Review-Clockwork A Mind Wound 1-2 Tight

Time ran out. Now she returns—eye replaced, heart colder, justice winding.

Clockwork: A Mind Wound Tight

By Ticking Hourglass

--A Reimagining of Clockwork: Your Time Is Up

Part 1: The Ticking Inside

Time was always loud in Natalie's world.

Not the time you mark with a calendar or the blinking digits of a microwave clock, but a quieter, crueler kind. The kind that ticked behind your ribs. That scraped inside your ears when you tried to sleep. That echoed louder with each birthday, whispering--you're running out.

The first thing people noticed about Natalie was her eyes. Not the prosthetic one--though that came later--but the real one, the right one. Striking green, almost luminous. The kind of green that seemed too vivid to be natural. At night, it sometimes caught the light and glowed faintly, like a shard of broken glass under a streetlamp. Some kids in middle school joked she had alien eyes, or that she could see through you. But the truth was far more human--they were the eyes of a girl who had learned to stay quiet, to watch, and to remember. Especially when no one else remembered her.

Her father had once been truly the kind of man people respected. Clean-shaven, in uniform, always early to work and polite at the grocery store. But behind closed doors, he was a storm no one could predict, except Natalie. His voice was the first clock she learned to fear. Loud, ever ticking toward rage. He drank more than he used to. Shouted more than he spoke. If the house was too quiet, that meant the storm was on its way. And if she dropped something, said the wrong word, or dared to cry, she could count down the seconds before the yelling started. The rules changed daily, and Natalie learned early on that silence was safer than questions.

Her mother? Her mother didn't stop him. Didn't comfort her, either. She was always too tired, too not... there. She floated through the house like someone perpetually jetlagged, sat on the couch flicking through TV shows glassy-eyed, forgetting to make dinner, mumbling,

"Sorry," like it was a reflex. There were days she barely remembered Natalie's name. She might as well have been a ghost to her mother. One time, after Natalie had tripped on the stairs and split her chin open, her mother looked up from her wine glass just long enough to mutter,

"Told you not to run in the house," and turned back to her show. She bled on the floor for twenty minutes before getting the idea to bandage it herself.

That was the rhythm of her early life: endure, observe, survive.

The eye came out when she was ten. No one talked about it much. A medical word was used--a complicated one--Peno-them-itis (Panophthalmitis), if she recalled correctly. The doctor's voice was gentle, explaining that the infection was severe, that the tissue had been compromised, and there was nothing left to save. The only other thing Natalie could remember of that event was the dim white light of the surgery room and the cold breath of anesthesia on her face. When she woke, she had an empty left socket.

She never got a real explanation about how the infection got that bad, but she remembered the day clearly. Her father had shoved her too hard into the edge of the porcelain tub. A dark bruise bloomed around her left eye, and after that, the pain didn't stop. Her parents told the hospital it was from a fall. They just nodded. They always nodded, never suspecting the truth. The doctors fitted her with a prosthetic a few months later. It looked real enough, but it never felt right. It didn't see. It didn't move. It was just... there. After that, she stopped looking people in the eye. It felt dishonest, but Natalie didn't complain. Not anymore. Complaining didn't stop anything. It just made it worse. She learned how to adjust, how to hold her head so the eye wouldn't catch the light wrong, how to just make people forget there was anything different about her at all.

At seventeen, Natalie was a quiet kind of pretty--if you looked past the distant stare and haunted posture. Her grades were high, but they came at the cost of too many sleepless nights. She was always careful not to get into any trouble. She spent a lot of her free time either walking the neighborhood with headphones on. She didn't go to parties. She wasn't weird. Just... elsewhere. It's not like she disliked other people--with their coordinated dances and Instagram rituals. She just didn't know how to join them. Her world had always been narrower, more careful. Trust was not something she handed out to just anybody. Except, maybe, to Adrian.

