It was a nice, comfy night for once.
Anon had reached the fifth stage of grief regarding Kronii. Expecting a full schedule from someone so much like himself was folly.
Instead of giving any minute trace of a shit about whatever was happening in /∞/, he had occupied himself by actually writing some of the final essay that was due in two days.
A productive night in the Anon household - truly a rare sight.
Satisfied with the night’s work, he lay in bed, watching a video essay on Dead Space 2 by some dude with a beard on his phone.
It was 3am; Anon rarely turned off the lights any earlier than 5, falling asleep to the sound of the morning birds.
Anon liked these hours. They were peaceful. No car noises, nobody else awake, even the neighbour’s dog would finally shut the fuck up.
Just the sound of the wind outside, the video he was watching, and the clock ticking in the dining room.
Tick.
Tock.
Tick.
Tock.
Tick.
Tick.
Tock.
Tock.
Wait.
Anon paused the video and listened close. He hasn’t misheard. A second ticking rhythm echoed through the house.
Meh, Anon thought. That clock was pretty old, it might just have been broken.
He’d check on it in the morning.
But the second ticking was louder.
Deeper.
And accompanied by footsteps.
A break-in, but not one with any care for stealth.
Anon heard a door being flung open, smashing against the wall. The ticking continued. The footsteps stopped for a moment.
More footsteps.
Another door.
Anon went into panic mode. Who the fuck was in his house? And what were they looking for?
He switched off his bedroom lights and hid in the closet.
The bedroom door swung open soon after. Gently.
Tick.
Tock.
The reverberating noise hurt Anon’s eardrums. The crack in the closet doors offered little in the way of perceiving the intruder, made worse by the pure darkness.
Anon realised he could hear a voice. Not loud enough to truly be in the room. Too... digitised. A narrow bluish light swept across the room as the stranger picked Anon’s phone up off the bed.
He had left it on.
Another voice spoke over the bearded man on the screen. Menacing and jittery, it seemed almost to... chuckle?
”D-D-Dead Spa-ace Tw-Two, huh?”
The figure almost immediately moved towards the closet. Of course.
Not like there was anywhere else in this room to hide, since underneath the bed was a wide container of Bionicle pieces, left untouched for so long their virginity had been renewed.
The intruder calmly opened the closet doors.
”Th-th-there you are.”
He was so nearly close to being an ordinary man. His lab coat was well-kept (if you ignored the... coffee? blood?... stains on the bottom). His proportions were normal.
The thing that was so hard to ignore, though, was that his posture was weighed down by the enormous round clock he had in place of a head.
It ticked in Anon’s face, each numbered increment on the edges of its surface another eye to scan him with.
The ticking was regular, stable, but nonetheless each passing second made Anon jump a little.
The clock-headed man grasped Anon’s collar, hauling him out into the room and shoving him down at his desk. His laptop opened on its own.
A familiar page. A Google document. One he often sought to mask his presence on.
”FU-FU-FU-FUCKING WRITE-ITE-ITE NIGG-IGG-IGG-IGGA”
The Witching Hour is upon us, friends.
Fear the clock-man’s ticking.

first lol