-CHAPTER 3-

CLOCKS

Footsteps echoed through the small passageway as the three climbed the stairs, Rin's hand gripping Len's arm, as Luka went on ahead, skipping and singing to herself. The third floor. Len was making good progress, that was for sure. And so far, he didn't feel the slightest bit insane. From the way things were going, it seemed as if everything was going to work out fine.

Pushing through the floor to the third floor, Luka skipped in, giggling at the distraught expression on the doll girl's face - well, as distraught as her porcelain features allowed. Upon stepping into the corridor, Len noticed that now the two first cells had vanished, as well as the first cell on the left. Three floors, three people rescued. He was winning.

"I'm getting hungry." Luka hissed quietly in Rin's ear, who shivered and shook, her porcelain knees creaking under her shaking weight. Luka giggled mischeviously, skipping forward, singing to herself again. She seemed fond of the tune, as eerie and creepy sounding as it was. Len supposed he should've expected someone insane to come along eventually - the man had adviced him that most people were mad.

"We'll find you some food." Len said simply, as they walked past the remaining sixty-two cells. It really was feeling as if Len was walking through the place, letting out the prisoners and walking with them - especially with Luka singing and skipping around, occasionally talking about people that tasted the best.

"Not just 'some food'," Luka said firmly, "I want somebody to eat. You did understand that when you made the deal with me, right?"

"Right." Len said, really not feeling like chatting with the insane pinkette. She was the type that would end up driving Len insane if he had to hang around her too much. However, he did have to wonder where she'd go when she left them; where the teal-haired girl went as well. How did she get past Luka? Actually, how did any of these people get around?

And where was Len's invisible guide? There was no reason why he couldn't be with them in this area, right? Or maybe he was, and Len simply couldn't hear him due to Luka's singing. It would make sense if he stayed silent whilst Len was with others. Much easier talking to people he could see, rather than someone he could only hear breathing if not speaking.

"I wonder what's in here~!" Luka sung happily, pushing open the next door, flinging it back carelessly, skipping on ahead. Len followed, pushing through the door and stopping, after entering, surveying the room as Luka danced around. The room didn't seem like anything he'd seen in the asylum so far. In fact, it seemed almost homely.

A light green carpet was spread over the floor, two doors leading off in different directions, toys scattered everywhere. A train set was moving around on the floor, going around and around in circles, puffing smoke occasionally. Letter blocks were stacked upon each other in the corner of the room, spelling out the word 'Hug'.

"This place is creepy..." Rin said quietly, "The toys look as if they've been played with recently."

Luka plopped down in front of the letter blocks, turning them around and stacking them in different ways, "You guys go explore~! I'll play for a while, okay? Bring me back some food!"

"...Was she always like this?" Len wondered aloud.

"I don't know. She was here at least ten years before me." Rin said quietly, "Some people who enter this place never regain their sanity. I only did because I saw you, Len."

Len smiled slightly to himself, wondering what it would've been like if Rin had been insane. He couldn't really picture it.

"We should split up." Rin decided, "I'll go right, you get left. We'll meet back here in thirty minutes and hop Luka hasn't started eating herself."

Len nodded, "Or you."

Rin cringed, nodding and pushing open the right door, as Luka watched her leave, before returning to her blocks. A part of Len didn't want to go down the left corridor for two reasons - one, Luka may follow Rin and eat her before he returned, and two, surely, the only reason he hadn't gone completely mad so far was because of the human - well kind of human - contact. Talking to everyone had comforted him in a way, despite never talking to people before he entered the asylum.

People used to say Len was strange because of his lack of communication - maybe it was that strangeness that allowed him to feel more at home with insanity? He always had liked the smell this place gave off.

Reluctantly, Len pushed through the door, listening for a few moments by the door to make sure Luka was still singing and playing with the blocks. Len turned and stared down the hallway. It was full of clocks, slowly ticking in a rhythm that was almost like the beat to a song. Len began down the hallway, finding it started sloping downstairs, the rest of the floor falling away to reveal lots and lots of clocks ticking - some twice Len's size. A giant grandfather clock - at least twenty times Len's height - was at the end of the hallway, its hands ticking so fast Len could barely see them.

