It all started when she picked up that old antique watch at the pawn shop. She couldn't help it! Clockwork was so intricate, so fascinating. The ways the gears interlocked just so, the way springs wound and unwound with precision, all coming together to make a perfect machine. She hadn't even bought the damn thing, that was the most unfair bit.

 

And yet, the next morning she woke up to find her arm strangely stiff. it still bent and moved, but it did so slowly and jerkily. She chalked it up to sleeping weird and tried to move on. But as the day went on, the changes continued. By midday, she could no longer straighten her arm out all the way. It just stopped at a certain point. She left work early, when she could hear a clicking sound coming from her arm.

 

Soon, the skin on her arm was turning glossy white, hair disappearing, marks and freckles becoming flat intricate patterns.

 

She stared at herself in the mirror, one arm made of delicate porcelain, metal showing at the joints as she flexed and moved her arm, and heard the delicate clicks and whirrs of the machinery. And beneath it all, coming from her chest, came a firm and deep tick, tock, tick, tock.