Capítulo 178: Chapter 178
The clock didn't start as a sound. It wasn't a noise. At first, it was just a feeling, a whisper deep within the chest, a flutter. One moment, you felt fine. The next—something was wrong. As if time itself had cracked, fractured in some way you couldn't quite grasp.
Then came the first tick.
It echoed. Not in the room, not through the walls. It cut through the soul, a cold strike that froze your blood. A crack of bone. A short gasp that slipped between your lips. And then—nothing.
Nothing but the silent space after the tick, stretching long, until another followed. And another.
The sound wasn't loud, not by any measure. It wasn't overwhelming. But it was undeniable. If you were evil—if you had done enough to deserve it—there was no escaping it. The clock would find you.
Jesse had learned that the hard way.
He had been a man who thought of himself as free, untouchable. He'd never hurt anyone he knew. He didn't do the things others might think he did. He wasn't a killer. But he knew what he had done. He knew it. It didn't matter if the world didn't know. He had crossed a line that would not be forgiven.
There were rumors in town, whispers of people who had heard the clock. They said it was an old thing, ancient even, with no clear source, no face or hand. Some believed it had once belonged to a madman, a sorcerer or priest who had dabbled in things better left untouched. They claimed it judged. It didn't care about your name, about your intentions. It just found you. It didn't care what had happened, what was going on, who was in the room. If you were evil, you were already dead the moment you heard it.
Jesse hadn't thought much of the rumors. He dismissed them as nonsense, maybe a story made up to frighten children or comfort the guilty. But when the clock came for him, when the first cold tick passed through his chest, he knew.
It came at night, just as he lay in bed, struggling with the weight of a decision he had made, a decision he couldn't take back. His eyes had been closed, sleep slipping away from him, when he heard it. A sharp, splitting tick. A brief sound, but somehow, everything in the room froze. His limbs stiffened, his breath froze. His heart didn't beat—he knew it didn't. He was still, just as still as the world around him.
It didn't matter that he had never hurt anyone directly. It didn't matter that he had never stolen or killed. His sins, the ones he'd buried deep inside, weighed heavier than anything. He could feel them now, all the choices he had made, all the things he had done to others, and more importantly, the things he hadn't done when he should have.
Another tick came, louder this time. The second one. A second strike of cold that made his chest tighten. There was no denying it anymore.
The tick wasn't the start of the end. It was the moment when his body realized it was already too late. He could hear the tick, feel it in his ribs, pounding through his veins as his pulse dropped, as his heartbeat stumbled, as the last bit of life began to drain from him. The rhythm was slow and calculated, as if it had all the time in the world.
He wasn't alone in the room, not exactly. There were memories, too, hanging around like ghosts. Faces of people he had wronged, betrayed, dismissed. Some were long gone, others just out of reach. He tried to focus on them, to find a reason to escape, to deny the inevitable, but they slipped further away as the ticks echoed louder, their meaning more clear. Every tick was a reminder.
The tick.
The tick.
A pause.
Tick.
He couldn't move. He couldn't scream. His body was frozen, rigid. His eyes darted around, but nothing moved in the room. Just the slow, creeping sound that was no longer sound at all. He thought it would end. He thought it would stop. But it didn't. Each tick came, each one colder than the last.
A shiver ran through him. He had no idea how long he lay there. He didn't know if it had been hours or seconds. The clock was still there, still echoing, and it was only getting louder. Every beat, every tick, brought him closer to the realization that there was no escape from what he had done.
Jesse knew now. It was judging him. Every wrong he had committed. Every moment he had chosen the easier path, the selfish path, the dark path. It was as if the clock had been there all along, watching. It hadn't cared who he was in that moment. It didn't matter how much he wanted to escape. It didn't matter how much he pleaded with himself, with anyone. The moment the first tick cut through his soul, the judgment was already passed. He was already dead. His heart had stopped before he could even feel it.
The ticking continued. Each beat grew louder, though there was no physical source of it. It wasn't the clock on the wall. It wasn't any clock in his house. The sound had traveled inside him, become part of him, bound to him in a way that made his mind spin. He didn't need to see the clock. He could feel it. Its rhythm inside him, pulsing, forever present. The evil he had done had woken something in the world. And now, it was consuming him.
The room was empty. No one was there with him. But somehow, it didn't matter. He could feel the echoes of past decisions, of things he had done long ago, things no one else knew about. He could see their faces. He could hear their voices. They were coming for him. The clock was just the messenger. The punishment had always been there.
Jesse gasped as something inside him cracked. He tried to move, to shout, to do anything, but his limbs were locked in place. The clock's cold rhythm drove deeper, each tick cutting into his chest, pulling him apart.
It didn't stop. It never stopped.
The silence after each tick only seemed to last a moment, but it felt like a lifetime. Time stretched thin and broke in ways that didn't make sense anymore. Jesse wanted to scream. He wanted to beg. But all that came out was the slow, stilted rise and fall of his chest, too weak to even count as breath anymore.
The last tick came.
It wasn't loud. It wasn't even clear. But it was the final one.
When it hit, Jesse felt it in his bones, like a deep crack splitting his spine. He could feel his blood stop. His heartbeat died. His soul fractured.
The clock stopped then. It had passed its judgment. Jesse was gone. His body remained in place, cold and stiff, but his soul had already been claimed.
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