"Lord dang it," A voice cussed, causing Len to jump, "Gramps is going to overheat everyone if he keeps up at this rate."

"Um, hello?" Len called, as the noise of someone banging their head sounded, a barely audible 'ouch' coming from the direction of the grandfather clock. Len stepped towards it, jumping back as a green-haired girl, covered in grease, exited from a door at the side of the grandfather back. Her hair was held back by orange and red goggles, her green eyes matching her spiky, strange hair, her denim overalls stained with grease, a wrench resting on her shoulder.

"Who're you?" The girl asked, "You're not Ryuu-kun."

"Um, my name's Len. I'm the newest player." Len explained awkwardly, not really sure how his introduction should go.

"Oh!" The girl exclaimed, "A player, eh? Don't see many of them around here - most go right. Don't know why though, suppose it's coz left is the devil's direction." The girl held out a grease-covered hand, blowing a stray strand of green hair from her eyes, "Name's Gumi. My punishment is to keep time in check, which, believe me, is not an easy job."

The grandfather clock made a loud 'dong' which caused Len's ears to almost bleed, as his hand flew up to them, covering them. Gumi, however, let the blood drip from her ears as she made her way to the clock and hit it with the wrench.

"Oi! Calm down!" She yelled at it, her voice surprisingly able to get that loud, "I know you're excited about pretty boy and all, but I don't need his brains all over the floor!"

The grandfather clock calmed, still ticking at an incredibly fast rate.

"Good lord," Gumi rolled her eyes, walking back over to Len, cleaning the blood from her ears with her pinky finger, "Anyway, I suppose you're here to ask some questions about time? Most players are - when they see the clocks they just know this is the place that's either making them age too or not fast enough."

"Um, yeah, I suppose," Len shrugged, "I've been kind of curious about time in this place..."

"Well, first off, let me explain that despite having the job to keep time in check, I can't actually control it. Gramps does whatever he wants, depending on how he's feeling," Gumi said, gesturing to the giant clock, "If he's saddened by someone that enters - thinks that it's a pity that they're here and that they won't be fun - he goes slower. If he's angered by someone that enters - say, they were engineered specifically for this and sent in by the humans - he'll go so fast that you'll age years in mere minutes. If he's pleased by someone that enters - if they seem to be a good challenge against the asylum, but there's still a nice chance they'll fail - he goes the speed that will benefit them most, as he wishes for them to continue playing longer."

The clock kept ticking behind her, as she gestured to the many other clocks scattered across the walls surrounding the grandfather clock, "All these clocks help keep time to the standard in which it will be similar to the human way of measuring time and not the demon way. You see, demon lives go for amounts of years that completely bypass our ability to count; so they keep time going a lot quicker. Years for them pass by in a passage of time that is most closely met by human time as 1.29 milliseconds. If their clocks go this fast in, say, eighty years, they'd reach the age of six. The clocks around us balance the demon time out to a slower speed - if Gramps was the only clock, and his hands barely moved, you'd still be aging a month a minute - that human bodies can adapt to and handle. With enough of them working at the same time, Gramps begins working on human time, but they exhaust themselves so quickly that there's always one broken."

Just as the word 'broken' left Gumi's mouth, a clock seemingly jumped off the wall, hitting the ground, its springs flying apart. The green-haired mechanic rolled her eyes.

"You didn't need to go all suicidal just to prove my point, Fred." She said, picking up the smashed clock, "Then again, maybe you did. You always were the point-proving one of your family."

Len watched as the mechanic took 'Fred' off to the room she'd exited before, which was in the side of the grandfather clock. She stuck her head out, "You can come in for a visit if you want!"

Len walked up to the door inside the grandfather clock, that had a stainglass window, decorated with designs of a clock. Stepping through the door, Len felt as if he'd entered another world.

The inside was very homey, with sofas and a radio that blared rock 'n' roll music from the eighties, paintings of landscapes stacked up the wall like a puzzle piece. Spare parts of clocks lay around everywhere, some clocks half finished, and some, like Fred, completely destroyed. The clocks all seemingly had legs and arms attacked to them, even those who weren't finished. Len hadn't noticed that before.

