The Silent Chimes of Oakhaven

In a small, secluded village nestled between rolling hills and dense forests, an old clock tower stood majestically atop the village hall. For generations, the clock had dictated the rhythm of life in Oakhaven. It struck the hours, marked the beginning and end of the workday, and called the villagers together for celebrations and meetings. The people of Oakhaven trusted the clock implicitly; it was the heartbeat of their community.
On a sunny Friday morning, precisely October 10, 2025, the clock suddenly stopped. Its large hands were frozen at two minutes to twelve. Initially, the villagers paid little attention. Perhaps it was a malfunction, or a spring that was too tight. The village blacksmith, a skilled man with golden hands, would surely fix it quickly. But as the hours passed and the clock remained stubbornly still, an uneasy feeling began to creep through Oakhaven.
The silence of the clock was deafening, an ominous void that drowned out the normally lively village sounds. Children no longer played boisterously in the streets, adults’ conversations quieted, and even the birds seemed to fall silent. The absence of the familiar ticking and chimes created a strange disorientation. Without the clock, time itself seemed to have come to a standstill in Oakhaven.
The true reason for the clock’s stoppage turned out to be far more sinister than a simple malfunction. Thousands of kilometers away, in a remote corner of the world, a nuclear power plant had failed. A series of human errors, combined with unforeseen technical defects, led to a catastrophic meltdown. The explosion was colossal, the impact unimaginable. A wave of electromagnetic pulse (EMP) shot into the atmosphere, spreading with the speed of light. This pulse, invisible but deadly to technology, crippled all electronics in its path. Clocks, phones, computers, cars – everything ceased to function.
Oakhaven, though far removed from the disaster, did not escape the consequences of the EMP. The old clock tower, mechanical in nature but with an electronic striking mechanism, was one of its many victims. It was one of the first signs of the approaching catastrophe that would engulf the world.
In the days that followed, without contact with the outside world and with the clock persistently stuck at two minutes to twelve, the truth slowly began to dawn on Oakhaven. Rumours of strange lights on the horizon and the absence of telecommunications fueled the fear. The silence of the clock, which had at first merely been uncomfortable, now became a chilling reminder of the fragility of their existence. Time had not stopped, but the world around them had irrevocably changed. The clock of Oakhaven remained frozen, an eternal monument to the moment the world’s time broke beyond repair.