She shot awake, some beads of sweat rolling down her face. She wasn't home. She wasn't in the car. She was in a bed. A white bed. In a white room. She looked to her side and realized she was hooked up to a heart monitor. She attempted to get up, but that's when she realized that she was restrained. She panicked. She began to struggle, but paused when she heard a door open to her left. A man in a white shirt looked at her, his hands behind his back. He resembled one of the clichéd doctors you would see in a television program set in a scientific lab. She paid full attention as "Mr. Scientist" started to speak.
"I can only imagine how very confused you must be right now," he said, "but I'm letting you know we're only here to help. Your parents agreed to allow us to administer medication to you, in hopes of helping your state of mind." Natalie opened her mouth to protest, but was quickly silenced.
"You don't need to worry," the doctor sought to reassure her. "You'll be back to normal in no time. Just try to relax." He walked over, and as he did, she tried to skittishly move away, but was unable to due to the leather straps binding her wrists and legs. He carefully took a mask,and put it over her mouth and nose. She stubbornly tried to get it off, but felt herself starting to slip under as the drugs kicked in, and slowly her eyes shut.
* * * * * *
Suddenly, Natalie woke up. She couldn't comprehend what she was seeing. She was being given multiple injections, and something was being rubbed on her skin. She felt woozy, but was otherwise completely aware of her surroundings. She was entering a rare state patients sometimes find themselves in while undergoing surgery, in which they are able to see as they are being worked on. In this state they can feel the pain and their brain is active, but they are unable to respond. Natalie, however, was able to. Her heart rate began to accelerate, as reflected on the nearby monitor, and the doctors took notice of this. They looked at her, and took notice of her opened eyes.
One of the doctors yelled at another. Natalie couldn't make out what they were saying, but she suddenly felt a rush of adrenaline. Shaking violently, she slowly started to slip out of her bonds. One of the doctors moved to hold her down, but then hesitated to do so. Natalie watched as all three of the doctors backed away in unison. She sat on the edge of the bed and the IV tubes from her arm and the mask from her face. She got to her feet and started to stumble towards them. Her breath hitched and her vision was blurry. She was vaguely aware by then that she was chuckling like a madman. But suddenly, she felt a searing pain in her chest. She gripped her chest in agony and dropped to her knees. She coughed up blood, fell prostrate o the floor, and blacked out.
* * * * * *
Natalie woke up slowly and groggily sometime later. She found herself back in bed, and a doctor sitting beside it.
"I'm so sorry, Natalie. Something went… horribly wrong."
Natalie didn't know why, but she felt a tremendous amount of hatred towards the doctor. He took notice of her disgust and looked away instinctively.
"You weren't supposed to wake up while we were giving you the doses for your mental state," the doctor continued. "We aren't sure how it affected you, but we have a feeling we're going to find out." He paused for a moment before taking out a small mirror. The entire time, he looked away from her. "Regrettably, the medication impacted your appearance as well."
Natalie looked at herself in the mirror, and her eyes widened.
Her eyes were completely green.
She noticed she still had the stitches in her mouth as well. But for some reason, she couldn't help but feel… overjoyed.
Her heart rate began to rise again. She gave a low chuckle.
The doctor looked on in shock as Natalie quickly moved toward him, until she close enough for him to feel her breath.
"Doctor," she began, still chuckling. He trembled slightly, and pressed a button on the underside of the monitor.
"Y-yes?" he stammered in reply.
"Your time is up."
A loud scream was heard through the halls of the facility. Two security guards rushed into the room, kicking open the door.
Blood.
Blood was the first thing they saw. Blood on the walls, on the bed, on the floor. Even on the ceiling. Natalie had strapped the doctor to her bed. The bed was bent at a sharp angle, and the doctor's spine was completely snapped. Blood poured from his eyes, nose, and mouth. And there, in the corner, was the murderer, happily drawing her gruesome pictures on the wall in blood, alongside the hastily-scrawled phrase, "Your time is up."
Natalie slowly turned to look at the guards, and a wide crazy grin spread across her face.
"Hello, friends…W-would you… like to play?" And with that, Natalie began laughing uncontrollably. The guards quickly drew their guns, but before they could act, Natalie charged at one of them. One of the guards fired a round, but Natalie was able to dodge it. She grabbed a large knife from a sheath on his pocket and slashed it right across his waistline. Blood and organs flooded out, and he collapsed to the ground. She inhaled deeply, loving the damp stench of death. The remaining guard shook with fear and dropped his gun. She slowly walked up to him and placed the tip of the knife against his chest.