Some of the closer to being finished clocks were walking around, or sitting on the sofa lazily, supposedly talking to the others by ticking.

"Gary, get off the sofa." Gumi rolled her eyes, shoving one of the smaller, older-looking clocks off. The clock gave her a look of disgust, before getting off the couch. Gumi turned to Len, "So, can I get you anything? A drink? Some food? You must be hungry - it's been two years since you've eaten, right?"

Len instantly thought of Luka - maybe she'd be satisfied with just some meat?

"Do you have any meat?" Len asked.

"Ah, well, I have tuna," Gumi said, "Will that do?"

"I suppose." Len shrugged, as Gumi disappeared into another room. Len sat down on the couch, as the grumpy clock Gary crawled back on, sitting there moodily with his arms crossed over his face. I suppose nothing around here is normal, huh? Len thought to himself.

Gumi returned with a large fish, that Len couldn't help but gape at.

"You can take this with you," Gumi explained, "It'll last quite a while - even if you're piggy."

"T-thanks?" Len stammered, as Gumi went over to Fred, beginning to pull broken parts from the clock's remains, before finding spares lying around the room and beginning to fix him, cranking bolts together with the wrench she held.

"I'll be going now," Len said, hauling the giant fish with him, "Wouldn't want to disturb you."

"Wait!" Gumi said, turning to him, as oil squirted from Fred onto her goggles, causing her to hit the clock in anger, before getting up and running off into the other room. A few moments later, she returned with an old pocket watch, covered in scratches and oil stains, 'Thyme' engraved on it. Gumi reached out and put the pocket watch in Len's hand.

"This is a Time Stopper." Gumi explained, "It was originally one of the old clocks here, but after it broke for the sixth time, I decided to mess with it. It ended up telling the time backwards and because of that, if you press the button up the top, the clock will counter all the clocks down here, bringing demon time to a stand still. It will also freeze any full-humans in this place - but people who, due to their punishment, are no longer human will still be able to move around. Also you and I won't be effected, as you're the player and I'm the one who made it."

Len nodded, looking at the greasy pocket watch in his hand, the chain falling from his hand, "Can I try it out?"

"Sure," Gumi said, "Also - if you get far enough, you'll need my help. So when you need my help, press the button twice in quick succession, and I'll come running."

Len nodded again, "Thanks Gumi."

"You're very much welcome," Gumi smiled, "And remember to check every room."

[-|-|-]

The corridor sure was a lot darker than Rin had been expecting - no place she'd travelled so far had been as dark as this, even when she was involved with the player last time. Then again, she hadn't been freed from her mirror last time. Her porcelain fingertips braced the wall, as her feet shuffled over the wooden floorboards, her silken hair tickling the stone cold skin of her neck as it wavered from side to side. I'll never get the hang of walking like this.

The rules of the asylum were simple:

1, if you fail your chance at playing through the asylum, you can never play again, and will simply be imprisoned, unless you accept your punishment and step out to help the current player. 2, as soon as you decide to help a player, you will need to be freed by the player doing something for you - say, making a deal with you, or letting you out of your prison. 3, you can freely move around the asylum when there is no current player, however, the asylum's shape will revert back to the original shape humans portrayed it to be, meaning this will not help you with puzzles. 4, the only questions you can freely ask a fellow prisoner are the following: "What is your punishment?" "What floor are you on?" "How far did you get (floor wise)?" and "What is your name?" If a prisoner is not speaking to you due to their insanity, you may ask other prisoners if they know the answer to the question. 5, you cannot die; your punishment for failing and being in here in the first place is to spend the rest of eternity in this prison, along with your punishment chosen by the High Council.

The High Council - that brought Rin to another train of thought. The only thing she'd only ever understood about them was that they were the group of demons that crafted this place. None of them had ever appeared before anyone as far as Rin knew, and their identities were a mystery. The rules were the only message you ever received from them.

