Chapter 1 - Family

There’s the sound of plane engines chugging overhead. The whistling sound of bombs as they fall. Then the moment of silence. The moment of decreation, when fire rises from the sky in that familiar mushroom shape. The world is crackling and fizzling in the light of eternity as angels scream from on high.

The moment crescendos, and then it stops.

The classroom shudders, and Marrow wakes up. He lifts his head as the vibrations cause dust to fall from the ceiling. He looks around, blinking the sleep from his eyes. The projection on the wall shakes, and then falls still, bringing the nuclear blast back into full view.

Miss Anderson turns the film projector off, and flips the lights back on. She glances around the room with a concerned expression on her face, as if to make sure the school doesn’t fall in on itself.

“Alright,” she says, clapping her hands together. Some of the students are still half asleep. They’ve heard about the old war too many times now. “I hope some of you took notes, or at the very least paid some sort of attention. As a reminder, we will be having the final test this Friday, so please–”

The bell rings. Chairs squeak on the floor as the students stand up, shoving books into bags and shuffling through papers.

“Please do not forget to fill out and submit your forms, your volunteer time starts after graduation, and you do not want to be–”

Marrow grabs his canvas messenger bag, and begins loading his books, notes, and various doodles now stained with drool into it. The other students wash out of the room like water, the final weeks of school building up anticipation, and an angst to get out. To move on to what’s coming next.

“–You do not want to be late. I can and will call your parents to ensure that everything is in order–”

The intercom crackles to life, announcing the New Day Festival, later that afternoon. Not to mention, with school almost out, students are to ensure that all of their belongings are cleared out from their lockers by six o’clock on Saturday.

“Marrow, can I speak to you?” 

Miss Anderson’s voice catches him with one foot out the door. He winces, because he knew this was coming, it was only a matter of time. It was one of those inevitabilities you could only delay for so long.

“Yeah, sure,” he says, stepping over to her desk. He’s the last one left in the classroom. Miss Anderson pauses for a moment to rub her temples, take a deep breath, then reaches into a draw and pulls out a form.

“Have you filled out your application yet?” She asks.

“Yes,” Marrow lies. “I just forgot it at home.”

“Marrow.” Miss Anderson slides the form across to him anyway. She knows. “We’ve talked about this. I understand that your mother is a traveling nurse, but I’m not incapable of communicating with her. We’re both…” she searches for a way to say it. “Developing concern with your… reluctance.”

“I know,” he mumbles, glancing away. “I just… I think I’m a little nervous about what comes next I guess.”

“I know that it can be nervewracking,” she says. “When you walk into that golden room, and you stand before the Heartface, you feel like your soul has been cut open. Like the Grandfather itself knows you, and knows who you are. It’s intimidating, for a year you’re going to be a part of whichever class the Heartface assigns, but the way I look at it is like another year of school.”

She reaches up to her neck, and pulls at a small bronze chain, showing off the pendant attached to it. It’s a bronze clockface, with a sun at its center, and beams of sunlight acting as the hands of the clock.

“I was chosen to be part of the convent,” she smiles wistfully. “It was there that I learned of my love for teaching, and it’s how I found myself here, at this school, teaching you. Marrow, the Grandfather is more than a clock it’s… something greater. Something more. I believe that, and I believe that it helped me find my purpose in life. I really, and truly think it will do the same for you.”

“Right. Thank you,” he says with a half hearted smile. Miss Anderson scrunches her nose and slides the paper a little closer.

“Don’t forget,” she says, “time is ticking.”

Marrow steps out of the classroom, and a girl almost immediately bumps into him. She has long curling brown hair, and short bangs. Her eyes are almost orange at the center, and green at the edges. Her skin is honey, and red at her warm cheeks.

“Dude, did you feel that tremor?” She asks. She’s wearing an oversized gray bomber jacket with some colorful patches on either sleeve. Beneath it she wears an army green t-shirt, gray shorts, and clunky combat boots that thunk as she walks.

“Yeah, what was that?” He asks.

“No clue,” Maybel shrugs. “Anyway, what took you so long to get out of class? I was waiting on you.”

“Miss Anderson wanted to talk to me,” Marrow says, pressing his lips tight. “About… the… forms.” He tries not to look, but he is keenly aware that Maybel Holloway is giving him one of her trademark glares.

“You still haven’t filled those out?” she scowls. “Dude, you’re going to get arrested.”

