Chapter 328

It started on a Tuesday, when the sun didn't quite rise like it was supposed to. People in the town of Aylesford noticed, but not enough to make a fuss.

Days always ran into each other here. In fact, it was the sort of town where nothing really changed. The clock tower stood in the middle of town, as it had for decades, ticking with the same rhythm it always had.

Ben Harris had lived there all his life. He worked at the local post office, sorting through packages, watching the same few customers come in. No one knew his name beyond the counter, and he preferred it that way. The usual had a way of swallowing the exceptional. But then again, there was nothing exceptional about Ben.

That Tuesday, the thing that caught his attention wasn't the light or the clock tower's stubborn tick. It was something he couldn't shake, something strange on the horizon. It was a game of chess. Set up in the middle of the town square.

A full set: white against black, knights at attention, bishops poised, pawns lined up in their perfect formation. The figures seemed... different. Not in any way obvious, just enough to unsettle him.

It wasn't just the pieces. It was how they sat there, unmoving, as if they had been waiting for something. Waiting for someone.

The townsfolk ignored it. They had more pressing matters, like coffee and gossip. But Ben kept coming back. It wasn't like he had anything else to do.

He noticed it that night. The white king—where the townspeople had placed it, the same place it had been all day—wasn't there anymore. Gone, like it had never been.

A joke, maybe? Ben wasn't sure, but something made him uneasy. He turned away and went home. When he locked the door behind him, it didn't feel as secure as it had before.

That night, the nightmares came.

Ben dreamt of the chess pieces. They were alive, their movements stiff but deliberate, dragging themselves across the board like soldiers in a war, their metal bodies creaking with every motion. The knights, once proud and regal, twisted and cracked as they shifted, their hooves clanking across the stone. The rooks seemed to crawl, dragging their heavy, square forms behind them.

He woke up, gasping, in the middle of the night. Sweat soaked his sheets. The nightmares hadn't been like the usual ones. No, this one felt... real. Too real. He couldn't shake the feeling that something terrible was coming, something inevitable.

The next morning, he went back to the town square. The chess set had been moved again. The black queen was now missing. But this time, it wasn't just the pieces that unsettled him. It was the townspeople.

They moved in strange patterns, looking over their shoulders as if something had started to crawl under their skin. People avoided each other's eyes, their footsteps hurried, and they didn't stop to chat.

Ben watched a woman walking past the chess set. She stumbled for a moment, then jerked upright, her eyes wide, her mouth agape, staring down at the board. A slight tremor ran through her. She looked like she was about to collapse, but then she snapped out of it, walked quickly to the bakery, and didn't look back.

Something was happening, but Ben didn't know what.

He went to the post office, but even there, the usual hum of the town felt different. People walked in, exchanged their small talk, then left in silence. No laughter. No casual jokes. There was no noise at all, save for the sound of pens scratching on paper and the shuffle of letters.

By noon, the first scream echoed across the square.

It was high-pitched, frantic. A man ran past Ben, his eyes wide with terror. He wasn't screaming now, but he had been. He had been screaming about the pieces. About how they moved. About how the black bishop had been coming for him.

Ben tried to follow, but the man had already disappeared down an alley.

And then, the news started. At first, it was a whisper, then a flood of stories, spreading faster than anyone could process. People started dying. It wasn't just accidents. They were being killed—slaughtered, in fact. The manner was always the same. Sharp, precise. Almost surgical. They'd been stabbed with something cold and unforgiving.

The pieces were moving. They were alive. And they were coming for everyone.

The panic spread quickly. People fled their homes, running in every direction, but no matter where they went, the pieces found them. The knights ran down the streets, hooves clicking in perfect time as they hunted their prey. The rooks towered over the townsfolk, their forms shifting in impossible angles, blocking every escape. The pawns charged, crawling over the town like an unstoppable army.

Ben couldn't make sense of it. The pieces had taken on a life of their own, and no one was safe. No one except...

The clock tower.

It was the only place untouched by the carnage, its bell still ringing with each hour that passed. It felt safe. It felt like a place of refuge, like the town itself had collapsed into madness, but there, the ticking of the clock offered some semblance of normality.

But as the day wore on, even the clock tower seemed to change.

Ben climbed up to the bell tower late in the afternoon, breathing heavily as he reached the top. There, in the dim light, he could see the familiar sight of the old gears turning, turning without care, the rhythm of the clock maintaining the town's heartbeat. But it was different. The gears—those massive, iron wheels—were creaking. They were shifting. The weight of the world seemed to shift with them, bending, warping, and at the very edge of his vision...

The queen.

It stood in the tower's doorway, her white form moving with a terrible grace. She was one of them now. The chess piece. A thing of sharp angles and twisted elegance. Ben couldn't move. Couldn't scream. Couldn't even blink.

The queen spoke, though her voice didn't seem to come from her mouth. It came from everywhere. All around him, as if the walls themselves were breathing.

"Check."

Ben's heart stopped.

The world tilted.

The room spun, then dropped into cold blackness.

When he woke up, it was night. The clock tower was silent, its gears still. The town had fallen. The chess pieces had done their work. They had taken everything.

Ben was alone.

The queen stood before him again, but now she was more than a piece. She was a living thing, her eyes gleaming like a predator, sharp with purpose.

"You are the last," she said.

Ben tried to stand, but his legs wouldn't hold him. His body refused to move, stiff and broken, like the pieces that had come alive. His heart pounded, but the sound was drowned out by the clicking of hooves on stone, the low, steady hum of inevitability.

A single, sharp click echoed in the silence. Ben didn't look back. He couldn't.

The queen moved forward. The knight appeared behind him. The rook loomed from the shadows.

Ben's fate had already been decided, even if he hadn't realized it. They were the kings now, and they had claimed him as their final piece.

As the darkness closed in, there was no more sound, no more movement. Only the cold, unfeeling precision of the game, as it always had been.