The Tick Slowed Each Time He Killed an Innocent

Charls had stayed near that sound now for almost thirty years. Just recently he had stayed on the beach just feet from the waves. It was a gentle sound and it was good. But the fifth week he had feelings of madness. And the sound of waves was the only sound around. The weather had turned rainy and all the other tourists were gone. Humanity had left the beach. He didn’t know how much longer he could take the sound.
It might drive him mad.
Random walk, random walk…Ragnarok, Ragnarok…tic…tic…tic…Bang—
In this case the tick was in Charls head, but it had been ticking for at least thirty years and he wasn’t getting any younger. He could not escape it. If he drank too much in the evening, the tick would go away. But as if woken by a clock, the tick would come back the next day and be regular again.

The tick slowed each time he killed an innocent victim. He was not a killer. He didn’t think he was insane. But that tick. It had to be extinguished before someone else extinguished another candle’s flame that would have dire consequences. He was being asked to kill. His idea at first had been revenge for some grief he had suffered that he had not committed any crimes that would make that grief just in his mind. But it soon spiraled like the tower into something much more than his original plan and into a plan that was not of his own making. Near the end the tick turned into CHarLie. CHarLie had a plan of his own and when CHarLie spoke Charls listened. You see CHarLie now occupied a part of Charls mind; a part much too near his soul to allow him to retain his sanity. And now this man was occupying his bungalow with him on the beach.

Tick…tick…tick… “Hey Charls, this is CHarLie speaking now, don’t worry the ticks are gone.” That voice was terror enough, but one morning on Elephant Island as Charls had just been ready for a new day, CHarLie appeared in person. It was more terrible than he had dreamed. CHarLie made it clear to him that the tick was counting down days to Armageddon. Eventually, another voice asked him to try to reverse the process already on the edge of no redemption.