A watch? What watch?
The mention of a watch on the letterhead made Logan's heart flutter slightly.
The coolness of metal was coming from the lining of the jacket at the moment, but it wasn't the familiar clacking of gears that he remembered.
It was!
Memories of my father's age-spotted palms resting on the silver dial, the bracelet dropping in an arc like a raindrop on a cornice. That day, the sound of the rosewood box unsealing woke up the swallows in front of the hall, the sound of the gilt gears biting together mixed with the salute of the superintendent's investiture ceremony, and shook off a few grains of sycamore pollen on my mother's handkerchief embroidered with the juxtaposition of lilies.
"To capture the light of day like a thief." The phlegmatic sound in my father's throat was wrapped in coolness, and the moment the cowhide watch was clasped onto my wrist bone, the hand actually trembled gently against the direction of the rain.
Something seems wrong!
The object found was a pocket watch! Pocket watch body gold color, a rather long chain connected to the case with a mandala flower, he secretly pressed the right side of the case of the dark button, the case popped open, the dial on the needle quietly pointing to an Arabic numeral - "85".
The gold-colored pocket watch did not display the time like other pocket watches, but instead displayed a large series of Arabic numerals ranging from 0 to 100, with the hand on top jumping from time to time, but the range was probably hovering between "81" and "87".
I snapped the cover back on and carried the watch on my chest, but strangely enough, the cowhide watch my parents had given me had disappeared.
Lost?
Logan quietly pondered the various things along the way, he did not have any big action, basically, the cowhide watch is impossible to get rid of.
While thinking, the mechanical sound of the second hand turning came from his chest.
That's not the place where you put your pocket watch?
Logan suspiciously pulled open the shirt in front of his chest, and under his astonished gaze, the pocket watch transformed into the appearance of a cowhide watch being strung up on a golden bracelet and hung around his neck, and the time displayed on it was exactly the current time!
"Hell no." Logan heard his own hoarse voice.
"Twenty-three minutes past twenty." The numbers on it showed the present day time.
Everything around here seemed a little off!
He ghosted the pocket watch close to his chest, the sound of the second hand moving suddenly resonating with his heartbeat, jolting his chest, and gripping it, Logan tried to understand what the hell this thing was.
The pocket watch made a pendulum motion as it hung down on itself, once, twice .....
Unconsciously, that pocket watch actually swung without wind for two minutes before it began to slowly stop. During this period, nothing happened, as if it was a combination of a plain pocket watch and a cowhide watch.
When the pocket watch came to a complete stop, the current sound of the entire apartment suddenly disappeared.
"Knock, knock, knock!" The door to the room was knocked on, and Logan put away the pocket watch and hung it back on his chest.
As his hand touched the metal-colored doorknob, a hint of something strange flashed through Logan's mind.
"Who is it!"
Logan shouted towards the door.
No one answered, and the entire hallway fell into dead silence.
A trace of panic flashed inside Logan's heart, grabbing the "companion" in his hand and loading the bullets one by one.
When he finished loading, he pulled the safety off, holding the revolver and slowly leaning towards the door.
Blue pupils emerged from the cat's eye, which appeared to be blocked from the outside in as the field of vision went black.
Logan swallowed hard, but quickly calmed down internally, as these things had been seen a little too much lately.
"Knock, knock, knock!"
The first knock on the door was as light as a spider dropping its web, but the second was wrapped in a groan of warped metal as the entire door was clanged, the rotting steel door with some age seeming to burst open!
"Who! Who is it!" Logan bellowed, still no answer.
Unlike just now the door opened itself from the inside out! Like an invisible hand was manipulating it!
There was only darkness in the retina! The cold light kept flickering, the range of light getting smaller and smaller, like some unknown creature was devouring the light!
Finally! The cold light couldn't hold on any longer and burst like a firework, the fragments falling to the ground without a sound!
Sound! The sound was also swallowed by the darkness.
