Chapter 1109: Story 1109: The Screaming Clocktower
At the heart of Wraithmoor stood a clocktower no one dared approach. Once a proud sentinel above the town, it had long since fallen into decay—its brass bells twisted, its face frozen at thirteen past midnight. But the real horror wasn’t what ti had done to the tower.
It was what the tower did to ti.
Each night at that impossible hour, it scread.
Not the groan of rusted gears or wind in rotted rafters—no, this was the shriek of a soul in agony, echoing across rooftops, worming into dreams, curdling milk in its jugs, and driving animals mad in their stalls. No one rembered when the screams began.
But Evelyn Blackmoor intended to end them.
She reached the tower under a bleeding dusk, its shadow stretching like a noose across cobbled streets. The front door, made of blackened iron, hung open. The air inside pulsed with static, like a storm held in suspension. Her boots echoed as she climbed the spiral stairs, each step taking her closer to the impossible hour.
As she neared the top, the walls shimred—showing glimpses of lives stolen by the tower. Lovers turned mad, children aging in days, widows wandering through shattered tilines. She passed clocks shattered and reforming. The space warped around her, and her own lantern ticked.
When she reached the chanism chamber, she found no gears. No wheels. No pendulums.
Only a man, bound to the bell’s heart by chains of silver and ti.
His skin was translucent, veins glowing faintly like the hands of a broken watch. His mouth was stretched wide in a scream that never paused. The sound—that sound—was eternal, ceaseless, reverberating through bone and mory.
A broken placard hung beside him:
Horologist General Thatch – Master of Ti, Traitor to the Hour
Evelyn covered her ears. “Who did this to you?”
But the man didn’t speak—only scread.
The bells above began to stir, even though the chanism remained still. Ti folded. Evelyn saw the town of Wraithmoor burning, rebuilding, then vanishing in the blink of an eye. In a burst of clarity, she realized: the clocktower was feeding on monts—stealing seconds, minutes, lives.
And Thatch was its prisoner and keeper.
She climbed to the top, the sound now a blade in her skull. In the attic, she found a switch—an ancient lever etched with the ouroboros. Beneath it, a warning:
“To silence the hour is to forget the ti.”
She pulled it.
Silence crashed down like a guillotine.
The screaming stopped.
So did the clocks.
Every clock in Wraithmoor.
Evelyn stumbled outside. The town was still. Too still. People stood frozen mid-step, their shadows arrested in motion. Ti itself had… stopped.
And above, the tower smiled.
A gear turned where none should be.
Thatch was silent, but now Evelyn’s shadow ticked.
She had broken the curse.
Or had she beco it?
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