Twenty-Four Hours

A shaft of ruddy, reddish light sliced through a sliver of a window, boarded up with rotted planks like the others. The scarlet strip landed straight across the face of the pocket watch, as though the gaze of an evil eye had glanced in from Outside and landed on the stray object. The inner workings of the little pocket watch hesitated, contemplating the silence of a century, then began to work, gliding into motion.
Its soft, accentuated movement spoke to the silence, ponderous...deadly.
Tick, tock.
Tick, tock.
Twenty-four hours...
~~~~~~
Something draws my eye. A pocket watch lies on its back on a low shelf. It's unassuming, small and copper, illuminated in a sliver of light. It-it's nothing. I shouldn't be staring. But something about it is different. Something's wrong. What, though? What, what, what?
I'm paralyzed, can't move, can't think.
And then it hits me: the clock is moving. The miniscule minute hand is ticking away softly, counterclockwise. Like a countdown.