The Clock-Tower

Tick. Tock. The ancient hands of the clock-tower marked the passage of time meticulously, but with utter indifference. No minute, nor second went unrecognized by its grandiose faces. Of all the relics that remained standing from the 'old world', Dante favoured the clock-tower above all others. Standing there, basking in the mighty shadow it sent cascading over the earth, Dante couldn't help but feel a sense of transcendence. By mere association to this opulent structure, he reached beyond the limits of time and space - linking himself to a greater story, one that included everyone who had lain eyes on this tower and everything that was still to transpire before it. All of this documented well, by another tick of the clock.

There was a brisk chill in the air, the early morning dew was preparing for its great reveal, with the first appearance of morning light. What tragedy it was that no one would ever bear witness to the wet dew in daylight's magnificent glory. Often Dante fantasized of one day being able to watch the sun rise, to actually see the sun, the orb coveted above all else in the sky. It was not to be this time however, for it was imperative he set off; once again to descend beneath the Earth. Dante pulled the lever, sending the mechanism into action. Gears began grinding and with a loud churning squeal, the chain sprung into motion and Dante was propelled downward.

"The descent to hell, could hardly be this grim." Dante muttered to himself.

The world that once existed on the surface, the 'old world' as it was called now, faded from Dante's perceptions as he was dragged further below the Earth's crust into the artificial world of man; a mimetic representation of what life was supposed to be, what life used to be. When a culture is devoid of art, justice, and the pursuit of happiness, all that can remain is bloodshed. Peace can never seem to outlast its utility. In order to rebuild a society from broken ruins and the brink of destruction, peace is necessitous for survival. But once feelings of comfort and familiarity of daily life begin once again to sink into societies collective conscious - war may come again. It has been asserted that humans are adaptive creatures and given ample time, can adapt to even the bleakest of situations and circumstance. This is detrimental to the upholding of peace. The families of the innocent, who have fallen in this latest conflict, can certainly attest to this.

The lift at last reached a full stop. The chain clanked and chimed as it worked its way to a natural resting place and the broad platform locked into position, the plank falling to rest on the ground. Dante nonchalantly stepped off the lift onto the boardwalk. Modern technology, such as it is, has its ways of counteracting reminiscence of history with great ease. Dante was again alert of his present. After only traveling along the boardwalk for a mere handful of strides, his motion was halted, current events had once again thrust themselves into the forefront of existence.

Another one. "A-fucking-'nother one."

Dante gazed in disappointment at the red cross, sloshed heedlessly across the wall binding the old half of the city to the new. Graffiti with a powerful message. This simple symbol: physically nothing more than two intersecting lines, was symbolically so much more. This was the people giving their support to the liberation movement and more importantly support for Dae, their champion. He is their Spartacus, or more accurately their Robespierre. One man with the power to move thousands. This cross, was his authority. The cross' meaning was easy to decipher. The blood of another citizen would be spilled on this night and Dae would be his undertaker. Nearly every night for the last two weeks there had arisen a cross and subsequently every morning there would be a fresh corpse found. No, not found - displayed. A public murder, dirty laundry aired for all to see. The degree of the bodies dismemberment varied, but it was always grotesque. The face was however, always untouched. Left as a tableau, displaying the horror and terror felt in the poor bastard's last moments, struggling desperately for life. To compound the horror, there would always be a corresponding red cross, draped across the forehead. A calling card of sorts, leaving absolutely no doubt as to why this persons connection with life had been severed. A red cross, one not haphazardly sloshed across a poor stonemason's wall with whatever paint may have been at hand, but one methodically depicted, carefully illustrated with the victims own blood. Such was the illustrious mark of Dae.

Dante shook his head in disgust, as a proud lion would shake away a buzzing fly; momentarily irritated, but ultimately rising above the situation, with eyes and mind set upon something greater. Dante was opposed to the killings on a humanistic level, but the politics behind them greatly intrigued him. He sympathized with the plight of those who longed for a better time. An alternate life where high culture, fine art, and mesmerizing architecture were not things that existed only in the past tense, only on the forgotten surface world, but were staples of everyday endeavors.

