He sits in a chair, leg draped over the other. His hands are placed on top of one another on his lap. In front of him is the face of a clock tower. Its hands are stagnant, frozen in place by apathetic torpor. He is waiting.
He sits, prim and proper. He is wearing a white button-up shirt with a black vest. His legs are covered with a pair of black dress pants, and dark brown dress shoes on his feet.
He is staring out of the glass plates of the clock's face. Staring back is a vast blackened canvas with sprinkles of light upon its face—stars. They flicker, flutter, shimmer, but most intriguing of all, they fizzle and fall.
But many of these things go unnoticed by him. Or rather, he sees it but pays them no mind. He is fixated on a single star.
It hasn't moved in eons. No flares, no coruscates—not even a glint or a faint sparkle. But he knows it will move. He has planned for it thus far. And he has rarely ever been wrong.
And so, he waits—staring. Beside him is a silver coffee pot. Next to it, on a small, porcelain coaster, is a glass cup. Wisps of steam rise from the cup. Fresh coffee. Despite his patient, obsessive nature, he too must indulge in simple distractions, lest to keep his mind from growing stale.
Feeling his tongue beginning to crave caffeine, he extends out his hand to grasp at the cup's handle. His eyes are still fixated on the star. He senses that the handle is just within his reach, but then; he stops. He sees it. The star—it has blinked.
His eyes widen. For the briefest of moments, he seems happy. But not joyful in the sense of genuine jubilance, no. It was a twisted tingle of rapturing glee. It brought out a sickening sensation of drunken euphoria within him. But as washes over him, it is quickly replaced with the feeling of sobriety and gravity.
Swiftly, he stands from his chair and makes his way towards the door, leaving the cup of coffee alone and growing evermore cold. He opens the door, revealing a twisted labyrinth of staircases. They made no sense. They defied all perceptions of logic and reality. Stairs upon stairs—flights upon flights. There is no concept of up or down, left or right. All presumptions of gravity were lost in this place. A finite infinite amount of stairs going in a mathematically impossible set of directions.
However, he is not utterly perplexed by the tower's layout, nor does its paradoxical nature dissuade him. He steps on the first step and seemingly begins to descend. With each step, a piece of clothing appears on his body, materializing into reality.
Step. A black trench coat, its sleeves rolled up just below his elbows. Step. A crimson scarf tied around his neck. Step. White bandages; wrapped over his forearms and his right eye.
Finally, he reaches the bottom of the tower. He stands at a closed door. The clasps onto its handle before he suddenly stops. He reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out a small slip of paper, a note. He carefully pins it onto the door before swinging it open and stepping out.
.
.
.
So, you're beginning to remember… For your sake, I hope that when you do, you won't hate yourself for what you've done. You have plenty of others who already do…