Rin really had hoped she wouldn't run into Luka - the girl had always been crazy, especially when it came to Rin; always going on about how delicious she looked. She'd at least hoped Luka would've made it to the tenth or twentieth floor; she wasn't ready to deal with her quite yet. Rin had been more hoping Miku would come in. She and the tealette had become friends over Rin's few years in the asylum - talking about their brothers was one of their favourite passtimes. Miku had also told Rin of her punishment - to play the part of Cinderella in Cendrillon, doomed to die over and over, but she'd also very secretly told Rin that she had a key to a room. A key that could only be obtained by saving Miku, and that key would release someone else - and that 'someone else' was the only prisoner in solitary confinement.

Solitary confinement - the room for the person who made it to floor 65. Possibly the only person who knew how to escape.

Miku also explained that every time she became normal, she forget where the key was, and when the game began, she forgot all about the asylum, seeing it simply as the stage of Cinderella.

And Rin supposed that when she'd bumped into Miku after reading the story, she'd appeared as one of the step-sisters. Her words had probably been different as well.

"Ah!" Rin gasped, as her fragile toe slammed into the wall, shattering into a million pieces, "Oh not again."

She really was sick of being broken so easily! A single bump could shatter her arm to a million pieces - she'd been only a head before Len had entered and she'd grown a year older, her body regenerating. She supposed it was good she could regenerate, but it was still an awful pain - in annoyance and how much it hurt.

She shuffled forwards, careful not to slam her other toes against the wall, reaching out and feeling against the wall, until she found another door. The door had no door handle - which meant it was the way through. The doors in the asylum can only be opened by the player, as it's the player's sanity that allows them to touch and see the door handles. Rin mentally groaned - so the had been no use in her coming down that corridor! Would've been more useful to go left, and Len go right. She decided to turn around and go back.

Turning around, Rin braced herself against the corridor and began shuffling, still wondering why it was so necessary to have it so dark. There wasn't anything spooky about it just being dark. Light filled the room as the door was pushed open, the figure of a girl in silhouetting against the light, causing Rin's heart to thump in her chest. Luka.

"Riiiiin~!" Luka called out, giggling, "Riiin, you in theeere~?"

Rin clutched to the wall in fear, not too keen on being the pink-haired girl's lunch.

"I don't think she's in there," Luka said disappointedly, "Maybe she went on without Lenny-kins and I?"

Lenny-kins? Rin thought, outraged and disgusted.

"She's in there," A small voice said, causing Rin to jump, "I can smell her."

"Ooo~! Does she smell yummy~?" Luka asked, giggling to herself.

"She doesn't smell yummy," The small voice said. It sounded slightly - and oddly - robotic, and of that of a small child's. Perhaps it was the child that lived in the bedroom?

"Awww," Luka whined, before giggling, "I'm sure she tastes yummy though!"

"Where's the player?" The voice asked, a figure shifting slightly into the doorway. It was very short - barely up to Luka's knee.

"Ummm," Luka said, "He went the other way."

"Suppose he's paying Gumi-nee a visit." The small child said, a slight tone of happiness rising in the otherwise dead-pan robotic voice.

"Who's that? Does she taste nice?" Luka asked, as the two figures stepped away from the door as it slammed shut, plummeting the corridor back into darkness. Rin exhaled a sigh of relief.

"I thought she was going to eat me..." Rin said quietly, before her eyes widened, a hand laying on her shoulder, one pressed against her porcelain lips.

"My beautiful doll... It's about time you stopped playing this game, don't you think?" Said a low voice in Rin's ear, her eyes widening, before everything turned into a suffocating silence.

-END-

A/N: As the story progresses, more opportunities will open in which you can choose what happens - say there's a fork in the road for example. Those chapters will then branch off - they'll turn into Chapter #:1 or Chapter #:2. If the choice leads to a 'Bad End' in which Len becomes insane, a chapter following it will be called 'Bad End#'. If you get the bad end with Chapter #:1, then the story will revert back to Chapter #:2, and then continue normally from there on until the story reaches the end. So, this story will go on for... long. Heaps long. Like 60+ chapters. Btw, suggest some puzzles for the 'game' to include!