Chapter 3: Follow the Trail

House went through the entire house. There was no sign of either Cuddy or Rachel. Rachel he figured was easily with someone else, but he was starting to get worried about Cuddy. There was no way that someone could just disappear that quickly. Nothing was making any sense around him.

Sighing, he sat down on the floor in the hallway. Leaning his head back against the wall, he felt around in his pocket for the tube of lipstick. There was a strange urge for him to pull out the tube and study it. He didn't understand it, but a few minutes after he had been playing with it in his fingers, he felt better. It was as if the stress had been lifted from him and his entire body went numb. The oddly calming effect allowed him to think more clearly, something he had not done all day.

Even if he was thinking clearly, there was still no explanation as to what was going on. The entire day had felt like some sort of fogged over dream. Reality was not making sense to him anymore, and that fact was starting to scare him. To him, the second that reality was lost, was the second that he would loose everything. His life was based upon logic and reason, and if reality had stopped making sense, all the logic and reason would go out the window, leaving him with nothing.

Carefully using his cane, House lifted himself up and limped to the door. There was nothing here that could help him, yet he had felt that he needed to stop and turn back to look over the area, as if he were double checking. Still getting nothing, he quietly left the place.

There was nothing left to do so he had decided to go back to his apartment. He knew that he probably should go back to work, but really, who was going to get him in trouble? Besides, he was starting to doubt himself, and there was no way that he could go work on a patient if he felt he was wrong.

He was about to get on his bike and leave, but he had heard the familiar ringtone go off and answered it. "What did you find?" he quickly asked. The case suddenly felt secondary to him, and all he wanted to do was go home and think about what could have happened between last night and that morning. He listened as the team went over a few test results and then told them that he would be there later on. It was obvious to him that he wasn't thinking clearly, so there was no way that he was about to throw out diseases. As hard as it was to admit, he would have felt guilty if he were to cause a patient to die of something that was easily fixable. "Just make sure to keep him stable and make sure that everything's fine. I'll be there later on to fix whatever mistakes you morons made." Usually he would have had something much more clever to say, but he didn't want to put the thought into it. All he wanted to do was get back to his apartment, so, without any further thought, he hopped on his motorcycle and took off.

Finally back at his place, he threw open the door and limped into the place. He carelessly tossed his jacket over the couch and then went and plopped down on it. Right now he needed to just relax, to try and somehow block everything out that had happened earlier that day. He closed his eyes and tried to forget everything, but found himself going over the events instead.

Even his own thoughts were beginning to become mixed and incoherent. The jumbled images from his dream had begun to fill his head. He could see the knife and the blood dripping from it. He could hear the drops hitting the floor and making a small splash as they joined within the puddle that was already formed. The splashing becoming increasingly louder and more distinct. With every red splatter, the guilt grew within him. Suddenly, he heard the person shriek and his flew open.

Trying desperately to catch his breath, he sat up. He could feel his own heart beating in his chest. Whatever images that were going through his head obviously meant a great deal to him, and considering what they were, they were starting to scare him.

Tilting his head back, he closed his eyes for a moment. He knew that trying to calm himself down was useless, but he remembered how he had felt after he had pulled out the tube of lipstick from earlier and he decided to try that again. There was certainly nothing to lose from it. Pulling the small tube out of his pocket, he closely studied it as he played with it in his hands. As soon as he felt calmed, he placed it gently back into his pocket. He paused. As soon as he had looked down towards his pocket, he could see small red dots on the carpet. There seemed to be a trail of them. His eyes slowly followed them over to the wall where in front, he saw the dried puddle which instantly lead him back to the mental image of the blood dripping off the knife into the puddle below. Above it, on the wall there was a handprint that had smeared. As he carefully stared at it, he could hear the same shriek again. This time while hearing the shriek, he could see the bloodied hand desperately trying to use the wall as support.

Not knowing what else to do, House reached over and grabbed his cell phone off the table. "Wilson, you'd better get over here. I think I'm hallucinating," he said while staring at the blood stains. The most he could hear was Wilson saying that he would be right over and then he hung up.