Timeless (Enoch O Connor x OC)

9: Dolls and Dreams

More dreams.

I was back in the clock room in Tyumen. I got up from the armchair, idyllic ticking in my ears. Outside the single window, it was dark, too dark to be night. Unsettling, I thought as I went over to the door which led into the living room. With a slow creak, it opened revealing something very different from what I was expecting.

The house in Russia had had long brown couches with furs slung over them around a fireplace. Mismatched carpets on the floors and stone walls covered in photographs and paintings. The altered version of the house held the same furniture in the right places but the floor was wooden and the walls were of brick. In front of me was the inside of a giant clock. I realized that I was standing in a clock tower. The faint light came through the glass of the clock face and outside I could see the outline of a small city. Behind me, the remnants of my old loop were gone and I was now in the clocktower completely. I could hear the sound of the ticks of the giant clock as gears kept turning. Although the clock tower was loud from the gears and ticks, I could hear something else and it was fast approaching.

Footsteps, I realized a little too late as I whipped around to see who had come up the stairs.

A man.

He was dressed in a dark green shirt and beige slacks with a toolbelt, he wore sunglasses even though we were indoors.

A menacing laugh came as he opened his mouth but the sound came from everywhere, louder than the clock.

I tried to speak, to ask who he was but my mouth wouldn't open.

The man pulled off his glasses to reveal blank eyes. No iris or pupil.

A wight.

And if there was a wight here, there had to be a hollowgast nearby.

To my despair, I was right as the thundering sound of fast and heavy footsteps came up the stairs. I couldn't see it but I recognized the smell immediately. The wight kept laughing, the sound so loud it felt as though he was laughing beside my ear.

Before I knew what was happening the Hollowgasts tongue came flying towards me and the glass of the clock face shattered as I fell out.

Down and down.

My vision began blurring and getting dark.

Before the dream, I heard the echoing voice of the wight.

"Soon."

I awoke with a scream.

A horrible dream, I thought, but hopefully just a dream. That pit of dread in my stomach was back.

Before I could analyze what I had dreamt Emma ran in, alerted by my scream.

"JUNE? Are you ok?" she asked, "why did you scream?"

"A bad dream," I said with a shudder.

"That's odd," she said walking over and sitting at the end of my bed, "Horace had a bad dream too but you know how his are prophetic, maybe you both saw the same thing."

Oh no, is all I thought. I hoped that we hadn't dreamt the same thing because that would mean my dream would become reality.

"I hope not," I said.

"Why? What did you see?" she asked.

"Just something," I said not wanting to worry her, "I'll talk to Horace first, I don't want anyone to panic over just a dream."

She gave me an understanding nod.

"Wait, what time is it?" I asked.

"It's nine, we didn't want to wake you last night because of your injuries so you slept right through supper."