The darkness tumbled in like a living thing as the rotting steel door caved in on itself, devouring the light swifter than a bullet.
"Bang! Bang! Bang!"
Logan fired several shots in a row, but the bullets didn't have the slightest response as if they were stuck in the mud, and as the darkness completely enveloped him, he felt his body as if it was being grabbed and torn by a pair of giant hands, and his entire consciousness became groggy.
But soon, the whole person was wrapped by a burning breath, the golden pocket watch mandala pattern in the retina branded with burning spots of light, the watch chain hanging down when the wind chime-like ringing, its in the darkness glittering! In the sudden burst of golden light from the pocket watch, Logan saw his shadow elongated into a twisted cross.
Everything around him was instantly visible!
The entire black space was illuminated by the pocket watch! The pocket watch seemed to be flowing with some kind of golden substance, constantly circulating and glowing.
Everything disappeared, and Logan was currently standing outside a door, a greenish-black bronze giant door!
The giant door was inscribed with countless strange creatures, the kind of creatures that shouldn't appear in the world seemed so ugly and horrible, and what was even more frightening was that the countless magical creatures on the most recent reliefs of the doorway were turning their pupils in unison, their sharp claws cutting phosphorus flames on the surface of the bronze, and they were all looking towards Logan, who was less than one percent of the door's height!
"Rumble!"
Accompanied by a sound of gears grinding together, the huge greenish-black door slowly opened, and the scarlet-sweet scent poured out.
Vomit! Logan dry-heaved as the door opened completely the instant he looked down!
A red carpet rolled out of the door itself, the red carpet came out with body heat, Logan distinctly saw capillaries floating between the fabric lines, spreading all the way to his feet.
Looking up, the dystopian scene of a long palace banquet featured ice-carved wine marigolds filled with fluorescent blue liquid, and tables made of massive marble set with an assortment of silver dinner plates piled high with the still twitching limbs of unknown creatures. Both sides were neatly filled with guests, but the guests were steeped in the same demons and ghosts that were carved on the door when they entered, but they seemed to be inhibited by some kind of power and generally sculpted, motionless and fixed in place, and some of them still retained the same movements as when they ate.
The stone table was long and flanked by guests as far as the eye could see!
As Logan surveyed the palace's long banquet, the red carpet lifted Logan up and flew straight over the monsters toward the depths of the palace, so fast that it nearly shook Logan off several times.
"Wait!"
Logan wanted to stop the carpet's movement, the carpet seemed to understand his meaning, the speed slowed down for a moment, and his whole person could stand on it in a stable manner.
Where was this taking me?
He knew he could no longer stop the red carpet, and it didn't seem to mean him any harm.
After a two-minute flight, Logan could finally see the end of the stone table, an immense, unbelievably large bronze throne, the backrest of which flowed with strange patterns, and tens of thousands of guest silhouettes shimmered brightly on its surface, as if the entire history of civilization had been wrought into this seat that housed a river of stars! The space above it could be filled with almost every guest present! This no longer belonged to the realm of creatures he could comprehend!
Seven or eight seats away from the bronze throne next to it were empty, the monsters on them nowhere to be seen!
The red carpet lowered him to the ground, and as he stared in shock, a buzzing sound rang out, and the space around him shifted, and countless monsters rose from the ground in the illusory past!
Logan held up his hand in the air, thinking there was a chance, albeit a slim one, that this would work!
The monsters paid no attention and toasted themselves, the master of the Bronze Throne was nowhere to be found, but soon the monster closest to the left side of the Bronze Throne seemed to say something that caused the monster on the right side to become angry, and the two fought at the banquet.
At that moment, a large group of monsters, led by the monster on the left, completely ignored the right monster's red-tinted gaze and cut through space to leave in style.
"Betrayers shall be punished to death." The words were ringing directly in his medulla, and instantly the image shattered!
When the illusion shattered, Logan actually re-stood in the room, the golden light of the pocket watch in his hand visible.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)