That's how the nightmare always starts: the sound of the grandfather clock in the main hallway leading to the front door. This could be attributed to the clock ticking away as Willow falls asleep each night... if that clock were still working. Instead, its pendulum hangs eerily motionless at the trough of its original arc. But in the realm of nightmares that is Willow's mind, it's forced to relive its final night.
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
She frequently has extremely vivid dreams of her friends, loved ones, or even complete strangers inflicting malice and terror upon her. The most common nightmare by far, though, is the one that starts with the clock.
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Knock. Knock.
The new sound startles a young girl of 15 relaxing in her downstairs bedroom. It's the month of Ambros, and school is out for the summer. Pretty soon classes will start up again on the first day of Terreus, but until then, the girl liked staying up past her normal bed time. Being the closest to the door, she's the only one who hears the unfamiliar knocking, and sits up in her bed.
Tick. Knock. Tick. Knock.
Despite her fuzzy ghost pajamas, the girl feels a chill as she slips out of her covers. Drowsily, she leaves her room, heading for the door. The respectful thing to do when someone knocks is to open the door after all. She's been taught to be respectful; besides, she loves meeting new people.
Knock. Tock. Tick. Knock.
She passes the grandfather clock, its numbered face proudly declaring 10:48pm. The rest of her family, two parents and a brother, are fast asleep upstairs. Her long green hair nearly drags on the floor behind her as she approaches the door.
No, don't! Willow cries from her outside perspective, as she always does. Don't open that door! Just leave well enough alone and go back to bed...
But the young girl doesn't hear her. She never does, and never will. She only hears the knocking and tick-tocking of the clock. She turns on a nearby table lamp before reaching the door. Her hand reaches out to the doorknob, and Willow rushes forward to stop her. She always does; not just to grab her hand, but full-on tackle the girl to the floor.
Tick. Tock. Knock. Stop!
As soon as the girl's within arm's length, the scene changes.
Her parents are there, Father and Mother. With them, two people the young girl has never seen (though Willow has seen them plenty) are standing in the front room. Even in her own nightmares, Willow's mind skips the dreadful act of letting the strangers in and going upstairs to awaken the parents. The strangers are teenagers - older than her, probably 12th graders - but they said they knew her parents.
They were just so polite.
Tick. They were just. Tock. So friendly. Tick. She had to. Tock. Believe them.
Though by the look on her parents' faces, they don't seem to be friends. The girl has only a second to think about this before one of the strangers jumps at Father. Mother doesn't scream, but she seems ready to. Instead she turns and grabs the closest thing she could: the table lamp. Before she could swing it at her husband's attacker, she has her own to deal with. The first hit with the lamp knocks the lampshade to the floor but also bounces her arm away. As if trained in combat, Mother swings her impromptu weapon in a circle to minimize the time she's open and hits the stranger in the ribs with a hardy thump.
Father is not doing as well. Taken completely by surprise, all he sees is a quick gleam of metal before a searingly cold pain erupts below his sternum. He staggers back as the man - who is only a boy to Father, but to the girl he seems fully grown - pulls back his combat knife and thrusts it outward again. This time it's expected and easily readable. Father grabs his wrist and twists, forcing the stranger to drop the knife to the floor... but that doesn't stop him. While Father is looking down at the knife, the man uses his other hand to strike his target on the forehead. Father falls backwards, landing straight on his back, knocking him out from pain caused by the fall paired with the stab wound. Without hesitating, the stranger picks up his knife to finish the job.
Why? Why? Tick. Why can't I look away? Why can't it just stop? Tock.
Mother backs away, falling into the sofa seat behind her. Her attacker takes this opportunity to strike, but the only guts the knife tasted are of cotton as it plunges into the couch cushion, right where mother was sitting moments before. She had rolled out of the way and is now kicking out with her bare feet at the man's knees. A valiant effort, but it does not hurt him one bit.
The other man, the one who has now killed Father, turns to the girl cowering against the wall. She's been watching everything.
No, no!
He takes a step closer, still wielding the knife.
No no no no no no no no no no no no!
And that's when it happens. That's when her older brother Mint runs downstairs, sees the man approaching his little sister, and steps in front to defend her. The blow that was meant for the girl hits her brother instead, causing a large gash to form across his face from his cheek to his brow. There is enough force to cut through his eye.
NOOOO! No... I... I'm sorry...
Mint falls clutching his face, proceeding to faint from shock. The young girl thinks he's dead. Mother is trying to get away, rushing to the kitchen, but is pushed against the grandfather clock.
Tick. Tock. Tick. Crash.
Its life of ticking ends a second before the woman's.
I'm sorry... I'm so sorry...
The strangers seem to talk, something about not worrying about the kid. She isn't listening. They argue, forgetting to pay attention to the small girl who calmly stood up and walked away.
I'll... make it up to you... it's all my fault...
She leaves behind the bleeding figure of her brother. She steps over the corpse of her father. She walks past her mother slumped against the silent clock. She enters the kitchen and grabs the largest knife available. She walks back, passing her mother again. She sees someone's back. She sees red.
Then she's sitting on the couch, covered in the same red. Silence surrounds her. Cotton sticks out from a rip in the seat next to her.
The scene changes.
The night sky, normally the somber gray of overcasting clouds, is perfectly clear. The young girl sees clearly enough in the pink tinted moonlight. The backside of her house is visible, the dim glow of the shadeless lamp the only source of light from inside. The air always became oddly cooler here, on the border of the Gravewood forest. Willow's retrospective mind fast forwards this process, but the girl holding the shovel is not so lucky. Hours are spent digging a shallow hole in the soft midnight dirt, fueled by guilt, anxiety, and adrenaline. The night lasts forever. The night lasts as long as it has to. The moon watches patiently as she fills the holes back in. Dirt piles on top of the two bodies and their infernal knives.
It's over. At least it's over. It's all... over. The full exhaustion of the night hits her immediately upon returning inside. Arms aching like the blackest of rain, she approaches her unconscious brother and falls to the floor. The girl's fuzzy ghost pajamas are unrecognizable beneath the mud and dried blood. Blocking the chaos of the room from her mind, she puts her brother's arm around herself and closes her eyes. Finally, she cries.
And Willow wakes up. Tears are streaming from her eyes, wetting the pillow. She turns onto her back. For a brief moment, she thinks it all just happened right now, but she can see through the window that the night sky is its usual cloudy gray.
She knows how the rest of that night goes. While she slept, Mint woke up and phoned the authorities. They assume all the blood is from mother and father, that they were killed by intruders with the kitchen knife, and leave it at that. The rest of the night and following day was a drowsy blur, but she remembers the glaring hospital lights. At some point Mint got the remnants of his eye removed and was given his eyepatch.
Willow will never talk about what really happened, not with Mint, not even with Lily. No one can know.
The young girl closes her eyes again. It's better to try to go back to sleep than stay awake with those white eyes staring at her from the darkest corner of the room.