."
But even as he tightened the screws, the steady tick behind him answered: Too late. Too late. Too late.