The clock tower stood still as always. It had never moved. The hour remained six, while the minute remained at twenty-four. Multiple utility workers, engineers and clock experts had looked it over, but nothing made that stubborn clock tower move the time. It stood as a terrible reminder of the battle. It reminded the townspeople of all the blood and the death. It brought back the feeling of loss. It reminded mothers of the sons and husbands they had lost that day.
You see, Milsburrow was once a peaceful and happy town. The sun seemed to always be shining, everyone in town knew each other and greeted every stranger with kindness.
That was until the new Mayor came into town. He arrived with his sandy blond hair, his kind eyes with the wrinkles around them that everyone assumed was from smiling. He just looked friendly. He spoke with so much power and passion, he won the election without any opposition. That's when things began to go bad.
He may have looked kind, but the people he put in charge did not. Soon, crime was sky rocketing. The people in power took all of the peoples' money and gave little back. Hours in the mines became unreasonable and the conditions deteriorated from the safety level they were once at. Accidents became a weekly occurrence. All men ages sixteen and up were pulled from school and sent to work from the time the sun rose until the time the sun set. The poor townspeople tried to get Mayor out off a position of power, but he would not allow it. Anyone who dared to oppose him in elections were found dead in their homes. Any protesters were gunned down in the street. Children held hostage until the election was over and fear was used to win every year. The once kind eyes that had tricked the townspeople in the first place now seemed wicked, the glint in his eye represented evil instead of kindness. The wrinkles, they soon found out, were from the scowl he was constantly giving the people he lead.
Once day the people had enough. Word of a revolution crept across the town. Men volunteered left and right, making plans and plotting their time.
No one would forget the day it happened. The powerful look of a town united as the men marched out of the mines before quitting time. Their silhouettes as they walked into the town square to meet the soldiers who had gathered there to stop them. The battle raged on. The once peaceful streets ran red with the blood of the proud rebels spilled into the sewage, not a single man being able to take down the opposing soldiers. Bodies were left in the street and trampled as the battle raged on.
To the women, children and men who had not volunteered cowered in their houses and the screams and moans of the injured and dying floated through the air, mixing with the repeated shots of the soldiers guns. With each shot, the awaiting townspeople knew a life was lost. Each shot meaning a widow, a fatherless child, a sister who lost her brother, and a mother who lost her son. At six twenty four in the evening, a bright green light flashed across the town along with a loud noise, one no one had heard before. A smoke surrounded the town.
Finally, all quieted and the soldiers marched back to the City Hall to meet Mayor. The townspeople emerged from their houses to help move their neighbors dead bodies from the middle of the town and try to find their family members. There were no survivors. Mayor enacted a strict curfew, no one was to talk to each other or even have the time. After the streets were clean, the people went about their lives, mourning the loss of their loved ones, but unable to bury them. Mayor had all of the bodies collected and burned in the middle of town, the smell of burning human flesh filled the town for days. A soldier was assigned to each house, making sure the occupants were not plotting something like this to happen again.
Still to this day, a soldier lives in each house with a family. People are to go to school or work and then go straight home, soldiers positioned across the town to halt any whispered plans of attack. The townspeople live as slaves and everyday they look up at that clock, frozen in time to when the last rebel fell down, hit by the bullet. They look up at that clock and remember. They pray everyday that someone comes to save them, to help them with this hell they now live in. But no one ever comes, and no one ever will.
You see, that green smoke and that loud noise was a bomb the Mayor ordered. It killed all the townspeople. Now, their spirits walk everyday, living in hell and not knowing they are dead. They will live all eternity under the thumb of a ruler who has been dead the whole time, and who just decided to take his town to where he was. All eternity in a hell they can never escape from.