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PRELUDE.
SWEET SIXTEEN
...............
FINGERS tapped fervently against the cold metal tabletop. Her right foot bounced despite the constant internal whisper to still. A chill coursed over her spine, a consequence of her chair, a barely held together one at that, being bolted to the ground directly in the path of the air vent's cruel breeze.
She pulled the plastic-like material of her recently acquired jacket tighter around her torso. Though the material did little to quell her violent shivering, it provided a sense of familiarity, of safety she once thought to be long gone from the world. For a moment, though it felt like less than an inhale, her wrist didn't burn with remembrance.
A shallow breath escaped her, the sudden release of air brushing over the fresh scab marking her lower lip. Hissing lightly at the flaring irritation, she resisted a heavy-hearted sigh with the knowledge that all it will do is increase the pain.
There was a faint sound, one that made her shoulders scrunch every single time it aired its grievances, making itself known every few seconds. It mimicked that of metal scraping against metal, reminding her of the same sensation she gets from nails on a chalkboard. Try as she might, she couldn't pinpoint the source of the sound.
Maybe he finally knocked something loose, she thought wryly. Time continued to move forward, the antique watch buckled to her wrist ticking methodically. She didn't bother to look down, aware of the inaccuracies it offered.
She brought her left hand off the table and moved to fiddle with the dial, formally deemed the crown, as a way to alleviate the anxiety beginning to bubble up her throat. She pulled up on the crown and began to twist it around. Forward, then backward. Time travel in its purest form, her mother used to say.
With no ticking and no tapping, the room became silent. Except for that sound, the one she still can't find. That silence swallowed her light, like when you fall from a fatal height in a dream. The end of it only brought about when the door handle clicked, twisting to let someone in, or maybe to let her out.
