.......Paradise for any of us would be back in the past, but this is the present; we cannot escape it. We have attempted to put up with this inhumane lifestyle....this clockwork lifestyle. However, one day, we will either lose to the machines running this world or we will break down in an effort to annihilate it. The result of staying in this world would be one of those outcomes.
.......On the other hand, we humans could avoid these fates if we found a way to depart from this realm. We still have hope. Even so, that hope is beginning to fade the longer we stay here......
.......A worried shake woke me from my contemplating, following a sweet, comforting voice. "Are you not feeling that well? Don't worry, tomorrow will be better." Tomorrow will be better....... That was always what Mion, one of the only humans here and one of my dear friends, said to me whenever I looked troubled or upset. Her voice was a soothing melody to heal an aching heart. When she wanted to be, however, Mion would seem like the most businesslike human you had ever seen. Everyone envied her for that such reason.
.......Her green hair was propped up in a pony tail, with shaggy bangs framing her face. Just like her sister, her eyes were a relaxed green. Mion's sister Shion looked and acted almost exactly the same, except her hair was down with a white bow on the back of her head.
.......I aroused my head from my knees, where it currently lay. "Perhaps the coming day will hold promise. It all depends on our actions." Her eased expression told me she understood my talk, and following that she nodded. "At least come and get some sleep. You can sleep by me, if you prefer." Shion, Mion, and I were in our late teens, so we didn't exactly have womanly voices, you could say. We had just average female teen voices, Shion and Mion sounding identical, which they obviously were.
.......Grabbing her outstretched hand she offered, I yanked myself to an upright stand. Mion took me to her room, which was a sodden looking place with only a blanket held up by a stick, giving it a tent affect. Even though we are forced to live in a mansion, the conditions for living aren't that positive. It's only the owner of this mansion, an evil commanding man, who gets the high standards. If it wasn't for that monster, this nightmare might not even exist. Stopping him would be no easy task, for he has power beyond imagination. That power has come from creation of this realm, his realm.
.......As I lied down on the blankets on the ground next to Mion, I pulled out a blue notebook. This seemed to perk Mion's interest. "What's that? A journal? A diary?" Pulling out a pencil from the spiral on the side, I replied, "You could say. I was just going to discuss events so if anyone finds this in the future, they have an idea of life at this time."
.......Her eyes widened. "I see! Kind of like an artifact!" She began to whisper, "If the master were to find it, though, he would burn it to ashes and punish you." My eyes calmly closed as I tried to hide my emotions. "I don't care about the owner, he won't find this. Besides friends, this is the most important thing to me. I will not, repeat, will NOT let him catch it." Suddenly, Mion's eyes turned slightly cold. "Just know your own limits, and don't go beyond them. Seeing you get hurt for that reason would awaken my temper, and without hesitation I would kill every one of these despicable cyborgs."
.......I knew I had gone over the line, so quickly I changed the subject. "What should I start with first?" Blinking away her anger, she guessed, "How about just a summary of daily life?" Nodding my head, I opened up the first page and began to transfer my ideas:
Day: Day 31 in Clockwork Realm
Month: Unknown
Year: Possibly around the beginning of the 22nd century
Human Name: Sarah
Given Clockwork Name: F. Snaplock
Dear Reader,
Congratulations on finding this item. Destroying this notebook in any form would bring disaster, so I encourage you not to try that. This world is a clockwork society, where most things are made of gears and screws. The air is polluted with smoke, so much as where the sky is a light orange covered in clouds, day and night and every hour of the day. The "population" here were previously human, but after undergoing many surgeries, were transformed into clockwork robots. "Surgeries" are events that take a long period of time. What occurs in this event is that each day, part of a human is taken out and a clockwork piece, like a gear, is exchanged with it. The human may undergo little or much pain, depending on the piece of them removed. The length of time the surgery takes depends on if the person, or their body, is cooperative or not. There have been many failures, some of which live and some of which that have died. Living failures go to a place underground, like a prison cell. They are left to die. Once you have all clockwork parts in you, you will lose all control of your human mind. From then on, your body, your soul, is now a machine that the other cyborgs can manipulate. Of course, there is an evil mastermind behind all this. He controls all the clockwork, and he designed this clockwork world. It's his fault that humans are almost extinct. Besides me, there are three other humans that are still in the surgery stage. We currently reside in the mansion of the creator of this realm. During the day, we are forced to do chores for him. Life for us has almost gotten to the point of his control. That is why we must flee. Even though I have no acceptance from the male human, I will save him along with the two twin girls. The only solution is to escape to the past...so far, I have found no way to do so. Though, that does not mean there is no light at all on this gloomy path........
