A Time Travellers Wife

Chapter 3 - Stop the clock

Dear diary,

I knew that clock would stop working for some time now. There have been moments where it has looked like it had stopped working, but then after staring at it for a few seconds it would just continue working again. I imagine that is why my husband loved it so much, because it would seem like it is about to give up and then it would magically continue to work. It had that element of mystery to it. But why did it stop working for good this time, and why did it decide to stop working at nine past twelve exactly? I mean, I know the clock doesn't have a brain or anything, so it's not like it can think and purposefully do things without someone else controlling it. Ah, whatever, I'm sure it's nothing of importance. Anyway, I haven't talked too much about where we actually live as of yet, so that's what I'm going to talk about now.

My husband and I were never really city folk, and when we got married we decided that we would like to live away from all of the action and chaos. So we decided to buy a house in a decently sized town in the middle of basically nowhere. The town is small enough for everyone to know each other like family, but not big enough for it to be a nuisance. However, I wouldn't call this town a country kind of town, we still have power, internet, hot water, and all the other things that those city people get to have. But all of these things only came once my husband began to introduce technology to the town’s people. He was the smartest person out of all of us, and every minute of his spare time he would be contributing to the town out of his own money. He still drove to the city every day to work for his company, but every chance he got he would come back home and work in his garage. That's just the kind of person he was.

Gosh, every single time I try to think about something that is somewhat related to my husband, I end up going on some weird nostalgic trip to our past. Sometimes I just wish I could have thoughts without him popping into them.

You know, the weather is quite nice today. Clear blue skies, sun shining, and all the good stuff. But it seems oddly quiet. I decided that I would go outside and see if anyone in town has some batteries I can use to replace the ones currently in my broken clock. As I open the door, I notice that there is no breeze at all, which is quite strange. Usually there is a little bit of wind, seeing as we're basically in the middle of nowhere and that means there are almost no trees or large buildings to stop the flow of wind. Plus, it's not like we live near mountains or anything, just flat country land for as far as the eye can see, besides the fact that you can see the city faintly in the distance on a good day. But not even the slightest wind at all? This is turning out to be one weird day indeed.

So I headed towards the general store that our town has. It is pretty small when you compare it to some of the larger stores you can find in the city, but it still has everything you would ever need, like they have things that you can decorate your home with, to kitchen ware, to fruits and vegetables, to televisions and even video games and movies. So I'm pretty sure they will have some of the correct batteries I need for the clock somewhere in the store.

As I enter the store, I realise how quite it really is, especially after the door closed behind me. After a quick scan, it looks like there is no one here. This is beginning to freak me out a little bit. Attempting to ignore that, I made myself walk over to the technology area of the store.

"Oh thank god, they have the batteries I need", I whispered to myself.

The owner of the store always knew that my husband loved to tinker with old things, so he constantly kept some old fashioned batteries around.

As I walked towards the front counter, I had to go past the home section of the store. This section had things ranging from kitchen supplies to decorations for your house, like clocks and mirrors. I had a look at all of the modern styled clocks they have on display. Of course, they are all stopped because they don't have any sort of power supply, but they all seem to be stopped at nine past twelve. This must be just a coincidence, the chances of all these clocks stopping at the exact same time as the one at home is very unlikely.

All this weird stuff going on made me really want to get out of there, so I ran towards the front counter as fast as I could, without making too much noise of course. No one was there yet.  I rang the bell and yelled a couple times over the few minutes I waited there. After a little bit, I decided to just leave the money for the batteries on the counter, and a note saying what I bought and who it was that bought the batteries. 

I basically sprinted all the way back home. Now that I looked around, I became even more paranoid. The town was basically empty. Most of the doors and windows were shut, besides a few that were open slightly, as if someone left in a hurry. Even the Cafe was empty, but everything was set up like it was about to open on a busy day, like half of the tables were outside, with cloths and menu's on them. After seeing this, I tried my best not to look around too much until I got home. I didn't feel safe anymore.

Once I locked the door behind me, everything cleared from my mind, and the only thing that I could think of was putting those batteries in the broken clock. After walking to my room, I picked up the clock, turned it over, took off the battery cover, and replaced the batteries. I turned it around again and looked at the face, and the bloody hands still weren't moving. Getting angry, I hit the cover of the clock a couple times and threw it onto my bed. 

After I calmed down a little bit, I heard a faint noise in the background. I looked up and noticed that the clock was working again.

"Stupid clock", I murmured, almost afraid that someone would hear me if I said it any louder.

Only a few seconds later, I jumped after hearing a very loud bang. It sounded like it came from outside of the house. I ran to the front door and fumbled with the locks for a little bit with my shaking hands. Then when I finally opened the door I ran to the middle of the street and looked around. I saw nothing.

I was so confused. I know what I heard, and it sounded like it came from around here. I fell to the ground from how dizzy I became from spinning around so much, and when I looked up at the sky, I noticed a small, dark purple line. The line wasn't very straight; it was jagged, almost like a lightning bolt. I squinted my eyes a little bit, and noticed that it was moving. No, it was getting bigger. Slowly, it made its way across the sky. Then after a minute or so, it stopped moving. I'll admit, I was quite perplexed at the sight, I had never seen anything like it before. Here I was, sitting in the middle of the street just looking at the line in the sky, expecting something more to happen. So after a few minutes, I just decided to get back on my feet and go inside. But before I could move, there was another loud bang, but much louder than the previous one, and went for a much longer time too. I could basically feel the earth underneath my feet shake, which made me fall down again.

I looked back up at the sky, at the purple line. I noticed that it was expanding sideways. It was like it was opening, like a crack in the sky. It was quite beautiful actually; the inside of it was full of dark colours, like blues, purples and blacks. Then, all of a sudden, a box fell out of the hole in the sky and came crashing down towards the earth very quickly. Even that was a spectacular sight, as the box was on fire from how fast it was falling, but if I didn't start moving now, I would be squished underneath it.

So I got up and ran for my life, into the town. Occasionally looking over my shoulder to see how long I had until the box hit the ground. I tripped over a few seconds later, and as I was sprawled along the ground, I managed to turn around and sit up. I looked up just in time to see the box crash into the ground right next to my home.

I tried to get back up, but I instantly fell down again, quickly realising that I had broken my ankle. So I stayed there, waiting for the energy to get back up again. But before I could get back up, the door on the front of the box opened. Someone was there, but I couldn't quite make out who it was. My vision was blurry as I was about to faint from the unbearable pain surging through my leg. As I fell to the ground once more, I blacked out. I heard a man's voice, yelling from the box next to my home, a good few hundred meters away. But I only realised what he was yelling just before I fainted.

Amanda.