Charlie Hawthorne always said the town of Ashford Hollow had a memory. Most people laughed when he said it. Towns didn’t remember things. People did. But Charlie had lived in Ashford Hollow long enough to notice the way certain stories never quite disappeared. They just… waited. The fog rolled in every evening that autumn, thick and slow, like the forest exhaling. Charlie sat on the wooden steps of his grandfather’s old bookstore, Hawthorne & Son, watching the streetlights flicker on one by one. Across the road stood the abandoned clock tower. It hadn’t worked in twenty years. Everyone knew that. And yet tonight, at exactly 7:13 PM— It chimed. Charlie froze. One. Two. Three. The sound echoed through the empty street, low and metallic, vibrating through the fog. Charlie stood slowly, brushing dust from his jacket. “That’s not possible,” he muttered. He crossed the road, his sneakers scraping the pavement. The closer he got, the colder the air felt. The iron gate around the tower creaked as he pushed it open. The clock hands hadn’t moved in decades. They still pointed to 3:47. But the bell above rang again. CLANG. Charlie stepped inside the tower. The staircase spiraled upward into darkness. The air smelled like rust and rain. Then he noticed something strange carved into the stone wall near the entrance. A name. His name. CHARLIE HAWTHORNE And beneath it, carved deeper, older— You came back. Charlie’s heart began to pound. Because the thing was… He had never been inside the clock tower before. At least— He didn’t think he had. Behind him, the tower door slowly creaked shut. And above him, something heavy shifted in the dark. Charlie Hawthorne took a slow breath and started climbing the stairs. Somewhere inside that tower, the truth was waiting. And Charlie Hawthorne was walking straight toward it.
Above is my entry.