.......Realizing Mion was asleep, I mutely shut the notebook and stuck the pencil back in its area in the spiral. Where was there to hide this book? Scanning the room, I found a crack in the wall just the size my notebook could fit into. There was no sign of any clockwork creatures, so I squeezed the book in as best as it could fit. I crept to the blanket tent on my hands and knees, then lied down next to Mion to have a long, peaceful doze.
*****
....... Being the early bird I was, I awoke from my dormancy before anyone, even the clockwork, was up. The seemingly motionless clocks told the time as 4:00 AM. Instinct told me it was morning. In the morning, the chores I had to do included scrub the floors, oil the clockwork servants, check the gears on all the machines in the mansion to make sure they function properly, and then go back to the owner to receive more chores of his choice. In order to make the humans adapt to the machine lifestyle, we aren't fed any food. Stealing from the city is the only way we get food. Apparently, some machines horde food like there's no tomorrow. If for any reason you did not listen to orders, you would be physically hurt as punishment.
.......Physically harm, in the owner's point of view, was adding an extra gear to you. It was probably the worst among punishments. Getting ready to do the day's chores, I shoved myself up and walked into the hall. Chore number one would be to check the gears on the machines, so I hurried myself to a certain room that held many odd machines.
.......Opening the door, I noticed a man just a few feet away sitting down leaning against the wall. As far as I knew, he was the only male human. His silver hair swept over his left eye socket, which he scratched all the time. Rumor was that when putting a gear near his eye the man fought back, making the surgery damage his eye. His eye was infected, but he accepted no medical treatment because of his hate for machines. Whenever someone tried to converse with him, he would either ignore them or attempt to shoo them off.
.......Pity was what I felt for the poor man. He was pretty rebellious, so he didn't do many chores. Why didn't he want to talk to anyone? Wasn't he sad or even lonely? It was a guarantee that he was lonely, because his countenance always held something, like longing.
....... At the moment, I wanted to cheer him up so much that I approached him. With his only eye, he glanced up at me. I almost winced as I read his empty, hopeless expression. Trying my best to sound optimistic, I greeted him, "Good morning, sir." I felt taken aback when, with hostility, he replied, "How are you cheerful when you know you could die at any moment?!?" Tears threatened to form at my eyes. "I-I'm sorry, sir. I'll be on my way now."
.......Even before I turned around he replied, "No, forgive me. That was inappropriate behavior." Stunned, I turned around to make sure it was him talking, which it was. "Don't worry; it's 4:30 in the morning, I really shouldn't disturb others now." To make it seem like I was being honest, I even smiled. My theory was that he bought it, because he blushed and asked, "Then sometime later perhaps?"
.......Raising his arm, he pointed to something on the ceiling. Following his arm, I saw he was pointing to a security camera. To say, 'Let's hang out at a so and so time' wouldn't be safe because then someone would obviously want to spy on them. Someone usually meant the owner, whom of which this man had a great loathe for. Before leaving, I asked, "What is your name, sir?" Just by seeing him, I could tell I did in fact cheer him up. "My name.....I will reveal that later."
.......Being teased made me feel exceptionally happy. So happy that the rest of the day I was positive. Actually, make that half of the day, for when the owner assigned me more chores, that lowered my optimism. Even his presence frightened me. That was the same with everyone, though. The evil from him was so fierce no one dared defy him sometimes. It was always a relief when he dismissed you.
.......Soon after finishing my chores, I walked into a room with a blanket tent like Mion's. Mion and Shion were gathered there. Every night before bed, we would gather in this useless room and chat about many topics: how our day went, our opinions, and many times, how to escape. Finding an escape would require patience, for we had no clue where to go.
.......Shion shook my shoulder. "Hey, you know......I saw you talking to that man, the one with one eye. How did you get him to talk?! He doesn't treat anyone like that!" Mion slightly chuckled, and answered, "I think he has taken a certain liking to her~" Her twin playfully slapped her on the back. "How can you be so sure, sis?" "Just look at the way he suddenly watches her. You don't find that one bit unusual?" This conversation was making me blush.