“They don’t actually do that,” Marrow shakes his head.

“Maybe not, but it is a legal thing, and they probably will arrest you eventually,” she grumbles. “Just fill it out, alright.”

“I will,” he sighs, “because you’re right. It’s mandatory, and there’s nothing that I can do about it, and I just need to accept the inevitable.”

“I just don’t understand why it's such a big deal to you…” Maybel trails off as she dodges an oncoming student. “Hey! Watch where the hell you’re going pal.” She snaps, threatening the careless student with the hazel fire in her eyes.

“I swear,” she continues, shaking her head. She seems to calm down for a moment. “Do you uh, wanna talk about it?"

The truth was that Marrow had tried talking to his friends about it. He’d tried talking to his mom, and he’d tried talking to Miss Anderson, but for some reason, none of them seemed to get it. He wasn’t sure if that was their fault, or his. 

The form was filled out, it was at home, on his desk. All he had to do was sign it, and bring it. What should have been something so easy, had now become one of the hardest things that Marrow had ever had to do.

He opens his mouth to speak just as they turn the corner to the main hall. Most of the students are clearing their lockers of all but the essentials. Others are catching up with old friends, and doing their best to promise they’ll keep in touch.

And then there was Gray Pendleton. He was making out with Cecilia Jones against the lockers.

Marrow freezes, his mouth still half open. He glances from Maybel, to Gray, and then back to Maybel.

Her lips curl upwards in a smile that could only be described as sweet, and polite. Then she cracks her knuckles, and starts stomping towards them. The crowd of mingling students parts as they hear the clomping of combat boots. A sound quite familiar around the school. A sound that Gray Pendleton caught just a moment too late.

“I swear to god, Pendleton,” Maybel socks him in the shoulder with a punch that Marrow feels across the hall. Gray flinches and takes a step back, rubbing his shoulder.

“Ouch,” he half grimaces, half smiles. He’s taking it surprisingly well. His silver blue eyes flash, and he brushes some of the coal black hair out of his face. “That one actually hurt. You’re getting pretty good.”

“You give me way too much practice,” Maybel snaps, her eyes squinting at Cecilia, who still seems to be entranced, her eyes locked on Gray. “What did we say about this kind of behavior?”

“Fine, fine,” Gray puts his hands up in surrender, then reaches over and brushes a stray hair out of Cecilia’s face, and mouths the words, call me.

He gets socked again.

“Okay, okay,” He half laughs, half groans. “I’m done, I’m sorry.” Maybel turns away with a huff and crosses her arms, glaring at everyone and everything.

Marrow approaches the two of them with an apt amount of caution. They are his best friends. They could also be mildly dangerous, and he did not want to get caught in that crossfire.

“Are we uh,” he swallows nervously. “Still going to the New Day Festival?”

“Yes,” Gray says confidently, having regained his composure. He tries to put his arm around Maybel, but she shrugs him off. “And to make it up to you, I will buy all the snacks.”

“All of them?” Maybel cocks an eyebrow. “Even the really expensive pretzel thing that I like?”

“On me,” he puts a hand to his chest. “Scout’s honor.”

“You’re not forgiven, but it is a start.” Maybel storms off, and the two of them begin to follow.

Marrow can’t help but smile. He’s known the two of them for as long as he can remember. He wasn’t exactly sure how, but when they were little, like really little, they became friends, and they’d just never stopped. They’d taken baths together, shared the same slice of watermelon, had countless sleepovers, attended all the same schools, and most of the same classes and…

And it was all going to end.

Just like how the world before had ended.

The school hallways are filled with the posters that act as a constant reminder that Marrow had run out of time. They depicted a clock tower, the biggest clock tower in all of human history. It stands in the city center, dwarfing all the buildings around it. 

The Grandfather.

“Hey, Mars,” Gray says in a quiet, conspiratorial tone. “On a scale of one to ten, how mad do you think she is at me?”

Marrow doesn’t answer immediately. He watches how Maybel walks, how she glances at the other students, and how her arms are still crossed.

“I’d say a six or a seven,” he says, weighing the odds. “Probably a seven, but come on man, Cecilia Jones? Really?”

“What?” Gray scoffs. “She's hot.”

“She’s a distraction,” Marrow grumbles, and it came out louder than he meant it to.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Gray shoots a look at him, but Marrow knows he’s already said too much. He doesn’t want both of his best friends, his only friends, to be angry their last week together.

