There was only a dazzling light, and then darkness was like the juice spit out by a cuttlefish, so thick that it could choke your throat. Your consciousness was sucked into the vortex and scattered into debris that sank to the bottom.
When I opened my eyes, it was white.
It's so white it's greasy, it's so white it screams, it's as white as the bones exposed after all colors are peeled off. This white will squirm, drill into the skull cavity from the corner of the eye, and form salt crystals in the cochlea.
Click, click
The sound did not come from the outside, but overflowed from the gaps between the teeth, from the gaps in the wrist bones, and from the intervals between heartbeats. It crawled like an arthropod, and the skin rubbed against the white, leaving wet traces - but this white swallowed up all traces. Where is this place...
Then it appeared: the clock
It is as big as a hanging stomach, but the clock face is soft, like melted wax, like a drowned face. The hands convulse on the dial. Halfway through twisting clockwise, an invisible hand grabs the throat, bounces back to its original place, and trembles forward again——
Click, click
It's not walking, it's chewing. It chews its own time in mouthfuls, and silvery debris leaks from between the teeth. Those are the debris of the past, and each grain is filled with a dead memory.
The second hand suddenly arched up, like a nailed centipede, tapping the dial with its joints: da, da, da. Each stroke makes the surrounding whiteness grow an inch deeper, as if it is beating the void into a solid cocoon.
Open your mouth and spit out a clicking sound.
Purpose: Find answers to the past