Campaigner Challenge: Flash Fiction!

The first challenge in the Rach Writes platform-building campaign is to write a flash story starting with the words "The door swung open". And optionally, for a greater challenge, to finish with the words "the door swung shut". And, for an even greater challenge, to do it in exactly 200 words.

Can't resist a challenge! Here's my entry :

The Magister Clock

        The door swung open in the golden clock face. Saffiah swallowed, her heart pounding, as the miraculous device before her whirred and ticked and whirred again. How could she have been so foolish? She could have asked it anything. She could have asked it nothing. Instead she’d laughed and called in a clear voice :
        “Tell me the time of my death.”
        The Magister Clock was never wrong, of course. Other clocks knew only now. This knew the time of all events. The death of queens and the birth of saviours. And here it was. Guarded by vicious horrors, locked away in dungeons so deep no-one had found it in years uncounted. Patiently ticking away.
        Something flashed inside the workings. No clockwork cuckoo here. A waxwork face wound forward, the countenance of the Magister himself. It scowled : dismissive, cruel. Saffiah backed away a step despite herself.
        The clock spoke.
        “Nearly an hour ago, now.”
        Saffiah breathed again. After everything, the miraculous clock was broken, useless. Laughing, she swung her fist at the sneering face.
        She felt only confusion as her hand passed right through. Her ghostly, translucent hand.
        The face grinned as it retracted and the door swung shut.



Thanks for reading!