The Clock Tower

“Immortality is the natural destiny of humanity.”

The words still ring in my ears as I walk to class the next morning. The leader, now my leader, had spoken for over an hour the night before. His brown robe draped over his shoulders would billow and flutter as he gestured with each point, like an ascetic disciple of a southern tent revival. At first I was skeptical and uninterested. But I had been invited, by special invitation of the leader according the Belle, so I decided to go. I will never regret anything so much. But I am getting ahead of myself.

When I arrived at my class I sat down in my usual spot, and Hal, a short sophomore with dusty brown hair and a perpetual frown, slipped into the chair beside me.

“You weren’t at the Library anymore when I got there last night, where’d you go?” He asked.

“The clock tower.” I said without thinking, and hastily added “I like how it looks at night.” to cover my mistake.

“Oh. I mean, I guess it’s kind of cool. Kind of… haunting.” He said.

Before I could reply Chris slid into the seat next to Hal, with a hoodie pulled down over his face, and grunted a “good morning” that sounded more like the creaking of a rusty old door-hinge.

The professor came in and began the lecture, but I soon lost focus. The words of the leader the night before swirled through my mind still and the professor was simply not as interesting. “So, we pick up again in 1971, when...” The professor droned and as the class period passed the half hour, I dozed off.

I was sitting next to Belle, her long brown hair tied behind her head and out of the way. Others sat in a circle all around the room. Some I recognized, while the faces of others were unclear, as if blurred into the background. Before us, pacing around a ring of candles, the flame glinting off of his golden mask, shaped like the face of an owl with a pointed beak and angry eyes.

“Death is the great enemy. Some say it is an inevitability, but they are fools. Death is no more inevitable than sickness or starvation or striking lightning. No, death can be fought, and conquered. Already he has been cowed by the progress of scientific discovery and developing technology. The trajectory of all human history has been toward immortality. All that remains, his last stronghold, is his fortress of time, where he hides now with doors and windows barred, he -”

Belle jammed her elbow into my side, and I turned to give her an accusing look, only to find Hal in her place. I looked up to see the professor was still lecturing. I looked at the clock. Class was only ten minutes in.

“Sorry.” Hal said quietly when he saw me rubbing my side. “Didn’t want the professor to catch you snoring again.”

"Don't worry about it." I said. "I didn't sleep well the night before. Honestly, I'm so out of it I thought we had been in class at least a half hour already."

"If only we could make it so." Chris mumbled into his notebook.

I Struggled through my classes for the rest of the day, and in the empty time before dinner I found that my feet had taken me to the library again, where I sat daydreaming with my homework neglected on the table in front of me.

“I’m not sure how long I had been sitting there when Belle sat down across from me.

“You got a watch?” she asked.

“It took me a moment to remember the response phrase, but eventually I stammered out “No, but I hear the clock tower ring the hour.”

Without another word she got up and walked out. I followed, leaving my things behind.

As the clock tower loomed ahead of us I asked “So what’s going on? I thought there wasn’t a meeting tonight?”

“You’re right. This isn’t one of the normal meetings.” She said, leading me through a door in the base of the tower and into the same room as before.

There were far fewer of us this time, and there were only a few candles around the edge of the room. The leader, however, was unchanged, wearing the same brown robe and golden owl mask as before.

“My Acolytes,” He began, “welcome once more. It is time to open the vault and bring our sister forth from the darkness. Should we require a new volunteer, I hope you would all be eager. And remember always, we have already ascended, and freely traverse the courses of time. What we do now is simply a matter of bringing our current selves into alignment with our true selves. To use our secret knowledge to take back the reigns and spur time on as we choose. Now come, let us be off to the vault.”

Those who were seated rose, and together we followed the leader out, and down a staircase to a hallway lined with what must have been old faculty offices, now shuttered and locked.

The leader stopped at the end of the hall in front of an old supply closet. We formed a half circle around him and watched as he opened the door.

Inside was an emaciated young woman. I’d guess she was around twenty. Two other disciples crouched down and helped her to her feet, her legs shaking with the effort.

“Daughter, did you find your way?” The leader asked.

Her tears caught the light as she hung her head and whispered a hoarse “I did not.”

“Do not worry child, you will yet, and so you already have. Go and rest now.” The leader said, and the two disciples helped her back along the hallway and up the stairs.

“We need a new volunteer to enter the vault. Who stands ready?” He asked, and his eyes fell on me.

Almost unknowingly, as if by the will of an unseen puppeteer, I raised my hand.

The leader motioned me forward.

“I knew this time would come, even before you joined our society.” He said, as I stepped into the closet. “Now you will be submerged in the dark and quiet. The endless march of time is a constraint imposed on you by your subconscious. Through this submersion you will find freedom from such antediluvian limitations and ascend.”

As he closed me in, I am sure I heard him whisper “I will see you soon.” And then I was enveloped by dark.

I’m not sure how long I was there. At first I was fine, merely bored. Then the anxiety began to set in. The silence was oppressive. My head ached liked it was pinched in a vice. A cancerous fear took hold in my chest. At some point I began to hallucinate beings of light, seven or eight of them, who appeared to offer me the world in it’s various forms.

At the last it became too much and I began to scream. I screamed until I went hoarse and when I could make no more sound the echoes of my screams returned and echoed back and forth along the walls.

When the door finally opened I expected to see the leader, but instead I looked up into the face of a janitor, looking down at me over a bristling mustache. As he and another man, dressed in a brown woolen suit, pulled my emaciated form up from the floor I was surprised to see there were now supplies where I had been in the closet. And as they led me, basically dragging me, down the hall and to the stairs, I saw that the once closed-off offices were lively with the faces of staff and students I did not recognize.

They asked me a lot of questions about who I was and how I had gotten there. At first I was vague, to maintain the secrecy of our society, but when they asked me the year and looked at me like I was crazy when I answered, I started to get frantic. Eventually I was taken to the hospital due to my malnutrition, and I suspect also to put me somewhere I could be restrained. For a long time I stayed there, and continued to deny to myself that the year could possibly be 1971.

I’m still not exactly sure what happened, or how to undo it. I believe that I ascended, but it seems I have fallen again. I have tried the same method since that day, locking myself in dark rooms and fasting for days, but I have failed to replicate the affect. There is some unknown element to that time and place which I cannot repeat.

But I am sure what he said is true. I will see the leader again. He will come for me. I’m certain he can. He himself must have ascended, how else would he know? He was right after all, so he must know, he must be able to come for me! I cannot be the only one, or I might as well put on the robe and wear the mask myself!