Adrian wasn't like most people. He was the kind of boy who asked if she wanted him to walk her home, who offered her the last slice of pizza. He said that he liked her eyes, telling her they were intense, like something out of a fantasy novel. He didn't fill silence with noise. He didn't ask stupid questions about her acrylic eye or make jokes when she didn't laugh. He had soft hands and a slower voice than most boys. He never asked why she flinched at slammed doors. He never mentioned the scar above her cheekbone or the way she pressed her fingers to her temple when she was anxious. Sometimes they sat in his car and said nothing for a whole hour, just listening to the hum of the radio. And for a while, she let herself believe she was something more than invisible. Natalie--carefully, quietly--started to believe she was allowed to have that. Something safe. Something real. Someone who just stayed.

Her room was the only sanctuary that she had. It was small, dimly lit, and tidy. On her windowsill sat a single relic from her childhood--A stuffed giraffe plushie. It was a worn, stitched thing, fraying at the seams. A stuffed giraffe she'd had since she was six. It had a permanent lean in its neck, like it was always listening. One button eye was scratched, but not blind. Natalie called him Fig--short for Figment, her imaginary protector.

She didn't sleep well most nights, but Fig helped. He was the one thing she'd held onto when the shouting got too loud or the bruises too deep. When things got bad, she'd clutch Fig to her chest and count the giraffe's faded spots. That's how she got through it all. One spot, two, three--until the pain in her face or the yelling outside the door faded just a little. When she was twelve, she'd stitched a tiny patch over his torn belly with surgical precision. Even when she was older, and the giraffe looked silly sitting on a teenage girl's shelf, she kept him, because when time roared, Fig was the only thing that stayed quiet. She never told anyone why she kept him. It wasn't sentiment. It was survival.

When Natalie had neither Adrian or Fig for her company, she just tried to disappear, especially as she walked the halls of her high school, like a shadow, always tucked behind her long, brown hair, parka zipped up to her neck. It wasn't that she was shy, exactly--just, self-contained, watchful. Her teachers called her mature, but her classmates called her cold. Neither group knew anything about her, what she had survived.

Part 2: Hairline Fractures

In the beginning of her senior year, something inside her began to churn.

Maybe it was the approach of graduation. The looming sense that college would finally take her away from this town, this house, this version of herself. But instead of feeling free, she felt a strange urgency building.

Time, it was everywhere. On clocks. In schedules. Whispered of deadlines and decisions. It ticked at the edges of her brain, a quiet metronome counting down to something unnamed.

She didn't know why she felt like she was running out of time. Only that she was.

The change started the day she found the watch.

Once again Adrian stayed after school in the track team, so Natalie was on her own walking home, taking a shortcut through the overgrown trail behind the old train station. A weak wind slipped through carrying with it a breath of mildew and iron. Inside was dark, but not blind. Light filtered in through fractured grates above. Her boots echoed against the concrete floor. She only saw it then because of a sliver of sun, glint of glass in the dirt, like an eye opening--small, round, familiar. She reached down the old tracks and picked up the artifact that had arrested her attention. It was a pocket watch.

It was vintage, light-weight in her hand, open-faced, with a matted finish. Instead of a sweeping second hand, there was a smaller subdial in place of the 6 o'clock position. It ticked faintly in her palm, but the sound echoed louder in her mind. Not the tick of a machine--but something older. Intent. As if the watch had a soul, and it had just noticed her. What struck her more was the inscription etched on the side rim: "FOR THE ONE WHO SEES." Natalie didn't know what that meant, but it was hers now. She slipped it into her coat pocket and continued on her way home.

When she did get home, she beelined for her room, shutting the door behind her before either of her parents could brew chaos. Just then, the ticking stopped.

Natalie froze. A chill ran through her, sudden and deep, like the moment between heartbeats when something inside forgets to go on. She pulled the watch from her pocket. It was warm in her palm, familiar. But still.

No tick. No motion.

