Day 2 Prompt — When the Clock Strikes Midnight

The Cozy Winter Prompt Challenge: "The Last Hunter at Midnight"

This story was written for Tamsin G.’s Cozy Quill Tales’ Cozy Winter Prompt Challenge — Day 2:

✨ Magic wakes when the grandfather clock chimes at midnight.
(Make it wintery or Christmasy!) ✨

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Now, I’m not a fan of magic, so I mixed it up a little. So this one might be a little less cozy. ;)

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“The Last Hunter at Midnight”

A Cozy Winter Prompt Challenge Story

Tick.
Tock.
Midnight never comes quietly.

The grandfather clock beats like a frozen heart in the center of the room.

Tick.
Tock.

It is almost time.

Frost creeps up its wooden frame, tracing the old carvings worn smooth by centuries of hands — my father’s, my grandfather’s, every hunter who came before me.

Tick.
Tock.

All gone now.

When the clock strikes, I hunt.
That is all I have ever known.

Tick.
Tock.

I buried the last of them five winters ago.
Since then, this room has been too quiet.
The world has been too unsafe.

Most people don’t remember the old tales.
Most don’t believe in the darkness that comes with winter.

But I do.

Tick.
Tock.

You’ve never heard of us, I know.
But the truth hasn’t changed.

At the stroke of midnight on December 2nd, the winter magic wakes.
Not the soft kind that dusts pine trees or hums through Christmas lights — no.
The dark kind.
The hungry kind.

Tick.
Tock.

And when it rises, someone has to stop it.

That someone is me.

The minute hand drags upward, heavy with destiny.
My breath fogs.
The house holds its breath with me.

Tick.
Tock.

Almost time.

Do you hear it?

Tick.
Tock.

When the clock strikes, the magic stirs…
and the hunt begins.

Will you join me?

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👉 Comment below: Would you join the hunt at midnight?