By Ellis Murphy, TIWP Student

I sit in the waiting room. The clock ticks, the pendulum swings. I look back at how I got here. At the series of events that led to this moment. The clock ticks, the pendulum swings. I remember the people chasing me. The woman in the alley. “Come with me if you want to live,” she had said. The clock ticks, the pendulum swings. I remember her pulling me along the back alleyways of the city as the pursuers began to catch up with us. The clock ticks, the pendulum swings. “Run!” she had said. I did but not fast enough. Now here I am in this strange room. Clock ticking, pendulum swinging. “We’re ready for you,” a man says. I nod and get to my feet, walking through the door away from the ticking clock and swinging pendulum, and into the last room I will ever see.