Lost in thought, Dante found himself aimlessly wandering, at last arriving in the lower-class section of town. Once Dante had called this neighborhood home, but no longer. The concept of home was now alien to him. He was a wanderer. A free spirit, a spirit that now took him sailing along at a quickened pace. Recklessly he took no heed of his surroundings and crashed devoid of any grace, into a peculiar out-jetting porch. With a surprisingly loud clatter, Dante landed face first on the ground, kissing the dirt. The din caused by the tumble echoed throughout the street, but in this neighborhood people were trained to mind their own business. Only a single woman came out to examine the source of the commotion. She was frail and sickly in appearance; face swollen and ravaged by hardship, her hair brittle and straggly as hay. In another life, she may have been beautiful. She feigned a smile in Dante's direction as he collected himself.

"Do come in stranger," the woman beckoned for Dante to follow into her very modest living quarters. "That was quite a fall. You must need to catch your breath."

This was a woman not without her wits. She had lived her entire life in the lower-working class ghetto, struggling to survive in a world not kind to the gentle of heart. A world populated by thieves, scoundrels, and murderers. Not the least of which was standing before her now. Even if she had suspicion, the woman made no moral objections in regards to Dante's character. It was not her place to do so, she had learned from the cruel teacher, experience, that it is often wiser to stay silent. She was not concerned with who she had invited into her home, but was rather preoccupied with a greater trouble. After surveying Dante for just a moment, she spoke abruptly.

"It's my son. He's missing," the woman entreated Dante; "I know a man of your... faculties... can help me. I'm sure of it."

Dante stayed silent for a moment as he starred into the womans eyes. He was peering into the most sincere eyes he had even seen. A great longing to help this woman swept over him. Sentimentality outmaneuvered reason and Dante nodded his assent.

"Oh thank you. My poor Raymond. He's not like us. He's not hardened by the world. He is so sweet... so gentle... He was supposed to be home hours ago." Tears formed beneath the eyelids of the distraught mother. She continued to babble, driving herself further into a desperate frenzy.

"He studies history you see. He can't get enough of the old world. Any artifacts he can get his hands on, he covets like the holy grail. You don't think..." the woman abruptly trailed off.

She didn't have to finish the thought, Dante was ahead of her. If this boy, Raymond, had ventured to the surface, as his mother suspected her tears were certainly not unfounded. Their conversation was not permitted to continue however, as it was adamantly interrupted, by a high pitched shriek that descended sharply upon their ears.

"NO! ---- RAYMOND!" The woman cried out fearfully.

She scurried past Dante, out the door and flooded onto the street. Dante followed promptly in hot pursuit. The source of the scream became immediately evident, in the distance Dante could vividly make out the rough outline of a body, hanging from a makeshift scaffold in the town square. The woman was past consolation now, as she weeped openly. It was hard to imagine how she managed to propel herself forward so quickly in a state of such intense grief. They reached the crowd that had gathered around the lifeless carcass. One leg had been completely severed from the torso. The other leg mangled, scarcely covered by shredded flesh. Blood dripped down constantly, accumulating in a shallow pool, before running through the cracks of the stone-block, paved street. The arms were tied together in front of the body, with what appeared to be a barbed-wire of sorts. The torso showed signs of partial dismemberment, but the sight-line was too obstructed by blood and gore to tell for certain. The woman gasped and put her hand over her mouth as she looked into the face and identified the unnamed corpse as Roscoe, the towns local priest. The old man's eyes were closed, lips pursed. At least he had not resisted and had likely given himself over to faith and surrendered his mortal life without incident. The image was gruesome and haunting, no matter how many times you lay eyes upon a dead body, it is never a welcomed sight. Dante needed to make sure that poor Raymond would not be handed a similar fate.

