London, 1620—

  "Carson?" Jack called.

  "Hmm?" Came the reply from his right.

  "What is it?" The voice was Carson's. "Um, didn't you say this clock was repaired?" Jack raised up the clock uncertainly.

  "That thing's ill-fated." Carson waved back,"leave it."

  "But Quartz... "

  "Jack." Carson groaned, pointing his finger towards the "Trash-repairs" box below. For a few moments both stared at each other.

  "... right." Jack nodded, tightening his grip on it. The clock ticked. And ticked. It never stopped.

  "What?" Carson glanced up, frowning. "No... Its nothing." Jack murmured, slowly stepping towards his desk.

  "Are you feeling guilty?" Carson blurted.

  "Huh? I...no." Jack's voice dropped to a whisper. His eyes flicked back to the Trash-repairs box.

  "No, you definitely are." Saying that, Carson pushed back his chair. Step. Step. Step. "Look at me." He said, gripping Jack's shoulders.

  "Its not your fault." He declared. Jack's eyes flickered back.

  "I know." Jack met his gaze. "But this can't go on."

  "Well... " Carson shrugged his shoulders. He licked his lips out, as if plotting something in his mind.

  "Let's run away." Carson grinned.

  "In your dreams..." Jack pushed him back. "Yeah, only...in your dreams." Jack whispered again, head lowered. With no hope in mind, Jack sighed crouching to the trash box.

  "You can keep going with that if that's your wish." Carson grumbled, noticing the movement,his tone fainter. "Just keep me out of it." He waved.

  Jack didn't pay him any attention, with a swift motion of his finger he pulled out the small clock.

  His eyes drooped at the sight of it. "It's moving anticlockwise again..." He said, no longer feeling the familiar creep he once felt.

  "Told ya, it's cursed." Carson frowned, "It's not a clock— look at the way it's hands move. "

  Jack looked at the clock. The hands moved in reverse, "This isn't a well-planned jest, is it?" He gripped the bell on it.

  "Nonsense. It's the sixth month already." Carson flipped a card towards his face. "We are disposing it."

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  His face hardened, "and no excuses, Jack."

  Jack, ever the persisting man, groaned for a second chance for this. "What if some hidden motor of wheel was left unchecked?" He stammered, pushing the clock on the workbench. The dim light from above enlightened the yellowish digits.

  "Well, to remind you, I've already called the company."

  Jack's jaw dropped, "Wha— why'd you do that?!" He yelled.

  "You know how influential Quartz is upon the media?!"

  "I know that, yet it's the best choice." Carson began to pull a box from the drawer which had the same image as that clock. Moments later the clock was packed in. Jack didn't protest, not anymore. He had seen enough of this clock, despite his initial stubbornness.

  "The pick-up man comes tomorrow." Carson threw the box into the trash (not the Trash-repairs box.)

  Jack's eyes no longer wandered back to it, it stood fixed at Carson's.

  "What if they threaten us back? Like, they have done it to us in the past, right?" Jack's voice was husky, his pomegranate lips glistening with saliva.

  "Hah." Carson snapped, "Let them. Who cares?"

  "Oh..? Then what about this shop?" In an instant Carson's grin dropped. Jack was serious now.

  "... Finally getting it? Our entire career is at stake!"

  Jack's eyes flickered with concern, mixed with subtle discomfort.

  "Hmph." Carson grumbled, finally letting of the chair he gripped for so long. The door in front of Jack creaked open, "Bye." Said Carson, unwillingly, before slamming the door shut once more.

  "... " Jack stared in silence. One second, two seconds... Even a full minute passed— Carson didn't come back.

  Jack glanced away, finally turning towards the staircase that led to the exit. The day after that, Jack received a voicemail.

  "Quartz has bought our shop accordingly to our agreement. You resign too, it's better this way. " Saying this, the telephone stopped buzzing. The voice still ringed in Jack's ear, so hollow and lifeless it was.

  Silence loomed over Jack's head. "Got it.." he sneezed in a husky tone.

  — —

  On August 2nd, a teleconference with Retired Horologists Jack Bacillus and Carson Peter, confirmed their anxiety regarding Quartz.

  "We...we, uh, never thought that a company could be this cruel..." Said Jack, stammering over the phone.

  "I understand that sir." The reporter, matched his tone, from the other side.

  The rest of the conference stuck strictly to Jack's point of view. Carson gave his verdict long ago about this, even before he accepted this job.

  "Never in my entire career, have I seen such a clock." Said Carson holding the silver lining of the cursed clock in hand. Everyone in the set, including James Mazzets (a renowned watch maker) was shocked at the anticlockwise movement. "Time-travel medium." Was the title, crime-fiction writers of that time, gave to this tragedy of a business.

  "It's been four months since then..." Jack recalled, flash of that news-article re-surfacing in his mind, his eyes pale as they gazed outside the window of the Eden Complex.

  "Since what?" Said a soothing voice from behind. Jack turned, and his lips instinctively formed a weird grin. "No thing." He stepped towards the woman in a night gown, standing in front.

  Her hands held a pile of yellow papers.

  "Is it completed?" He caressed her hand, holding the pile.

  "It's close to that." Said the woman with the same weird grin.

  "I see, what did you name it anyway?" Jack murmured, " Iris?" He called, with a certain accent that seemed a mix of many.

  "The Cursed Manuscript." Iris, the woman in front, mimicked the accent. "Isn't it alluring?" She smiled, gleaming at her handwriting.

  Jack's grin turned to a laughter. "It's the opposite." He tapped her shoulder.

  "The cursed manuscript, the abominable manuscript and...yes, the curse of the manuscript." He blurted out one by one.

  "It's style!" Iris squealed. Ofcourse, that'd be the case— thought Jack.

  "If you want the publish to even spare a glance at it, " he took the pile from her hand,"Write something else as a title."

  Iris squealed again, "Then you write it! You are just me, aren't you !" She tilted her head at that statement of hers.

  "Ha-ha, that's not why I—" Jack coughed, spitting blood.

  "Aww, are you okay?" Iris crouched.

  "Y-yeah I—" Jack buckled on the mat. The smile from earlier still remained despite the pain.

  "Here, let me help." Iris pulled him up by his arm-pits, as if picking up a one month old.

  "Burp, Jack." She cupped his hollow cheeks. Jack tried to smile but what instead came out was a spurt of blood. On Iris's face.

  "Yuck." Iris gleamed, at her own face in mirror, with red eyes. Jack tried to smile, though it looked more like a skeleton smiling.

  Huh...? Is it really worth smiling?— Thought Jack for the last time, before quietly slipping into unconsciousness.

  After December 26, neither of them were seen ever again.

  "Iris Ukrena and Jack Bacillus— mystery explained!" A news article tilted this, started being published. For two years, nothing, not a single trace was found.

  "Walking with a curse." Previously named "Th cursed Manuscript" was recovered from Iris's flat, the day after their disappearance.

  Authorities reported nothing suspicious on Iris's social life and neither in Jack's.

  "Honestly, Jack was a righteous man. He couldn't have been bewitched by some curse." Said Carson, making a public appearance after years, defending his old friend from the rumours being circulated.

  But that was only a year ago, London's high court finally gave up, when even the longest Investigations held couldn't find a single clue to their escape (That's the theory many journalists came up with, when finding nothing new to print in the newspapers.)