Escapement

Retired watchmaker Anton Reiss has spent eleven years living above his dead shop, surrounded by tools he no longer uses and clocks he no longer repairs. Then he finds something beneath the skin of his arm. At first, he tells himself it is a cyst. A harmless growth. A thing for medicine to name and remove. But Anton is a man trained to notice tolerances, and this growth does not behave like sickness.
It grows with precision. It moves with purpose. And one night, beneath his own skin, it begins to tick. As Anton measures, listens, records, and finally intervenes, he discovers that his body is not failing randomly. It is producing work. Beautiful work. Impossible work. The kind of work no living hand should be able to make. Cold, intimate, and quietly unnerving, Escapement is a tale of body horror, craftsmanship, loneliness, and the terrible comfort of being useful again.