The watch swung back and forth before his eyes, the gentle rhythm eerily easy to get caught up in. It was oddly relaxing to follow the swinging, to give up that little bit of control over his own gaze and just let it dictate where he looked… But he wasn’t going to give in that easily. He forcefully shut his eyes, ignoring the urge to open them and continue watching the watch.

“Still resisting, I see. Losing battle, you know.” His captor giggled sweetly, her soft voice echoing around him. “Open your eyes, It’s so much easier to let yourself go…” Her voice was so alluring and persuasive… Worming its way into his mind… But he was steadfast. He’d encountered beautiful women before, he wouldn’t fall to a few sweet words.

He clenched his fists, focusing on the pain. “Save your breath. Your tricks won’t work on me.” Her soft laughter filled his mind again as he tried to remove the binding around his wrists, keeping focused on the execution. The rope around his left hand was slightly weaker, so he’d free that one first. Left hand, then right hand. Left, then right. Left, right. Left, right… Swinging from left, to right. Falling back into the rhythm of the watch. 

With a start, he suddenly realized his eyes had opened. His captor laughed as she watched him try to shut them again. But it felt so much harder now. It was so much easier to follow the rhythm. To just let himself go, to stop worrying so much. To just submit, and tell her everything she wanted to know. But he couldn’t! It was imperative for his mission that she not learn what he knew. And luckily, unbeknownst to her, he knew that backup was arriving soon. In fact, the pocketwatch she was forcing him to look at told him they were only a few minutes away. All he had to do was stall.

“Awfully cliché, you know.” He mumbled. His captor grunted questioningly at his statement. “The pocketwatch. Such a cliché, hypnotizing someone with a pocketwatch. I’d assumed your people would have more advanced methods of mind control than something out of fashion for decades.” His captor laughed, amused. “Sometimes the clichés are just more… Satisfying. Certainly, I could use a more modern method like a brainwashing visor or a syringe of stupefying chemicals, but that’s too easy. Too uninspiring. The pocketwatch is elegant, and personal. It’s so much more intimate. And while it may be slower than a more advanced method, that is not always bad. It gives me more time to sink my words into my subject's mind… Marinating their brain in my powerful, beautiful voice. To ensure that when it’s time for them to Drop, they’re that much more soft and malleable… Filled with suggestions they never even realized were planted…” Even as she told him what her voice was doing, or perhaps because of it, he found it increasingly difficult to keep from relaxing and falling under her spell. But he wouldn’t break. He couldn’t. Just needed to delay her for a few more minutes…

Trying his hardest to sound confident, he mockingly said, “This isn’t going to work, you know. I’m not hypnotized. Just cut to the end where I break free and turn the tables, you’re wasting your time.” His captor was silent for a moment, then suddenly stopped swinging the watch. As his head reeled, trying to recenter himself, his captor spoke again, polishing the watch. “I’m not sure if you know this about my country, but we have this… Interesting custom. Spring Forward, it’s called.” Still disoriented, he refused to dignify her with a comment, but she continued. “Every year on this day, at 2 AM sharp, we move our clocks forward one hour. The reason why we do it escapes me, but that’s not relevant right now. What is relevant, however, is what time it is…” She waved the watch back in front of his face. “1:59 AM. Almost time for change. And you’re so impatient, so resistant. It would probably take me an hour just to break you, wouldn’t you say?” She started loosely swinging the watch again, and his eyes immediately locked back onto it, despite his best efforts. “So why don’t we just… Skip an hour ahead into the future? Where I’ve hypnotized you, and you’re willing to answer whatever I ask. Does that sound better?” She giggled, and he grit his teeth, trying not to let her inside his head.

The backup was still a few minutes away, and if she skipped that hour… But obviously she was just trying to make him lose his resolve. He wasn’t hypnotized, and he certainly wasn’t going to be hypnotized within the next ten seconds. tick. The second hand ticked, slowly but surely moving. tick. But he wasn’t going to instantly drop once it hit 12. That’d be ridiculous! tick. He was a trained spy for his country! tick. He’d withstood the most brutal forms of torture known to man! tick. He wasn’t going to fall for such petty tricks! tick. Especially not such a cliché like this! Tick. No matter how nice it felt to watch it swing. Tick. And listen to her alluring voice. Tick. He was strong, and stubborn, and indomitable, and- Tick.

The hands of the watch started spinning faster and faster, the ticking growing smoother and smoother… He couldn’t look away… Time seemed to slow down… Or maybe speed up… Had he been sitting here for an hour already…? He could feel time flowing all around him… Eroding his patience… Softening his will… And as the chimes of the nearby clock rang out… The watch stopped at 3 AM. Exactly an hour later. And his mind had been broken long ago.

She grinned, looking down at the hypnotized spy before her. Such a simple suggestion, and yet it’d performed so well. All she had to do was wind her pocketwatch a bit, and now he believed it had been a full hour of hypnotic induction. She gently ruffled his head. “Are you ready to tell me about the files now, pet?” He nodded obediently, a dazed smile on his face. “Perfect. Now, be quick about it. I understand you have some people coming to help you in a few minutes, and we’ll need to discuss exactly what you’re going to do once they arrive…”