[ WP ] You wake up in your studio apartment one day to find a mysterious clock . Standing in front of the clock words flash across the screen saying , `` TIME . UNTIL . DEATH . '' You see a countdown of 7 years , 43 days , 50 hours , and 27 minutes . You try to tinker with it and the countdown drops to 4 days .

Sam woke up in his studio apartment at what he gauged was around 6 in the morning. He stretched his legs and arms, rubbed the sleep from his eyes and forced himself out of bed. Sam started his day like any other weekday for him; he hopped in the shower and brushed his teeth, while he showered to save time, then went to the kitchen area of his apartment to fix up some cereal. It was when he got to his kitchen area, still wrapped in a white towel, that he realised something amiss with his new wall clock. 
 
 `` The hell?'' Sam says to himself. The wall clock read 07:43, but he had n't showered for near two hours so assumed the clock was wrong. He stropped angrily over to the clock to go and correct the time. He approaches the wall clock closer and reads:'Time. Until. Death', on the clock ’ s digital display below the time. For a moment Sam is shocked and confused by the words, he had bought the clock at a street side vendor yesterday, and that wasn ’ t on there at the time. He scans his studio apartment carefully, everything else appears unchanged. He had not had guests recently either. Sam was at a loss for this clock reading:'Time. Until. Death.', and it scared him. He reached up and released the wall clock from its bracket. It was a very unremarkable clock, white faced and digital with the numbers in black print and 24 hour time, all very normal for a clock apart from this'Time. Until. Death' nonsense. He flipped the clock over and opened up the back of it to find the dial for manually adjusting the clocks time. Sam turned the clock back over so he could see the face, trying his best to ignore this'Time. Until. Death' he could n't make sense of, and kept his hand on the dial at the back. He started turning the dial counter-clockwise. 07:40, 07:00, 06:10 and he stopped at 06:10, an estimate at best so Sam walked over to the television and turned it on. The television flicked on to channel one, the morning news was on and the time read 6:13 AM. Sam cracked a smile at how close his guess was. He began back toward the clock, then he realized it had been altered again and his smile quickly faded. 00:04 and'Time. Until. Death' now read on the clock. 
 
 Sam was confused, frustrated and although he did n't want to admit it to himself, Sam was frightened. He bent down and grabbed a hold of the clock, again his hand on the back of the clock's dial he adjusted it clockwise. 00:04, 02:10, 03:40, 05:15, 06:14 and he stopped. He took his hand of the dial on the back of the clock and lowered the clock cautiously back on the ground. He stayed there, bent down at the clock and its eerie message,'Time. Until. Death', thoughts racing through his head at Mach 10, but his eyes steady and fixated on the clock. Then it moved. 
 
 Sam ’ s eyes widened at the sight, the clock ’ s digital display began rolling in the same way as he had just before with the dial, at the exact same speed only the numbers were dropping. The clock kept changing counter-clockwise; 5:15, 3:40, 2:10 and finally to Sam ’ s horror and confusion it stopped exactly at 00:04 with those familiar words unchanged; ‘ Time. Until. Death ’. Sam was physically taken aback, he composed himself and leaned back toward the clock. He reached for the dial and adjusted it the same way as the two times beforehand; 00:04, 00:43, 02:30 and he left it at 02:30 to see what would happen. He sat there and waited, silent, the only sound in the room the morning news resonating quietly behind him. Sam waited and waited for what seemed much longer that it must have been and then, it moved. 
 
 Just like before, dialled backwards at the very same speed as it had been dialled forwards; 02:30, 00:43, 00:04 and it stopped. 00:04, ‘ Time. Until. Death ’. 
 
 Sam was a rational person, he wasn ’ t religious or superstitious, he didn ’ t really do much for the ‘ greater good ’ but wasn ’ t a bad person either, he considered himself as a very normal, healthy-minded person. Sam did not consider himself the type of person to believe a clock could read the amount of time until a person ’ s passing, never could such a thing be possible. There had to be another explanation he thought. Sam went through the facts; it was a Tuesday morning, he had bought the clock from a man at a stand yesterday at around 4:20 and the clock read that time when he bought it, the clock read 1 hour and 13 minutes fast when he saw it this morning and had the message ‘ Time. Until. Death ’ printed on the clock, when he attempted to adjust the time on the clock it began to read 00:04, attempts to adjust the time forwards only resulted in the time going back to 00:04 and the clock ’ s display still reading ‘ Time. Until. Death ’. What was Sam missing? Then it occurred that he had not tried to turn the clock counter-clockwise yet. An ‘ aha ’ moment indeed, he went over to the clock. 
 
 ‘ Time. Until. Death ’ unchanged on the clock and it still read 00:04. He reached his had around to adjust the dial. 00:03. Sam began to think how late he was going to be for work sorting out this silly clock. 00:02. Sam still didn ’ t know what the whole ‘ Time. Until. Death ’ crap on the display was but he dismissed it as, for him at least, the clock was simply malfunctioning and he would have it fixed in no time. 00:02. “ What a funny work story this would be ” he thought to himself. 00:01. Almost there. 00:00. Sam heard a tick, the clock hadn ’ t been ticking before, “ Humph ” he said out loud at the clock, but his thoughts were interrupted, by a tok and Sam fell dead on the floor of his studio apartment.
