The Warehouse at Night
By the time the others drifted off again, the warehouse had gone quiet. Lena collapsed back into her cot, oil-stained hands slack at her sides. Elliot muttered something into his sleeve, finally surrendering to sleep.
Only Arthur remained awake, his cane across his knees, eyes fixed on Michael. The chalkboards loomed behind them, white scars across black slate, equations sprawled like constellations drawn by a mad astronomer.
Michael sat at the table, head bent over scraps of paper, hand shaking as he scrawled yet another calculation. His body was failing him, but his mind spun like clockwork wound too tight. The gears ground louder with every line.
Tick.
The pocket watch lay between them. Arthur's eyes kept flicking to it, listening. That damned sound had become the pulse of this place.
---
Arthur's Reflection
Arthur had seen this before. Not with chalk and steel, but with men. Richard Bellamy, years ago, had carried the same restless fire. A hunger that never stopped. Arthur had spent half his life trying to temper Richard, to teach him that empire without restraint turned to ash.
And now here was Michael—Richard's mirror and opposite, all at once. Not empire, but obsession. Not walls, but collapse. Arthur had no children of his own, but if he had, perhaps he would have wanted one like Michael. Or feared one like Michael.
He leaned back, voice low. "You're grinding yourself down, son. You think you're building, but all I see is hunger chewing through bone."
Michael didn't look up. "Hunger builds. Hunger feeds."
Arthur's lips thinned. "Hunger devours."
---
The Talk
Michael finally lifted his head, eyes red, face gaunt. "You don't understand. Every second wasted is another tick off the clock. I can't stop. I won't."
Arthur leaned forward, cane tapping the floor. "You think I don't hear the clock too? I'm seventy, Michael. I've lived my life to the rhythm of it. The trick isn't outrunning it. It's choosing how to spend it."
Michael's jaw clenched. "Easy for you to say. You've already lived. I'm running out before I've begun."
Arthur's gaze softened, but his voice stayed steady. "Then don't spend what little you have on feeding a machine that will never love you back. Equations don't hold you when you break. Numbers don't mourn you."
Michael stared at him, silent. For the briefest moment, doubt flickered. Then he shook his head, turning back to the chalk.
Arthur's heart sank.
---
The Pocket Watch
Arthur reached across the table, picking up the pocket watch. He turned it in his hands, silver catching the weak light. It had been his once. He had carried it through decades, through war, through boardrooms, through loss. He had given it to Michael not as a burden, but as a reminder.
Now he pressed it into Michael's palm.
"You carry this like it's a curse," Arthur said. "But it was never meant to haunt you. It was meant to remind you. Every tick isn't death. It's a choice. Another chance to do something worth the noise."
Michael stared at the watch, fingers trembling.
Arthur squeezed his hand around it. "Don't mistake the clock for an enemy. The enemy is forgetting that time is only precious because it ends."
---
For a long moment, the two sat in silence, the watch ticking between them.
Finally, Michael whispered, almost to himself, "Then I'll make it end the way I choose."
Arthur's eyes closed. He heard the weight in the boy's voice—the certainty, the defiance. And it chilled him.
The watch ticked on, steady as ever, uncaring.