"Your time is up." She slowly slid the knife down his chest, all the way to the end of his abdomen. His organs spilled out onto the floor and he collapsed, dead.
* * * * * *
Natalie's mother had been sleeping soundly in her room beside her husband. She awoke to the sound of knocking on her door. She groggily got up and walked out of the bedroom and to the front door. It was pouring outside, and thunder boomed in the distance. She approached the door but paused before grabbing the knob.
She detected a… faint sound of insane laughter. The rain and thunder seemed to quiet down suddenly. She pressed her ear against the door and listened closely.
"Hello, mother," a voice from the other side called out.
Natalie burst through the door, wielding two knives. Her mother stumbled back, hitting her head against a nearby coat rack. One of the hooks penetrated her skull and she bled considerably from the resulting wound. She fell to the ground paralyzed, but still conscious, lying in a pool of her own blood. Natalie towered over her, and then knelt slowly to meet her mother at eye-level, and displayed her blood-soaked blades proudly.
"I was suffering, mother…" Natalie cooed. She ran the tip of the knife across her mother's cheek, cutting it slightly. Natalie tilted her head. "But you did nothing."
All her mother could do was shake and gasp, like a fish out of water. Natalie grabbed her mother and gently laid her flat on the ground. From there, she straddled her and began cutting a "V" into her chest. Her mother could only gasp and shake as the life drained from her. She choked and gurgled, and her breaths became labored. Natalie knew she didn't have much time left. She proceeded to forcibly open her mother's chest cavity with a loud crack, reached in, and grabbed her mother's still-beating heart with her bare hand. Its pulses were growing farther and farther apart. Suddenly, she ripped it out, blood spraying all over her face. She stared her mother directly in the face as she took her final breaths.
"Sweet dreams," she said to her mother's corpse. "Your time was up." She put the heart into her mother's mouth, patted her cheek softly, and stood up. She wasn't done yet.
Natalie's father, David, had stirred awake and had realized that his wife had not returned to bed yet. His eyes had only just adjusted to the darkness, when he suddenly noticed Natalie standing at his bedside, with a crazed smirk plastered on her face, and her newly green-tinted eyes glowing in the darkness. She was covered in blood, and the scent was unbearable. She frowned dramatically.
"Oh, dear, Mother's gone. I wonder who will get the money?" Natalie jeered. She swiftly grabbed her father's forehead, laughing maniacally. "That's all you ever cared about, anyway."
Her father, unlike her mother, was a fighter, and he sprung up and grabbed Natalie by the neck, and threw her to the ground. He started to stomp on her chest until she coughed up blood, and he stared down at her.
"D-Doesn't it feel good, daddy?" she laughed in spite of the violence, and coughed up more blood. "A-After all, you never seemed to mind doing it all those years ago, did you?" He narrowed his eyes.
"You aren't my daughter."
A wider smirk spread across her face, and she peered at him with her luminous eyes, blood dripping down her mouth.
"You're right. I'm not." She suddenly tripped him, causing him to fall hard to the floor. She scrambled to her feet, knives in hand. "They say the bigger you are, the harder they fall."
While he was winded, she grabbed a pillow and stuffed it into his face, and then stomped on it, harder and harder, until loud cracking noises could be heard. When she finally pulled the pillow away, her father's face was gruesomely mutilated, and he was making muffled noises and crying in agony.
"What's the matter, daddy? Pain too much for you?" She shoved both knives into his stomach and left them there, then moved to rip one of the large, heavy wooden poles from the bed. She set it down on her father's legs and withdrew the knives.
"Gonna need these," she chuckled, and sat down upon the pole laid on his legs. Suddenly, she started to rock back while sitting down. the weight from her body on the pole slowly started to squeeze his innards up through his body. He started to gag, and blood poured from his mouth. His breath was silenced, and she hit a bit of a snag. "hhrm, come on!" She snarled as she forced herself to rock back with more weight. suddenly, his organs burst out of his mouth. The nasty gore piled onto the floor on the sides of his face. She nodded to his carcass, and started to walk out.
"Your time was up, daddy."
Finally, this would be her favorite part. She quietly snuck down to her brothers room, silently opening the door. blood dripped from her knife, making a low tapping sound as the droplets hit the hard wood. her brother wasn't in bed. It was apparent that he must be hiding somewhere. She grinned.
"Oh dear brother, come now…" She started to walk inside.
"All I want to do is to have a little fun. ahahahaHAAHAHAahah!" As she stepped in more, she listened closely for any sounds. Any breathing, any moving, she even sniffed the air for his putrid scent. And the closer she listened, she finally noticed something. A faint, breathing noise…
Whack!
