Inside
256 Words
The air inside the Glass Clock didn't circulate; it lingered, heavy with the scent of expensive pine and the metallic tang of a dying battery.
Genevieve stood by the floor-to-ceiling window, watching a snowflake hover in mid-air. It had been stuck there for three hours. Outside, the blizzard was a perfect, looped masterpiece of white noise, but here, the physics were fraying.
"The resonance is off today," a voice vibrated from the shadows of the velvet-draped library.
Genevieve didn't turn. She knew the cadence—low, sand-papered, and dangerously familiar. Silas. He was leaning against a shelf of first editions, his tuxedo jacket discarded, sleeves rolled up to reveal a jagged barcode tattooed on his inner wrist. He wasn't looking at her; he was staring at a vintage music box that was playing a caroled melody three semitones too low.
"I had a dream about a fire, Silas," she whispered, her fingers tracing the cold glass. "There were no trees, no manor. Just a road and the smell of burning rubber."
Silas froze. His mission was to ensure she never remembered the road. He stepped into the light, his eyes a calculated shade of empathetic gray. "It was just the static, Gen. The winter is long this year."
Suddenly, a wet, red handprint appeared on the outside of the window. There was no one on the ledge.
"Then why," Genevieve asked, her heart beginning to sync with the glitching music box, "is there someone outside trying to get in?"
- Writer
