Now completely random, the ever pitch-changing ticking was at the forefront of my mind. Even my steps toward golden tower seemed endless. The sirens were my only driving sense, my direction and my guide. The presence of machines rapidly declined as my footsteps drove me closer to the massive door, its hinges larger than myself, the bolts built in my place of previous employment. Small memories spring to mind of days in my home outside of Ignis. The son of inventors and creators, my younger days spent building machines and tinkering with foreign gadgets. Blueprints filled my head, drowning out the sounds which filled it. Those were the extent of my memories. The locks on the great door loosened to reveal the lobby, much less grand than the outside. Smoke-filled and burning with heat, the foyer was as unsightly as it was impressively large. An expression used often in the city was that 'beauty lays within'. As the yolk is to the egg, I was a believer of such expressions and careless to pry into the insides of any of my machines. Not that I didn't see the insides, I know the location of every single wire and circuitry part without need of my visual reception. I did not feel this level of, fear, from those machines. This building, off limits to all, was supposed to be home to the most ingenious inventions of all. Those which were built in The Chamber were beyond comprehension and most exquisite. Screams echoed throughout the halls aligning with the ticking in my head. Their synchronicity terrifying but the machines they were drawn from more so. From one could I recognise the shrieks. The scream from the previous day, although how many days had passed since I was terminated? The body of 279 was strung like laundry across three metallic legs, the head uncovered with familiar eyes that stared blanky into my own. As it croaked words I felt as though all time stopped, a feeling I was oddly familiar with.
'Help me.'