As if time itself had held its breath. She regarded its stillness as a young child initially may at the passing of a small pet. She wound the watch, and with a sigh of relief, it began ticking, began moving. Something inside her clicked then, like a gear had finally turned in the right direction. In both hands she brought the watch to her chest, feeling almost a synchrony between the beat of her heart and the quick ticking of the watch. There was no dinner that night, or at least she was never called down by her mother to eat. That night, she just laid on her bed, allowing the rhythm of the timepiece lull her to sleep.

When Natalie woke up the next day and got ready for school, she stood in front of her mirror, first at her prosthetic left eye, then glanced at the watch she had found. She picked it up, and pressing it up to her closed left eye, she whispered,

"You fit better than the last one ever did." She put the watch into her pocket and went to school. She walked the whole way alone, without Adrian, but she paid it no mind. Likely with his track friends, she told herself. It felt nice when her presence was desired, but she had also learned not to be clingy. She herself often kept busy with her studies, but they always made time for each other. People get busy. Not everything was about her. That was what the world liked to say, wasn't it? "It's not always about you." But the feeling stayed. Something was off. She kept waiting for the clocks in her life to reset--but instead, they just kept winding tighter. Natalie clenched tight the watch in her pocket, feeling the ticks and the tocks in her grip.

When Natalie arrived and walked through the halls of school, she could feel whispers sliding behind her like shadows. She didn't need to hear the words--she could feel the weight of them, the flick of glances that darted away too quickly. Something was shifting in the ecosystem. She'd always been on the outside, but now there was heat to it--Gossip, amusement, speculation, judgement. She paid close attention to the ticking of the watch still firmly in her grip, yet it only sharpened her awareness--every look, every silence, perfectly timed. She couldn't let herself focus on all of that. Not now. She had class to get to. Quickly--before time ran out. When she sat down in her classroom, she tried to focus on the lecture, but the clock on the wall ticked off-beat from the one in her pocket. She found herself syncing her breath with the one that mattered. Still new, but already familiar. Her new friend. The one that never lied.

The cafeteria buzzed with noise--laughs, trays slamming, shoes scuffling the linoleum--but it all sounded underwater to her, otherworldly. The only sound Natalie could hear clearly was in her head, namely ticking. She reached in her pocket for her watch for reassurance, with a lunch tray in her other hand, but she still felt lonely. Her eye scanned around the lunchroom for Adrian. Fortunately he was above average height, so seeing him through the crowd wasn't too difficult. Quickly she found him on the far side, just as he was sitting down with his lunch tray, and she hurried to sit with him. He looked deep in thought, as he stared down at his meal, so he was caught off guard when Natalie greeted him, sitting across from the table. He smiled back, though his smile looked tied. She hadn't forgotten about what happened this morning, so she gently asked,

"You okay?" Adrian suddenly became pale at the question.

"Yeah, just didn't sleep much," he replied, picking at his food.

"Is that why I didn't see you this morning?" she asked, worried about implications.

"Yeah, I overslept--was late for class." but Adrian could not look her in the eye saying

that.

Natalie's brows furrowed at that. She whispered, "If you keep doing that, you're going to blow your scholarship!"

"It's was just one class," he scoffed.

"One class now, but you think colleges don't notice?" "I've got time," Adrian insisted, stabbing at a fry.

"Not as much as you think," she muttered, casting a sideward glance. That's when she heard his phone buzzing. As Adrian was checking it, she wondered what it was like having one of those. Her parents never got her one, though at times she found that fortunate, seeing how much time people waste on those things. Adrian's smile at whatever was on the screen, piquing Natalie's curiosity, though life had taught her not to get too nosey; instead, she tried to talk to him about one assignment, something just to reach across the table. His answers were clipped, delayed.

"We should meet up later," he said. "Like, after school."

Natalie then nodded, managing a tight smile, "Sure. Everything okay?"

"Yeah, just... later," he assured her. Natalie then, to make up for lost time, took Adrian's hand as they were getting up, implicitly urging him to walk her to her next class. This Adrian did, as was their habit, and once they arrived at her next class, she wrapped her arms around him. She pressed an ear to his chest, but there was no beat, no tick, nor tock. Maybe she just missed the exact location, yet what disturbed her more was the quiet pause in him as he hugged back, like something unsaid had slipped between them. As Adrian left for his own next class, Natalie slid her hand into her coat for the watch. The ticking met her fingertips--steady and calm. Unlike him. He was just tired, she told herself.

