Masque: Endtime

Beginning

What is time?

Well, one definition is the measurement of a day by seconds, minutes, and hours.

Another is what we see on our clocks, be it digital or geared.

From where I am, time is a force that makes us live and grow. Everyone in this part of the world I live in live by the clock. When I say live by the clock, I would mean a very big clock that is the center of the city.

The Clocktower.

Everyone here, including me, are under the Tower's power. Biological immortality. Our bodies stop aging at 30, so the people can age as far as hundred years. Some people say its a gift from the man who discovered the philosopher's stone. I don't see anyone saying praises to the object. Besides, it does not make us immune to murder and injury. I've heard some people saying things about the Tower. One thing that got my attention was , "I'm feeling less human than before."

I was kind of curious of what he meant. Aren't we humans right now? Wise men according to some definitions. That's when I remember what my aunt said to me back before she "lived by the clock" from the city.

"Being human is not about our biological difference between animals, but on how we act. Being human is being someone with consciousness and conscience, not on what they are or what they look like. Remember that."

My aunt was the only family I had. She told me that my parents "lived by the clock" when I was just a year old. When I compared her to the people around me, she's different. She is kind to people, but her eyes tells a different story. Its like she's hiding something, something big. I don't know. Like it could harm anybody in hearing it.

When I say lived by the clock, it means a person being cut off from the power of the Clock by the Twelve Wardens, making him lose his biological immortality. Then they are either executed, or, rumored, thrown out beyond the walls of our city. Some of the people who lived by the clock were given hard labor for their crimes until they naturally expire.

That time, when I was just 8 years old, was the time I lived alone.

It was just a regular day for me and my aunt in the city. She goes to work at one of the largest steel factories in the city. I never went to school since my aunt taught me all the basic knowledge needed in the society. Also, the cost for education was financially unreachable. Language, mathematics, simple chemistry and physics, logic and common sense. She taught me every Sundays and Wednesdays.

I expected her to come home at late afternoon from work, but Ain, my friend and neighbor, came into our house to tell me of the news. My aunt would be executed for treason.

I knew what the word means, but why was that her crime? In fact, why is she a criminal now? She would never do anything to betray the city. She doesn't even have the heart to speak to the public for a protest against the Twelve. Not that she has anything to protest.

I was alone. I didn't know what to do next. I was hurt of losing someone who I know as mother. Angry at the Twelve for what they've done. I felt... lost.

The next day felt grey. Nothing was the same when you're parent is gone of this world. The feeling of belonging in a place was gone. Being an orphan again is heavy, now that I'm aware on living life. I always felt dull the next days after her execution, but I remembered something she said to me.

"Don't let the feeling of sadness consume you. You have to let yourself walk onward. I want you to smile and live on even if the people you love will be gone of this world. They'll always be with you in your mind and heart. That includes me, if I were to die. I will be sad if you ever let that emotion consume you. You have to be strong for the next days to come."

She said these words when she asked me if she were to die and I answered I will be sad.

She was right. She's always with me, even if she's gone now. I have to look onward for the next day. Live on.

Not only that. I feel like there's something about aunt's execution. I have to find put why did the Twelve immediately execute her without a fair trial of three days after arrest. The system of the Twelve's system feels flawed all sudden.

One day, I will find out everything. Aunt's crime and the Twelve's system. Although I don't have any strong evidence, I feel and know that my aunt is innocent of her accused crime. The Twelve must've been afraid of something. But what? And why of all people, it had to be my aunt?