Shrunken heads upon the bed,
Listening intently to what I said.
The melting clock remembers what is lost,
But then they talk.
Without their feet,
They still walk.
The lampshade, an eerie bog.
And what was once a door is a shadow.
There it is, no more.
Within the fog more heads creep.
For this I fear I'm not asleep.
Taking a breath too deep.
Standing here trembling.
Weary and weak.
Yet I muster the strength to speak.
"Who are you? How do you walk? What secrets do you keep?"
The silence stretches, then a raspy whisper escapes one of the heads.
"We are the watchers... the guardians of lost time...the keepers of the dead"
A shiver crawls down my spine.
Guardians? Of lost time?
Again the head whispers in a voice raspy and deep.
"Twist the hands of fate and turn back time. Reset and rewind the clock till half past nine."
I reach to turn the clock's hand back.
A monstrous form stirs from within the crack.
Beneath the bed, where shadows creep.
A thing of nightmares, long asleep.
The guardians cackle, cold and fell.
"We watch, we wait, for time to tell! To see if thou can escape our spell."
My fingers brush the rusted hand.
The clock face melts like shifting sand.
The whispers echo, warped and shrill.
Is this real, or is it my will?
The shadows writhe, the figures bend.
My sanity begins to rend.