“Nothing,” he shrugs, trying to get off the subject. “But I do think you also owe me a pretzel.”

“Hurry up, idiots,” Maybel calls back at them. “We’re going to miss the tram.”

Marrow and Gray catch up with her, and the three of them weave through the crowd of kids, ducking and dodging until they reach the cool outside. It’s refreshing in the way that summer turning into fall is. Crunchy brown leaves fall from the trees along the sidewalks, and in the city park ahead, the yellows and oranges are spread across the cityscape.

The three of them jump into a railway car, several of them are lined up in the front of the school. As soon as they do, the doors shut behind them. The tram is full, and they have to awkwardly shuffle towards the last empty seats in the back.

As they do, Marrow can’t help but overhear the voices and conversations around him.

“Was that an earthquake earlier? The whole school was shaking.”

“Dude the whole city was shaking.”

“Can’t wait for the festival, did you hear that there’s going to be a fortune teller?”

“What kind of class do you think the Heartface is going to put you in?”

“I don’t know, but I hope I get the Guardian class!”

“What about you Eva?”

“I’m pretty sure I’ll get the Ivory class.”

“Of course you will!”

Their excitement twists his stomach. The idea that Marrow would stand in the golden room, before a clock that was not meant for time, but for people. For souls. The Heartface would tick, and tick, and tock, and it would land on the class it felt you most suited to belong to.  There were ten different classes, each one a job, a community within the Grandfather.

In one sense, all the jobs were equal. They were all in religious honor of the Grandfather, and thereby in worship to time itself. However, that didn’t stop people from deeming some classes more popular or higher ranked than others.

There were the guardians, for instance, a paramilitary community specifically meant to protect and guard the Grandfather. There were the ivories, perhaps one of the most sought after positions, as it was the political aspect. The leaders. Many of them would go on to have city or state positions in office. There was also the convent, which Miss Anderson had been a part of. The holy ones, who practiced, and prayed that time continue ever on.

As Marrow sits in his seat, squished between Maybel and Gray, he can’t help but look at the others on the bus. What class would they be sorted into? How many of them would remain together?

The train jolts into motion, and begins to glide smoothly down the road. Proctor City is a good city. 

One of the biggest to come out of the rebuilding of humanity. The city construction reminds Marrow of the pictures he’s seen of 1920’s New York. It was a bright colorful patchwork of concrete, billboards, pastel cars, and construction. Smoke hung over the city in little clouds, and vendors set up booths on the sidewalk.

But there, in the center of the city, just like in the posters, is the Grandfather. Its outside was made almost entirely out of metal. Metal that had been melted down like damascus steel from the remnants of the old world to create something new. Those swirling patterns grew up the building in a hundred different patterns.’

Giant bronze pillars on each corner rose in smooth fashion. 

The gigantic clock face at its front is bright and golden, gleaming in the early evening as the sun begins to set. When the golden hands turned, and the bells rang within, it was something you could feel across the city. Even as far away as they were, Marrow could feel the soft vibrations.

“...well yeah, I think getting the guardian class would suit me the best.” Gray is in the middle of saying.

“Of course you would,” Maybel mutters, rubbing at her nose. She glances at Marrow, frowning as she realizes he’s not been paying attention this whole time. “What about you?” She nudges him with her elbow. “What class do you think you’re gonna get?”

“I don’t know,” he says honestly.

“Now, look, we know the Heartface might choose something different than what you want,” Gray leans forward as he speaks. “Obviously, but if you could choose which one to be a part of it, which one would it be?”

“I guess…” Marrow feels backed into a corner. That twisting in his stomach getting tighter and tighter. They’re asking the wrong questions. They don’t understand. 

“I just want to be with you guys, whatever class that might be, I don’t really care which one.” His words come out quick, and when he stops, he realizes he’s breathing hard, like the words had to be forced out.

“Marrow…” Maybel starts to say, her hand awkwardly resting on his shoulder. “I know it’s going to be tough if we aren’t, you know, if we aren’t all in the same class. If we are that’s great but, we also might not be, and that’s okay too.”

“What she’s trying to say,” Gray snorts, “is that no matter what. We’re your best friends, man.” 

He matches Maybel, and puts his hand on Marrow’s other shoulder, squeezing tight. 

“And nothing’s ever going to change that.”