After two remaining classes, Natalie grabbed her backpack, and went out to the front of the school to meet Adrian. She saw him standing by the school statue of a weathered scholar cradling a book in one hand. He hung his head down, shifting from foot to foot. She came up to him, stood silent a moment, then said,

"So... you said that you wanted to talk."

Adrian scratched the back of his neck. "I don't think this is working," he finally said. "I've been... thinking a lot."

She didn't flinch. "About what?"

"About us. About the future. And I just think we're going in different directions."

"What do you mean? We're both planning on going to the same school." As he looked away, she continued, "You've been distant."

"Yeah, I'm sorry. I just... I just didn't want to hurt you."

She didn't say anything. The ticking in her pocket filled the silence for her.

Feeling the tension with no clean end, he said, "I... I just need time to figure things out." And with that, he turned on his heels and walked away, leaving Natalie alone next to the statue. After a few minutes, she looked up at the statue towering overhead, noting at the waistline a stony pocket watch. The ticking suddenly got louder, so taking the watch from her coat, she held it near to her face.

"You would never lie to me," she whispered, grateful she wasn't walking home alone.

She started walking, considering the seconds between each footstep she took.

The house was dim when she stepped inside--just past four, but the curtains hadn't been opened all day, Dust swirled in the stale light. Her father was in the recliner, slack-jawed, the bottle half-balanced on his stomach. The television played to no one in particular. Her mother shuffled past in slippers, makeup smudged from the night before, carrying a plate of scorched toast she'd forgotten she made.

"Oh--you're home early," she said, voice too loud, as if startled by her own words. Natalie didn't answer. Her mother offered a lopsided smile, then disappeared back down the hall, already thumbing through her phone. Natalie stood in the doorway in the entryway for a long moment, one hand in her pocket. The ticking was faint, but steady. She didn't cry. She didn't scream. She just listened to the watch. It was the only one who made sense to her.

Natalie helped herself to leftovers from the fridge for dinner and retreated into her room. She set the pocket watch down on her nightstand and when she finished eating. She left the plate and fork at the foot of her bed and went to the window for her soft friend, Fig. She held it tight in her arms, wishing that it might hug back. As she laid in her bed, clinging tightly to her giraffe, the watch ticked audibly, allowing her mind to steady. What went wrong? she thought. She wanted to make sense of it all. Then a thought occurred. She didn't have a phone, but her mother did. Her father's phone was out of the question. She crept out of her room and went quietly to the master bedroom. She opened the door slowly, finding her mother passed out on

the bed, with a glass of wine on the nightstand. She tip-toed towards her mother, grabbed and carefully pulled the iPhone from her mother's hand. She faced the device towards her mother to unlock it by facial recognition and swiftly went for the washroom.

She shut the door gently and opened Instagram. She knew Adrian had an account, knew the username, and pulled it up on the search. There she saw them. Photos of Adrian and... Madison. She hadn't thought of Madison Weaver in years--not really. Not since that sleepover in seventh grade, the night she braided Natalie's hair, and called her prosthetic eye "kinda cool, like a cyborg." It wasn't friendship. More like proximity. They'd share the same lunch table for a semester, swap a few secrets in the dark, before drifting into different circles. Madison laughed too loud, changed best friends like nail polish, and always knew the right people to stand beside in photos. But still, Natalie remembered the braiding. The way Madison asked if they could be "eye twin besties" just for fun. Natalie didn't get it. She liked to pretend that it all meant something, but there she saw on the screen the photos.

Madison was seen draping one arm across Adrian's shoulders, both laughing. The caption read:

"Late-night diner run with this guy. He gets me."

