This is a strange, dark fic that I have submitted for the contest, loosely based on the song "The Riff" by Lordi. Written in the same style as Tick Tock, but a lot darker and more absurdist. I want to apologise in advance for how weird this is...

I don't own bread.

Darkness. Voices, everywhere, echoing off the walls.

Come for a ride, Joey. Come with us. It's time.

Out of the darkness, a grinning skull, shrouded in black, mouth open in a monstrous laugh, bony hands grasping a scythe.

Your time is up, Joey Boswell. Time to die...

Joey wakes up with a start, hands fumbling and clutching the sheets. Sweat drips down every pore of his body, as he tries to force the remnants of his dream from his head.

"Joey, love?"

Martina stares up blearily at him. Normally, she would be irritated to be woken up with work the next day, but the look of pure terror on her husband's face softens her stony heart. Joey is very rarely terrified, so this must be bad.

"I had me dream again."

Joey can't sleep, and he sits hunched at the dining table, clutching a mug of tea and waiting for the sun to rise out the grimy window. He turns on the radio, but the loud heavy-metal song clanging out does nothing to help still his racing heart.

The chilling voice still plagues his memory, crystal clear.

This is the fourth time he's had this dream.

Your time is up, Joey Boswell. Time to die...

It's cowardly, he thinks. He shouldn't be scared of a dream. The idea of death as a cliché hooded figure holding a scythe is something that most people would snort at.

He shouldn't be scared. He's Joey Boswell. He's not scared of anything. Especially not something as trite as a recurring dream. This is ridiculous. He shouldn't be cowering in the kitchen, he should be going out, braying Greetings like he always does, irritating his wife and living, without thinking about death.

Your time is up, Joey Boswell. Time to die...

Martina sits at her desk, face etched into a frown, deep in thought. It has been six nights in a row that her husband has woken her up with frantic breathing and thrashing about in the bed, and she is starting to get worried. Joey hasn't slept properly in days. He's scared, which is a new thing; Joey gets concerned, yes, but he puts on a brave face and makes the most of things. He's never scared, not this way.

She considers gently pushing the idea of a therapist. She considers ordering him to go to one outright. This isn't normal, and experts would probably say that his dreams of death are due to some dredged up childhood memories.

Martina doesn't know. She's not a professional. All she knows is that her husband is scared, and that fact scares her, too.

Your Time is up, Joey Boswell...

Two weeks.

This is not normal.

Joey's eyes are ringed with black and his skin is pale from lack of sleep. He looks like the skull from his dream. He jumps when he sees his reflection in the shaving cabinet, knocking over a bottle of pills on the sink.

The pills scatter across the floor. He scrambles to pick them up, ashamed at his sudden lack of coordination. After a moment, these pills are nothing he recognises. Martina takes paracetamol sometimes for migraines, but these don't look like that.

The caption on the bottle says that they're cyanide tablets.

Poison.

Kill-pills.

Joey's hands are shaking for the first time in his life as he flushes them down the toilet. He doesn't say anything to Martina. He doesn't want to seem like a fool.

Time to die...

"Sunshine..."

Joey's voice is more strained than it used to be when he says that. Martina looks up from the dishes she's drying.

"Yes?"

She's been less brusque with him these days. Usually, she'd make a playful remark about not calling her sunshine and place her hands on her hips. Now, she just smiles wryly at him. When he sleeps better, she'll act feisty again.

Joey frowns into his coffee mug.

Do you ever think that death is coming for you?

He doesn't say it, of course.

He just waves a hand, muttering Nothing and looking away. Martina frowns, staring back down at the dishes in the sink.

Your...

Joey has been a little slack about work these days. They make some money from Martina's job, but it's not enough for them to maintain their lifestyle, and the money Joey puts aside is starting to dwindle. Bills don't pay themselves.

Joey wants to throw himself into work, even if he isn't sleeping right. Maybe if he works in the night and sleeps during the morning and evening, the dreams won't come.

Martina is happy that he's going back to work, despite the comments she's made about his enigmatic career. She hopes this will bring the old, post-nightmare Joey back.

But when Martina is having her evening bath, Joey gets ready for work. He pulls on his favourite and recently neglected tuxedo, slips on glossy leather shoes, and reaches into the wardrobe for a bow tie, which he keeps hanging on a rack.

There's a pressure on his hand, and he gasps, pulling it out.

How his bow tie forms a miniature noose and wrapped around his wrist, he will never know.

He tries not to cry out.

Time...

One night.

Two nights.

Four.

Eight.

Twelve.

Fourteen.

Twenty.

...

Thirty.

Every night in a row for a month, he's had the dream.

Every night, it never fails to terrify him.

Is...

Joey knows that Martina replaced the large knife she'd been using to slice vegetables for last night's dinner up in the drawer. He saw her do it. And he knows that she's gone to work and he certainly hasn't used it since.

So why is the knife lying blade up on the chair he sits in at the kitchen table when he enters the room?

up...

"I'm worried about Joey."

Nellie Boswell frowns at her daughter in law as she sets down a plate of bakewell tarts on the table.

"What d'you mean?" She says suspiciously. "He hasn't been fooling around with that Roxy tart, has he..."

Martina shakes her head, curls bouncing around her face.

"Of course not." As if Joey would dare to cheat. Besides, he doesn't even have the energy to cheat these days. "It's just..."

She racks her usually sharp brain on how to phrase the strange turn Joey has taken, and comes up with very little.

"Tell me, did your Joey ever have nightmares as a child?"

Part of her is hoping that the answer is yes, because if Joey has overcome a recurring dream before, then he can do it again.

"No, never."

Oh.

Joey Boswell...

Joey goes to sleep now fearing the dream he will have.

He wakes up fearing the dream he has had.

The dream is taking over his life.

Time...

"Joey..."

It's time for an intervention. Martina can't stand to see Joey's life destroyed by this. He doesn't sleep more than a few hours a night. He barely eats. He's lost his charismatic, Joey-esque spark. He won't even take sleeping pills, muttering something about someone changing the pills.

"Joey, I think it's time you saw someone. This is getting out of hand."

Joey's head snaps up, eyes blazing with sudden fury.

"You think I'm crazy, do you, Tina? That I'm messed up in me 'ead?" he snaps, shocking Martina. He's never spoken to her so angrily. This is completely unlike him.

"Joey, for 'eaven's sake, look at yourself!" She throws up her hands. "You need help!"

"Everyone fears death," Joey spits, staring up at her like a sullen teenager would a figure of authority. Martina can't believe this.

"Maybe, but no one acts the way you are!" She shakes her head in disbelief. "Joey..."

"It was you." Joey accuses suddenly. Martina doesn't understand what he means.

"You put those cyanide pills on the sink. You messed around with my ties. You put the knife down." He draws himself to his full height, suddenly clad-iron in his belief that this is Martina'a fault.

"Martina, you're trying to kill me!"

"Don't be absurd." Martina scoffs, though inside she's terrified by his behaviour. "See, this is why you need professional 'elp."

"Liar!" Joey accuses. "Me own wife! How dare you..."

He storms out, knocking the kitchen chair over.

To...

He stomps out the house. Martina follows him, appalled by his behaviour. She knows it is the lack of sleep, but she doesn't know how to remedy it. Maybe he really has gone insane.

Joey doesn't know where he's going.

He doesn't know what he wants.

He doesn't know what to do.

He doesn't notice the car- a hearse, ironically- speeding towards him.

Die...

Maybe his dreams were more than just dreams.

Death did get him in the end.