He is running.
He is running but he isn't moving, and he can see the world float by like a fallen leaf on an autumn breeze, and his existence is memory is reality is fragments of joy and laughter and pain, just out of reach, just beyond his fingertips, and everything is moving too fast, too fast and too slow, and he doesn't need to breathe, technically, but he is suffocating under the pressure of eternity and sometimes he wishes it would just end, that he would just end-
He is running.
What would happen if he stopped?
(let's see the stars, she whispers. let's see how far we can go.)
Days pass and time marches forward, unrelenting. People live and people die, babies are born and grow up and have more babies, children become adults become old become ghosts, and he is there, through all of it, he is there he is there he is here-
He is.
(they need me, he says. they need me to save them, they need me to keep them safe.)
He was.
(selfish, she spits. selfless.)
He ever will be.
? idk, man. i'd like to think this is some weird insight into clockwork's past, but whatever. i don't know who "she" is meant to be. don't ask.