[Neo Zone] Population: 23 Kids

Possessed Clock

Lucas had been casually walking back to the basement after grabbing a snack when something caught the corner of his eye. He stopped and stared at the clock, and it took him a second to realize what was wrong with it.

Lucas took the second hand twitching back and forth without changing the time as a sign that it was possessed and he grew concerned. A clock was not the best object to possess with all the gears inside. The demon for sure was going to get crushed.

"Hello? You good?"

When he didn't get a response he repeated a similar question in Mandarin and Cantonese before holding up an okay sign just in case the demon in the clock was nonverbal at the moment or was mute. That didn't get him a response either.

"Hey Shotaro," Lucas grabbed Shotaro's sleeve and stopped him from going downstairs, "I think the clock's possessed. Can you ask if the demon's okay in Japanese?"

"Why don't you ask Renjun to communicate with it then?"

Lucas gave Shotaro a pointed look to let him know that was a dumb question. Giving Renjun an actual demon to talk to would be the worst thing they could do. Especially since now the government in Thailand was trying to investigate how the school fire started.

Shotaro gave in and asked the possessed clock if it was okay in Japanese, the two of them shrugging when they didn't get a response.

"I think we should try other languages. I'll get Ten and YangYang, they'll cover the rest that we know." Shotaro left Lucas alone with the possessed clock as he ran downstairs, coming back up with both Ten and YangYang.

The two of them then tried communicating with the demon using Thai, German, English and the one Spanish word YangYang knew. They even tried looking on the clock without touching it to see where it was made, just in case that would give them a hint as to what language the demon might speak, but that didn't help at all.

"Should we get an exorcist?" Ten asked, YangYang gasping.

"That's death for the dead! That's just cruel!"

Ten held up his hands in defense. "I was just throwing out an idea."

"Well it was a bad one. Don't worry clock demon, we won't exorcize you." YangYang reassured the clock.

"Are we sure we shouldn't get Renjun? I mean... this is his specialty. What's the worst that can happen?" Shotaro tried again, and the response he got was no different than the last time he asked.

"What's the worst that can happen? You want to give a tiny witch doctor a demon when he can set a school on fire thinking about it. World destruction would happen." YangYang argued, Ten smirking.

"Yeah, but the school burning was cool."

"We're not giving him a demon!"

"Who's not getting a demon?" Taeil asked, entering the kitchen where they were gathered around the possessed clock.

"Shotaro wants to get Renjun to deal with the demon possessing the clock, but we won't let him." Lucas explained, beckoning for Taeil to come closer and check it out.

Taeil sighed as soon as he noticed what was wrong with the clock. He really thought at least Ten would've known how to fix this without assuming there was a demon inside, but he guessed that was too much to ask.

"Guys, the batteries are dead."

"No, it's possessed. If the batteries were dead it wouldn't be twitching between the seconds." Ten pointed out, the kids protesting as Taeil took the clock off the wall and opened the battery compartment.

They watched as he put new ones in and put the old ones in the battery charger, using the clock on the stove to set it properly.

Just as he had thought, the clock was now working just as it should, and he hung it back on the wall.

"Batteries were dead."

Taeil left the kitchen and headed back downstairs, forgetting whatever it was he had gone upstairs for in the first place.

Ten, Lucas, YangYang and Shotaro just stared at each other, and then at the clock that didn't appear to be possessed anymore.

"I still think there's a demon in there." Lucas mentioned, the other three nodding.

"For sure."

They just weren't going to tell Renjun.