The wagonette stopped abruptly. Sailil, Jezromiah, Teerkedas and Sheriff Warselight hurriedly stepped out. "What's happening?" Sailil asked.

"It's the clock," Sheriff Cadimere Warselight answered.

"Why, Sheriff? What's wrong with it?"

"It's having anxiety. The clock's heart is in distress. Something must've triggered it, something outside of this territory."

"I can fix it. I'm very good with mechanical things," Teerkedas said shrugging.

"If you stop now, this will delay your mother's murder case," Sheriff Warselight said looking up at him.

"Yes, I know. I risk the case running cold. But what'll happen to this territory if the clock has a nervous breakdown?"

"Time will not run as efficiently. And the clock and the Death Storyteller realm that runs on it will be forced into therapy or an asylum. Meaning the Clock Therapists will put it and this territory on lockdown and inundate it with all sorts of prescription tests to the point it'll run like a zombie."

"Sailil, Apatt, Jezromiah I'll need your help. Sheriff Warselight can you round up as many people as you can to help us to gather up supplies and to help us dig?"

"Yes."

"I can't go any further the sound of the wagonette will upset the clock's already stressed heart," the wagonette driver chimed in.

"I know. C'mon we'll have to walk. We could use your help, too," the sheriff beckoned the driver to step down from the wagonette.

Nothing mechanical with a noise could be used because the clock's arrhythmia was fragile and too unstable to handle it. As anyone willing and able in the Death Storyteller territory slowly gathered to help, three years past as those volunteers dug manually with shovels day in and day out chipping away at the astronomical clock's once brazen shadow. The year was now 1966 where Teerkedas, Sailil, Apatt and Jezromiah's homelands were. And the same amount of time had passed in the Death Storyteller locale despite its fused eras.

Teerkedas was in his mid-to late twenties. Apatt, Jezromiah, and Sailil had just begun to enter their early twenties. And Sheriff Warselight was a few years older than those three at her age of twenty-four. She'd been continuing to investigate Teerkedas's mother's murder on foot patrol, the past three years trying to keep the case from going completely cold.

For Teerkedas, regular food and drink was like consuming nothing. The vampire needles inside using his body as a mere vessel was starving on the verge of cannibalism for another power binge. He could feel their emaciation inside. The boniness of its wasting gave him a sated relief of final freedom but a disturbing discomfort at the same time realizing the torture was desperately hanging on. He swallowed hard with every pounding, struggling breath as if there were something vile the size of a bowling ball stuck in his larynx.

And even though the clock was closer and closer to a nervous breakdown, he denied himself the chance to take its power.

"The different times on the anatomical clock are set backwards as the minute and hour hands move along. That's explains why Sailil and the rest of us felt like we were going backward when we first arrived here," Teerkedas said as he climbed atop the clock examining it thoroughly, his voice echoing as if it was in a cave from the deepness of the hole they dug to unearth it.

"That's on purpose because it's the only way the Death Storyteller territory can function smoothly with all these time periods in one realm," one of the neighbors added who'd assisted in the excavation of the clock. The Sheriff, Sailil, Apatt and Jezromiah looked at her. She shrugged. "What? I was a Clock Therapist before I retired. And I still remember the clinical workings of this mechanism," she pointed at the clock.

"It's going to take me some time and I'll need the best men to help me to reposition the clock."

"You can't move the clock it'll change its timeline. It'll wreak havoc on the universe," the retired Clock Therapist warned holding her hand out in a gesture to stop Teerkedas from carrying out this idea of his.

"Okay, we'll need an outside resource," Teerkedas suggested, climbing back down from the clock.

"What do you mean an outside resource?" Sheriff Warselight asked.

"It'll have to be outside of this realm."

"What kind?"

"A magical one and it'll have to be more than one all-powerful method. A unifying of these forces is the only other option."

"No, magic is prohibited outside this realm to heal it just as it applies to no magic being used inside this realm. It'll alter everything here and everywhere in the Kledbug-Levoy universe."

"Sheriff Warselight something has to be done. We can't just let the clock die or the Death Storyteller colony be affected."

