Monster of clockwork

"Grandpa, tell me a story!"

"Ooh then, alright, go get your storybook."

"No Pops, a real story."

"A real story?"

"Yes! Tell me about when you were a kid. What did you do? Surely you went on... adventures?!"

"Adventures? Here in the Jungle? No, no, no... listen."



It started many years ago, in the darkness of the mines.
A small automaton had wandered off, it happened all the time.
It stumbled on some Pearls that had fallen to the ground,
It ate a Pearl, and then another, and began to get right out of hand.

"Wait a minute Pops! Nothing happens after the first Pearl, right? It's what I've heard."

"Nothing at all. Clockwork doesn't Warp more the more Pearls there are... but this monster... it was different. Listen."


The small machine consumed the Pearls, and started fast to grow.
Seeking out more clockwork, it wandered down below.
Out of the mines it set out seeking, more clockwork to assimilate.
Between machines, automatons and men it could not differentiate.

It had a mind all on its own, a warped and twisted thought,
and in its madness only hunger, so to feed and feed it sought.
The word spread fast from mouth to mouth, about the Monster in the Jungle.
People fled, yet more so followed, this Eternal Hunger.

It hungers for machinery, to consume within it's maw
And people seeing it will leave their clockwork, it's not worth dying for.
But beggars roared, and beggars cheered, this spectacle of fear,
Following it's footsteps, collecting metal scraps and gear.

From below Meuclont's Jungle, from the smoke and grease and grime,
Rose the mighty Clockwork Monster, and it looked up to the shine.
The shine of Meuclon't upper levels, the copper, brass and gold.
It hears the clank of clockwork and it chases new and old.

Slowly is the monster creeping, from one level to another.
New machines and Warping Pearls, to consume and to discover.
So watch out young, and watch out old, hide your clockwork now,
It's coming, coming for it, and you will feel the presence foul.

The monster kept evolving, descending into madness.
It lurked within the shadows, crept on through the darkness.
Or so the legend goes, of the Monster down below,
that will one day climb, climb on top of Meuclont.

A noise in the distance, the thunderous clanking of footsteps, like brass claws dragging on concrete.

"Even now, you can still hear the monster in the distance, wandering the Jungle, searching for a way out" said the older man.

"Woah!" exclaimed the kid, excited to finally hear this old song in full. "Is that... it, is that what we can hear in the dead of night?"

"That depends," said the old man jokingly, winking at the boy. "Unless you forgot to turn off your father's Warp Engine!" They never forgot to turn the engine off after the day's work, everybody knew the stories. As he was laughing at his own joke, the clanking was slowly growing louder and louder.

"Pos, I... I was going to show it to Becca later tonight, it had to warm up a bit."

All of a sudden, the smile vanished from the elder man's face. "It's not off?"

Before the kid had a chance to respond, the man had rushed to his feet, scrapping through the junk on the way to their room in the labyrinth of walls and archways that were the living quarters within the Jungle.

But the clanking sound was too loud now and before the boy could realise, a shadow moved past him. He rushed to his feet, but in the distance, all he heard...

"Please, no, it's everything we have, withou..."

Silence. And then, the clanking of brass claws on concrete, slowly fading away.