Natalie stared at it until the brightness of the screen had blurred her vision. She didn't scream. Didn't throw the phone. She just set it down carefully on the sink and looked at herself in the mirror. Real eye. Acrylic eye.

"I should have known," she whispered. The room was so quiet, that Natalie could hear the ticking. The ticking? She reached in her pocket and found the watch. Had she grabbed it earlier? She didn't care. The ticking was steady, unbothered. Almost... reassuring.

"I should have known," she said again, but there was no self-pity in her voice now. Just a strange stillness. She wasn't the girl who cried over lost love, she thought so anyway. Natalie had become numb for the moment, but more in particular, she felt tired. Still in the washroom, she cleansed her face, brushed her teeth, went to carefully return the phone to its rightful spot, and went to bed. There under the covers, she held Fig, and since it was too dark to count its spots, she instead counted the ticks of the pocket watch, then fell asleep.

The next day in English class, Natalie sat in the back of class with her presentation ready. The assignment was to choose a theme related to tragedy and explore how it reflects the human condition. She had chosen a passage from Oedipus Rex, something about how suffering and clarity were intertwined. She didn't call tragedy beautiful, but she understood why people tried to. Madison stood up first and walked up the front of the classroom, her cropped cardigan buttoned just high enough, a pair of ballet flats tapping softly beneath the desk as she clicked her slideshow remote. Behind her, a simple slide read:

"Tragedy and the Self: When Grief Becomes Identity"

She smiled, demure and practiced.

"Some people think tragedy builds character, that it makes us stronger, braver, deeper." She paused, eyes scanning the classroom. "But I think... tragedy just makes us strange. We don't heal--we adapt. And sometimes the version of us that survives isn't really better."

A few murmurs rippled through the room. One classmate chuckled. The teacher frowned but didn't interrupt. "Like, maybe grief isn't noble. Maybe it just... distorts us. Like we're still walking around with emotional crutches long after the injury heals."

She let her eyes briefly flick toward Natalie--just for a second, but Natalie, clutching to her hid watch, didn't miss it, sitting perfectly still.

"You see it sometimes," Madison continued, voice syrup-sweet. "People start dressing in mourning even when no one's died. They look at you like you're a suspect instead of a friend. They start to believe their pain makes them special."

Natalie's hands stayed folded in her lap, pocket watch in her palms. She let the words pass through her like fog through trees. No expression, no twitch, but inside, something clicked into place--soft as a cog finding its slot. When the timer chimed and Madison returned to her seat, she smiled like she'd won something. Natalie reached into her bag, pulled out a notebook, flipped to a new page, and began to write. Not in anger, but only in clarity. She started writing down names.

She didn't look at Madison again. There was no need. Something had shifted--quietly, decisively. The room around her dulled, like a set dimming for its next scene, and she saw it all from a step removed. She no longer felt watched. She was watching.

Natalie's thoughts didn't drift anymore--they clicked, like gear teeth meshing. She could hear it now, that quiet turning behind her eyes. Things didn't just happen. They aligned. They revealed their clockwork. She had started marking days in her closet--casual at first, compulsively. Tracking patterns. Documenting betrayals. She watched how people moved. Which teachers played favorites. Which students sharpened their smiles by mirroring someone meaner. She saw it all. The hierarchy. The rituals. The camouflage. It wasn't survival anymore. It was assessment. The world was a mechanism and she was now learning how to wind it.

That night, in her room, Natalie looked into the mirror. First at herself, then to her prosthetic left eye. She removed it from her socket, placed it down onto her desk, and shifted her gaze to the watch next to it. It ticked like it wanted her attention, like it had something important to say. For reasons she couldn't herself understand, Natalie took the pocket watch, considering its small size, and with lids closing her empty socket, she pressed the watch in. First

down behind her lower lid, then pushing more inward, slotting it into place behind her upper rim, snug and nestled, as if it had belonged there. The ticking now resounded in her head. Her breath steady. Her green eye flashed in the mirror, seeming to glow faint against the pale light.

"I see you now!" she whispered, pointing at her reflection. "All of you."