"We don't have a choice. At least none I can think of."

Teerkedas shook his head. He sighed. He climbed back up to the clock and around the side toward the rear of the clock, opened it and climbed inside to inspect it more thoroughly. There seemed to be a whole world inside its inner workings, so vast and phenomenal. As he went further and found himself at a junction in the lower right area of the clock, his eyes literally flamed with hope. He allowed his eyes to simmer, sitting down in one of the abdomens of the clock. He heard his name being called echoing through the acoustics of the clock. The sound seemed to tick-tock like the erratic beat of the clock's heart. He climbed up and out of the clock.

"The anatomical clock has a solar appendix," he said jumping down.

"Okay, I didn't know that," the ex-Clock Therapist said with widened eyes.

"Neither did I," the sheriff said with a raised brow.

"If we let it run on solar power, it should put everything back as usual. "In our time," Teerkedas said looking at Sailil, Apatt and Jezromiah, "in the last decade new technology was developed to convert the sun's energy into electricity using photovoltaic cells," and back at Sheriff Warselight and the ex-clock therapist.

"There have been over a hundred years' worth of discoveries and inventions about solar energy. But it's useless to us because we have no sky. And the tools we use for light wouldn't suffice as solar power," the ex-clock therapist informed.

"I know. There's only one thing that will. And it has solar energy in its natural and purest form," Teerkedas stated.

"I told you no magic is allowed here," the Sheriff said on the verge of frustration.

"No, that's not what he's talking about, Sheriff," Sailil said swallowing hard. "He's saying he's going to sacrifice himself to power the clock."

Teerkedas's eyes were aflame as he nodded. "It's the only choice. And I won't be sacrificing myself in the way you think. I will be a source of energy. Think of it as a light bulb inside a lamp. But I'll be very aware and alive."

"I can get some cowering powder from one of the shops here to put you to sleep, so if you can, maintain long term stillness inside the clock. But I want you to know this is only temporary, just until we figure out another way to stop the Death Storyteller realm from breaking down."

"No, I don't want to be under an induced sleep. Not ever again."

He went back inside the clock to where its solar appendix was. He pushed all his solar energy into the tips of his toes and let it build until it exploded throughout his body like the sun and its rays. Everything became still and the anatomical clock slowly started to steady again. Teerkedas set his mind, body and spirit and solar power into meditation to continue its mode. There were shouts, screams and whistles at the victory.

His solarity radiated so brazenly it lit up the Death Storyteller realm giving it light from below to above despite there was no sky making it resemble a bright, sunny day. The residents gathered around were stunned and gasped, those looking up from where the clock was excavated and those above ground. They stopped so still they all looked like statues with a mesmerized look etched across their faces.

Sheriff Warselight swallowed hard, and her mouth dropped open at the sight. Sailil, Apatt and Jezromiah looked at each other with a bemused reaction their brows furrowed with a bit of frustration. "What do we do now?" the three thought in unison and with their gestures. Apatt shrugged one of his shoulders as Sailil and Jezromiah stared at him for the answer.

"Don't worry. I'll get you guys back home. I'll keep working on Teerkedas's mom's case," Sheriff Warselight chimed in as if answering what they were thinking.

"What about Teerkedas?" they asked.

"I'm ok," Teerkedas shouted to them as he crawled out of the hole. "But I do feel weird leaving some of my solar power behind," he said panting from crawling as he stood upright. "I've never done that before. I didn't think I could extract a part of me like that. But I gave it a try. I don't know how it'll affect me. I'd better take it easy. I need to stay in range of the clock just in case I can't function without it."

"Whew! We thought you'd be inside that clock forever, man," Apatt wiped a brow with the back of his hand.

"We'll split up. Teerkedas will come with me and Apatt. Sailil will go with Sheriff Warselight," Jezromiah said taking the lead. "We won't stray far," he glanced at Teerkedas with a steady look to reassure him. Teerkedas nodded.

"I did deputize you lot. So you're free to test anyone's memory with your questions," the sheriff added with a one-shoulder shrug looking back and forth between Apatt, Jezromiah, Teerkedas and Sailil.