After spending a few hours examining Raymond's room, desperate for any clue leading towards his whereabouts. Among the knick-knacks and clutter Raymond had scattered about, Dante found a miniature likeness of his favourite clock tower. It was just a hunch, but f he would find him anywhere, that is where it would be. Dante set out once again for the surface, this time with a particular ambition in mind.

After hurrying his way along the boardwalk and swiftly utilizing the elaborate system of gears and pulleys which formed a mechanized lift: the only method of traveling from the world beneath to the world above; Dante again stood on the surface of the planet that was his home, covered ubiquitously by the cloak of night. Cautiously he surveyed his surroundings, doing his best to penetrate the darkness with his sight. He knew the route to the clock tower intrinsically, as it was one he took quite often. After making his way in great haste, Dante finally reached the base of the tower and then stopped immediately. Ten feet above him a rope was suspended in mid-air, hanging looped over a peculiar out-jetting ledge. Dante's skin crawled. Was he too late? Dante again strained his senses, asking more out of his body than he ever had before. Before too long a crackle could be heard faintly coming from inside the tower. Dante forced his way through a gap between two elderly, rotting boards and then quickly raced up a stairwell, before reaching a landing, his path now illuminated by torchlight. Before him lay a youth, no older than 15 or 16 years. Above him sat a man, draped from head to toe in red robes, with religious symbols littered all over his person. There was no doubt in Dante's mind that he had finally found Dae, caught up to the legend, in the flesh.

The robed one, did not panic or make a rash move. He calmly sat still, composed, but intense. So very intense. From his side he drew two long blades, sharp as razors, with extravagant handles of finely crafted silver and gold. Hilt studded with innumerable jewels of varying sizes, shapes, and colours. Dae stood up, brandishing his weapons before him, an attempt at intimidation. Dante approved of the classic armaments. This was surely a man of quite exquisite tastes and certainly a scholar of the 'old world' - not unlike himself, or the young one that lay between them, separating them with a barrier of innocence; two tainted counterparts on either side.

Dante was unarmed, save a broken piece of wood off the tower's base. A struggle ensued between the two immense men. Dante fended off Dae's violent advances with a ferocious battle-hungry fervor. The plank splintering with every vehement strike it absorbed. Soon it would no longer hold as a viable defense. Strike after strike, Dae pummeled Dante, tactically breaking his pathetic plank of wood to pieces. The vibrating shock of each blow, sent Dante whirling further back, as his hands began to burn and sting with the sheer force of Dae's arm. Desperation overcame Dante, he charged barbarously forward, unrelenting in his fury. Dae plunged his aciculate prosthetic deep into the cavern of Dante's bowel. Dante - unphased, staggered forward, clutching his adversaries sleeves, tighter than a hyena grips the neck of his lifeless prey between his jaws, preparing to feed. Through the stained glass window that sat just to the right of the stairwell, a work of art that was surely the product of many hours of loving labour, Dante propelled their two immense bulks. They struggled for position in mid air. The wind serenaded them as they fluttered downward, shards of glass raining down like multi-coloured precipitation. Still the combatants battled, until they both plummeted into the hard, pitiless ground. Through shear luck alone, Dante narrowly managed to avoid being gored in the struggle. Dae was not as fortunate and lay lifeless, impaled by his own munition. Though Dante was able to stand, on the strength of resolve and unbreakable will alone, the wound he had procured, would surely prove fatal.

Dante groaned, he was not long left for this world. The bells of the clock-tower chimed, sending an echo radiating off into the distance. Five distinct rings. It was five in the morning, still too early for sunrise. Dante gasped for air. Tick. Tock. Dante clutched at his chest, blood draining through his fingertips. He gasped his last breath at the base of his beloved clock-tower. It was all over for Dante, he could feel life, reality, slipping away from him. The ancient hands of the clock-tower marked the time of Dante's death with graceful indifference. This was but one chapter in a greater tale. Tick...Tock.