Creature: Price of Silence

An old watch. Clicking of gears can be heard in close range. A phrase saying “Time flows like life. Life flows like time.” is written on the back. It is unclear what is the meaning this phrase is trying to convey.

<Observation record> There are rare moments when it feels like the time just stopped. A brief instant of total silence. Every time this moment came, an employee died. Rick was a bit of coward, but it barely had anything to do with his heart attack. Justin was above average in his physical test. They had no exterior damage. Their heart just stopped beating. They did not overwork, and had no chronic disease. They just ceased, like a machine ran out of its battery. We couldn’t even guess the cause of this. After 10 deaths, we were sure that it was not just some unfortunate coincidence. We thought an abnormality must have something to do with this. When a bell rang all across the facility, and when a scream followed, I thought that the nightmare made out of those terrible coincidences, has finally come. That abnormality which looks like a watch when it’s goal is not telling us what time it is, was like a streetlamp standing amidst hell. I remembered about the phrase written on the abnormality’s back, even though I couldn’t remember what it was saying. I could still hear that hellish ring. I just ran to the watch’s containment chamber. When the thirteenth ring, which I thought I would never hear, was heard, I frantically groped the watch to flip it. And I realized that the phrase was gone. Instead, something new was written, as if the ring was a cause of some change. “I am aware of complete solitude. I take the price of my gifting of silence. When the original owner comes, I shall take the price. –P”'

When $0 was in a bad state, you had to pay for using pause.

After $0 has been ringing 12 times, once again the special ability of $0 was triggered, and as many employees as the bell died.