On the Hour

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On the Hour

Sophie Rimmer 10R _                                        24th November

I aimlessly flung my limp hand sideways, crashing the dock had to control the incessant ringing. Who would have thought such a tiny object could produce so much ceaseless noise. The clock lost it’s footing and careered sideways off my table catching the wire to my light which in turn dragged itself and my prestigious school cup off my desk. I grimaced as I heard the various objects make metallic crashing noises on to my hard floorboards. I struggled to open my eyes, they were glued shut and I could feel the light penetrating my eye lids. I bundled up my duvet and hurl my ungainly body off my bed, pounding my feet hard on the already disorganised floor.  A strong ultraviolet ray peered around my heavy dust ridded curtains, casting an unnaturally eerie, warm light over my bed.  I stretched my big toe to the clock and rolled it over.  it read 7:40, nearly eight o’clock.  My eyes could just pick out the digits.  I stumbled over the junk on the floor and kicked open the door with my heel.  The house was silent, the lack of noise was deafening.  This was unusual on a weekday, usually my brother Mark was awake and my dad often sipping coffee and putting the world to rights at the kitchen table.  

Grabbing my dressing gown from the door I lumbered downstairs, the deathly silence creeping up on me like an ogre.  The serenity made me tiptoe as I felt insecure with the amount of noise I was waking.  I peered over the banisters, it was still fairly dark being the winter, but I could see shadows of normally familiar objects look deadly.  I crumbled down the stairs, losing my footing on the last step and hurtling towards the wall. I reached fast enough to push my hand against the wall and break my fall.  I sighed, and noticing the noise I had made, went quiet.  Once I had got over the shock it was only then I noticed a sticky substance on the wall.  I pulled my hands away and cupped them, drawing them into my chest.  Straining my eyes I was a reddish hue tinting the tips of my fingers.  Blood.  Red Blood.  Human Blood.  I rolled my hands over, checking them quickly for cuts.  There were none.  My heart gradually picked up speed and began to beat faster, I was fearing the worst as I always do, but I didn’t know what the worse could be.  My head was buzzing, full of bizarre ideas straight out of a Stephen King novel.  I shook my head, think, think of what?  I shuddered, I pulled myself out of my not so dreamy daydream.  I stared towards the solid kitchen door.  It what a murky white, in a DIY store it would be called eggshell or something equally original, indicating they sloshed a bit of yellow or brown into some white and whacked a tenner on top of the price.  The solid wooden door was only kept shut at nights, to stop the dog from disturbing everyone at 2 in the morning.  It occurred to me that for once she wasn’t whimpering loudly, she must have still been asleep.  On the bottom portion of the doors were greyish scuff marks of people’s shoes where they had kicked the rather stiff door to make it open.  The gold door handle was doing its best to sparkle but the dirt encrusted around it made it’s efforts seem like a rather feeble attempt.  Where the door had been chiselled away for decoration you could see little chips coming out of the wood, where the pain was starting to wear away.  That door was probably the only bit of our house that we never bothered to replace when we moved in.  The ornamental carving was so carefully done it must have been hand made.  The flourishes at each end entwined with the lavish curls looked so out of place when the hall was used as a rubbish tip.  In an odd way it suited out house, I stared at it, it had some kind of magnetism that drew me closer to it, and almost like a puppet my arm was pulled up by the wrist and my hand floated gently over the handle.  The metal was cold and I wriggled my fingers in discomfort as I twisted the handle around and jabbed at the door with my foot.  I jittered forward as the door swung wide open, taking my right arm with it.

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The room was quite, the only sound being the humming of the washing machine in the laundry room.  Straight in front of me sitting on the table was an envelope, I presumed it was just a letter for my mum or dad.  I wandered over to the table, yawning as I noticed the clock still only read just before eight.  What I thought was a  letter turned out to be a piece of paper, crisply folded in half with a small piece of sellotape expertly stuck dead in the centre holding it down.  I picked it up and I ...

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