Age of Gears and Rust

Tick Tock in a Clock

Tick Tock, Tick Tock, each bloody tick tock I grow just that little bit madder. I'm going crazier each second this noise is so loud! Usually the clock is soothing, it reminds me of a heartbeat, but when you're inside of the Great Clock? It's not as calming. I hate coming up into here but I need these spare gears for my newest project. I'm building a ship, one that will fly me far away from this place! I heard that thousands of years ago humans had flying machines that flew them all over the planet and even out to the stars! That is my goal too, maybe not to go somewhere else on the planet but more to a new one. This place sucks.

Finally the last screw comes out of its socket and I pull the gears from the wall and placed them all in my gold-coloured bag. I smile and fling the bag over my shoulder and began to climb down the rungs on the wall. I'm not as afraid of heights as some people here are, I love being up high and looking down at the world, I'm only afraid of what would happen if I jumped, so I keep low to the ground when I'm up on a cliff or something. Here? I love looking down and seeing all the gears spin and the robotic animals click about, trying to fix the place.

But suddenly a call reaches my ears from below me. "Iris! Get down from there now!" I groan at the sound of his voice. My brother, Milo, stood beneath me.

"Oh shut it, I'm coming!" I say and jump down rung by rung. Sadly I reach the bottom and my brother rips the sack of gears from me.

"Stop dreaming of leaving this place! If the original humans couldn't go then you can't either!" Milo yelled. I decide in my head that now is not the time to mention that humans actually did leave the planet, they at least reached the moon.

"I know, Milo, I was just getting some gears for my room and for my outfits." I lie and he takes it.

"Alright, but make sure to tell me next time, I could have gotten you the gears myself." he scolds. I nod and follow him back to the villiage. It's the smallest of the villiages in the district but we live with it, the four families that are here. There aren't any other here because it's the ideal place for intruders to pop up at first, but I've lived here all fifteen years of my life and yet not a single intruder has been found, at least not in this area. Intruders are the aliens from other planets, at least that's what I say they are, everyone else thinks them just as Intruders.

Already I could hear the laughter of the smaller kids and the cries of the babies. I groan, I already had a headache from the clock, the noise wasn't helping. I keep on shuffling my feet into the villiage after Milo and we soon reach our house. We live on our own, the two of us. Our parents were killed by intruders years ago when I was about ten and Milo was thirteen. We could take care of ourselves already so we've lived well since then.

"Iris! Milo!" I hear a voice call out and I turn my head to see Milo's husband Valentine running up to us. His family lived nearest to Milo and I, and we all grew up together.

"Vale! How are you?" Milo asks as our friend gets closer. He's panting and looking exceptionally excited.

"Milo, it's time!" he says and Milo freeses in shock.

"Now? You mean the babies are coming NOW?!" Milo yells and Vale nods hysterically. I grin, I'm going to be an aunt! Milo looks to me and I nod, letting him and Vale run off to the hospital. Vale and Milo are married, yes to each other. That's another reason why our villiage is so small, we accept gay marriage here and my brother and his husband are having twins! Of course they had a donor mother and she's actually a good friend of mine, but she doesn't want a baby. She wants to be alone after her husband left her but she also wants to make others happy. Using the little technology we have, my brother and Vale now get to have twins and be happy. I feel proud of them, for dealing with this so amasingly. They used to get picked on a lot when we all used to live in as different villiage, the one we grew up in, I feel so glad that we aren't there anymore. Also, another problem that they faced together was that Vale was arranged to be married, his family was one of the highest in the social class. Vale explained to his childhood fiance that he wasn't interested, and told her that he was gay. She didn't take it well saying she has a slight.... phobia.... and Vale hasn't seen her since. Milo and I weren't arranged to anyone since we were already near the bottom of the social classes.