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The ticking of the clock was always the only thing he could hear at night. That, and the tinnitus. A constant ticking; a merciless ringing.
He scratches alchemical symbols into his delapidated bedside table, feeling the wood gather under his fingernails. Sleep will not come easy tonight.
Does it ever?
He can't remember.
As the clock ticks, beating a pattern into his brain, he becomes afraid. As his ears ring at a pitch that could only ever be perceived as cruel - he begins to hear the sound he dreads most.
Tonight, he will have to listen to his own thoughts, yet again.
He could take the batteries out of his clock, he could listen to atmospheric music; but he can never escape himself.
Everything he has ever done wrong stares him in the face, until he is broken.