She fell to the ground, trembling. her brother was behind her with a now bloodied baseball bat. He was glaring down with anger, panting in rage. She tried to slowly get up, but he hit her again, and again, and again.
"MOTHER ALWAYS DID LIKE YOU BEST! YOU BITCH!" He hit her hard one last time, before taking a breather. She was bleeding heavily, her green eyes drooped and glowing faintly in the darkness. She felt weak, and looked closer up at the ceiling. She recalled the days she had spent in here, being tortured, having to go through it for 4 years. looking at that same damned ceiling. It sent a sudden rush of energy into her body, and she started to stand, laughing insanely.
"hahahahaHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAahahaAHAHAAHH!!!!"
Her brother went to hit her again, but used both of her knives to block it.
"YoUr GoInG tO hElL bRoThEr!!!" With a large push, she sent her brother flying on the bed. He hit his head against the wall and growled angrily, about to lunge at her, when she stabbed the two knives into his arms keeping them pinned on the wall. He screamed, and struggled rapidly.
"Let's see what we can use here…" She started walking around the room, and smirked seeing a simple butter knife on his bed side. She picked it up, and walked over to him.
"They say that the eyes are the softest organs on the body…" She slowly licked the knife.
"Soft as butter." he looked in horror, trying to get away, as she started to dig out his eyes with the knife. He shrieked loudly, and she quickly tied a cloth around his mouth.
"Now now, we can't have you waking the neighbors!" He wasn't able to see anything. the pain was unbearable. blood leaked violently from his eye sockets. He would cry, but was now incapable.
"Hmm…" She dug around for more items, and picked up a pair of scissors. She walked over to him, crawling over him. "I think you need to cut loose brother~" She stabbed the scissors into his gut, and he cried out in a muffled scream of pain. She treated him like arts and crafts, cutting through his skin like paper. She lifted up his large intestine, and smirked wickedly.
"You know what I love? Macaroni art." She started to cut the intestine into sections. "These might be a little too big to put on a plate though. "She could hear his brother foaming blood from the mouth. however, he had to swallow the blood back because of the cloth around his mouth. "Doesn't that taste good?~"She licked his blood off her fingers. I sure know I like it." He let out another muffled scream. She went down to his toes and started cracking them and ripping them off. One by one. After a while, his screams grew futile. His throat was raw and bloody by now. Next, she worked on his fingers. snapping them and ripping them off slowly. The gurgling became louder, and he started to squirm. He was choking on his own blood. She pulled the cloth down, and blood poured from his mouth. and turned his head to the side and vomited violently. "There there brother." She said, patting his head. "Eat this and feel better." She stuffed one of his fingers in his mouth,making it jam into his throat. He choked, and slowly died.
"Your time was up."
* * * * * *
The girl, known as Natalie, walking into her room dripping blood. Off to the corner, she saw it. Her stuffed giraffe. She knelt down, and stared at it. then, without a word, she stood back up, and walked to the bathroom. Staring at herself, covered in blood, she heard a faint ticking noise. She looked down, and saw a pocket watch.
She stared at its hands slowly turning, listening to the ticking for what seemed like an eternity.
she took out one of her now red knives as it heavily dripped blood onto the counter. She grabbed the pocket watch, and disassembled the watch until only the small clock was left.
"Time makes you live through the torture." She said, slowly bringing the knife up to her eye.
"Slowly progressing through life, being controlled by society." She started to slowly dig it in to her eye, as the vision in her left eye grew blurry and red
"until you find you no longer have a purpose." She felt her eye start to come free from its socket, blood pouring in the sink.
"It's a vicious circle." She felt it dangle out of her socket, a sharp pain where it was connecting in her head
"Time does not speed up. It does not slow down. It is violent." She grabbed onto the cord of her eye and tore it right off, the eye falling in the sink
"It makes you live through the torture over, and over again." She started to place the clock in her eye.
"unable to fast forward away from it." There was a squishing sound, and drips of blood, until it seemed like the clock fit perfectly in her socket.
"I am Clockwork."
* * * * * *
The young 16-year-old girl, formerly known as Natalie, walked away from her burning house. The flames engulfed everything. And inside, the giraffe slowly burned, along with the carcasses of her family.
* * * * * *
Some say she still lives on, carrying her insanity with her. Leaving so many dead, saying she decided when their time should come to an end. The only way to detect her presence is if you're cuddled close in the covers at night, sleeping soundly. But in the darkness, she watches. She determines.
You hear ticking.
And you see a green flash of that putrid clock eye…
If she is there…
You know your time is up.
Credit: Soffbois (formerly known as Luciiid)