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This is just something random I wrote at one point. Feedback/ridiculously harsh critisicm would be nice - if people think it's worth working on, I'll give it a shot.

If you want to read/hear the song that somewhat inspired this, go to http://www.antiquegrandfatherclocks.com/clocksong.php



"Fine, if I can't do anything to him physically, I'll just stick to mind games."
"I don't care what you do. Just don't touch him."
"All right. But I’m warning you, touching him might have been gentler..."


He pushed open the door and walked into the room. It was almost completely empty - no windows, and the only door was the one leading to his cell. A slight feeling of uncertainty began to build up, but he pushed it away. It was child's play to conceal a door. Their pathetic psychological tricks wouldn’t work on him.
He turned his attention to the room’s only objects: an ancient cassette player, and a plain, nondescript girl sitting on the floor. The uncertainty returned. They knew who he was, what he had done. Why was this child here, alone and unprotected?
More mind games. He straightened up and strode confidently across the room towards the girl. She sat, unmoving, facing the cassette player. She barely seemed to breathe as he approached, and made no motion towards the machine - and yet, as he stopped a few feet away from her, threads began to spin, and a tape began to play.
A time-activated cassette player? Not impossible. Child's play, really. He smiled at the irony of the statement; the child before him did not seem at all inclined to play.
Slowly, she turned and looked up at him. A wave of apprehension washed over him as he saw her face. The child was young, with pale skin and large, strangely vacant eyes. As if she felt no fear. As if she did not feel at all. He felt almost trapped by her gaze, unable to keep his soul from slipping into her soulless eyes...
An illusion. A laughably predictable human reaction. A cheap parlour trick, requiring only a suitable volunteer and a pair of contact lenses. Nothing unsettling in the least.
Slowly, his brain registered that the cassette player was, in fact, playing a song. The words were oddly garbled, but with effort, he could make out the lyrics.
"But it stopped - short - never to go again - when the old - man - died."
A strange song to be listening to. A strange song for a strange child. It fit, he had to admit. He wondered what the point of all this was. What were they expecting him to do? Suffer a heart attack from an overload of psychological stress? A wasted effort.
The child continued to stare at him. He drew his mind away from her, focusing on the less-disconcerting of the two occupants. The song kept repeating, over and over, a broken record in tape form. The tune seemed vaguely familiar, though he couldn’t quite place it. Exactly what had stopped?
As if in answer, the girl's focus turned to one of the room’s barren walls. He automatically followed her gaze, knowing full well there was nothing to be seen. No matter how impressive their tricks had been so far, there was no way they could noiselessly slip a new person or ornament into the room.
It was only natural for him to be surprised.
A grandfather clock had apparently materialized out of the wall. Its pendulum swung back and forth in perfect time with the song, each pause accentuated with a gentle tick. He let his eyes follow the pendulum's lazy arc, pushing away the mild panic that was rising in him.
Gradually, he realized that everything in the room seemed to hinge on the motion of the clock. The tempo of the song, the breathing of the girl...the pounding of his heart. It was to be expected - a beat per second was an average heart rate. Why wouldn’t his body naturally synch to a pattern, provided it wasn’t much of a deviation from its normal routine?
The explanation sounded weak even to him.
"But it stopped - short - never to go again - when the old - man - died."
He didn’t really start to be afraid until he realized that slowly, gradually, the song was slowing down. And yet, everything still kept perfect rhythm, each beat and tick growing progressively more drawn out. He could no longer convince himself it was just his imagination when his hands and feet began to go numb from lack of blood. Desperately, he tore his eyes from the clock and faced the girl. Her empty eyes stared back, betraying no emotion.
"But it stopped...short..."
A mind game. A parlour trick. An illusion.
"...Never to go again..."
His breath was short and shallow. A dull pain was growing in his chest.
"...When the old...man...died."
He collapsed to the floor as the clock let out a single peal and stopped altogether.

It's very interesting what you did with the what was a happier little diddy and turned it into a short story.

You are a lot more developed in your writing style than most people I critique so kudos to you there. Short stories are pretty difficult because every detail needs to matter and you did that fairly well.

My first criticism is the beginning. You let us know what's going on and try to set the tone here, but the way you phrased the first sentence just doesn't seem quite right. Instead of sounding like two ominous unseen people talking, beginning the first sentence with "Fine" makes the first speaker sound like an angry child who didn't get what he/she wanted

The only other major criticism I have is in the second sentence and the last sentence.

Second sentence: "It was almost completely empty - no windows, and the only door was the one leading to his cell."
Here is where you can fill the reader's head with your idea of what the room looked like. Instead, you breeze over the details by using a hyphen "no windows". Generally if you use a hypen to add on description you'll want to say at least two things. Try something like "It was nearly empty- no windows, (description of walls) and the single door leading from his cell."

Last sentence: "He collapsed to the floor as the clock let out a single peal and stopped altogether."
It's just not a good way to end a piece.. there's relatively no strength to this sentence.. putting and in any sentence takes away any strength because it's two thoughts rather than one terse thought (you used plenty of this earlier when revealing his thoughts via two to six'sh syllable sentences. Try something like (it's late so this may not be the best example) "He crumpled on the floor as the clock let out it's last peal. Silence filled the room."

La de dah, I'm not generally a fan of short stories, but you write pretty well Keep up the work. I really appreciate your flow. This piece lacks awkward phrases of a new writer that break up the piece.

Thank you I guess I will work on it, then.