Silent Tick

The boy sat in the empty throne room of his empty palace, watching cold white light reflect off the empty, dark silver walls and gleam off the empty pewter floors. The stairs leading up to the dais that held his throne were cut with precision, casting pure black shadows as sharply defined as their edges. Had there been anyone besides himself to walk those stairs, any stumble might have cost them a limb.

But the boy never stumbled.

Day in and day out, he roamed the corridors of this place, waiting for something he had no name for. He ran his fingers across the smooth, featureless walls as he wandered, counted the steps it took to get from one chamber to another, from one floor to another, from one wing to another.

He was always counting.

The numbers filled his head, filled his palace, filled his days- brought him relief from the silent monotony of this place. He remembered no other, of course, but somehow he knew there was meant to be more than this, this endless repetition of nothing.

He was counting now, as he sat. Counting the razor-sharp swords that hung from his belt (three: one short and two long), counting the bars of metal that formed the base of his throne (twelve: all of equal length), counting his breaths in (nineteen this minute), and counting his breaths out (eighteen).

He wondered if he should count until whatever it was he was waiting for arrived- but he was afraid he would run out of numbers, and that thought filled him with panic. He must never risk running out of numbers, for without them what else was there?

He had begun to count the eyelashes on his lower left eyelid (using the mirrored surface of the short sword) when something happened that changed everything-

A door opened.

Of the one-thousand, four-hundred and thirty-six doors in the palace, there was only one that remained closed at all times: it was also the only door that led to the Outside. The boy counted the times he had attempted to open it: seven-hundred and thirty. He counted the times it had opened: zero.

The boy stared at the door. Or, rather, he stared at the figure framed in the doorway, a figure currently so back lit by blinding white that he could make nothing out of it, save that it appeared to have the same general shape as the boy himself.

The figure walked forward, the way it held itself suggesting that it was not wholly at ease here in the palace. It came closer, and the boy saw that it was a she, and that everywhere that the boy was pale and colorless, she was flush with life and color. At her side hung only one sword- but it's hilt held a rainbow of different jewels.

He wasn't sure, but he thought the sword might be singing.

He counted the number of times he'd heard singing: zero. He wondered how he knew what it was.

The girl began to climb the too-sharp stairs that led to the boy's throne. He counted her steps as she came: six, seven, eight... He counted the times she stumbled: zero.

She stopped when she was face-to-face with him, and he realized that if he were to climb down off the throne he would be shorter than her by a good head. He thought she must be older than he.

They stared into each other's eyes, and as they did so, something clicked into place within the boy's chest.

This is what I've been waiting for, he thought, and began counting his heartbeats. Funny he had never thought to count them before... had they always been there?

"Hello, Faucyl," said the girl. "I've come to bring you home."


(Silent Tick)