Unknown date

Unknown place

Before even opening his eyes, Gavin began to search. His palms were expecting to hit a steering wheel, a dashboard— or a murderous branch maybe, but they were just scratching a stiff mattress.

In the confusion, he thought he still recognized the smell of pines, before understanding that it was only the imitation of forests diluted in bleach, the leaves amplified in aggressive disinfectant which served for the household.

The worst thing was the silence. So awful it left no room for Connor.

At this thought, Gavin awoke with a start, emerging in some pain that covered from his ankles to his neck. Opening his eyes did not release him however: the room was plunged into darkness, leaving him in the dark.

"Connor?"

The muscles of his throat and jaw resisted, but he managed to pronounce his anguish. He scanned the darkness to contemplate only his loneliness: there was no light, not the slightest diode.

On his skin, Gavin felt the evaporated contact of a paper blouse, which confirmed that he was in a hospital.

"Connor? Is anybody here?"

His tongue was as pasty as during hangovers. Had he been given medication? How long had he been lying there?

The patient manages to drag his legs, as heavy as they were, to the edge of the bed, leaving them hanging in the void. For a second, he would have doubted that a floor was hiding in the hollow of these dense shadows, yet he slid gently, carefully, until the soles of his feet touched a floor of linoleum.

The area around his kidneys was rusty, and the slightest movement gave the impression that needles came to hinder his vertebrae. The stiff pain made him shake.

While leaning on unseen furniture, Gavin began to explore the room. Although he was lost and worried, he only thought of Connor, with the urge to know how he was going, where he was, if he was at least alive. Just like the first day, Gavin played the role of protector.

Oh, of course, Connor was stronger than he seemed: his constant calm was not a weakness, but a barrier to a force that could surprise, just as his innocence was not naive, just optimistic. During the beginning of their relationship, Gavin had often been surprised, and the more he had been destabilized by this young detective, the more he clung to him. Before falling completely in love, in the most tender ways.

It was ironic when he thought about it: Gavin had been seized by this feeling at an exact time when Connor and he had fallen, literally fallen.

Despite the memory, Gavin had no desire to smile: in fear, all these moments of happiness were in fact hurtful, and they would turn his mourning gangrenous if Connor was—

His tense fingers finally found a wall, then, pushing his explorations, Gavin found a switch, already dreaming of light. His index finger pressed the button many times, yet nothing happened.

"Fuck this shit."

Always blind, the patient continued his exploration.

So that was what detainees felt during the first nights? Lost between shadows? No wonder they used to blow a fuse in the isolation cells. Night makes the man wild and primitive.

In disappointment, Gavin punched the wall, regretting at once when a power of pain electrocuted his arm.

While massaging his forearm, he walked along the wall, his shoulder pressed against it, when, finally, he guessed the frame of a door. His hands, perhaps guided by the desire for freedom, found the grip the first time and Gavin pushed on, reassured by this first victory.

Hospital rooms were always full of machines, so why his own was empty? Maybe were they off? It was curious, but well, a hospital could have a power failure. Or he did not need them? Gavin imagined all sorts of reasons, because there was necessarily a logical explanation for this situation. But it was the same in the hallway: no noise, no light.

And Gavin still did not understand what was happening.

Fear made him forget the evils that haunted him, when he suddenly shouted:

"Is anybody here?!"

The echoes seemed to grow against the walls, so Gavin put his hands to his temples, then to his ears as his own words ricocheted and distorted to form others, ending in murmurs. It was absurd.

As he advanced, his hip hit a piece of furniture and an object fell with a thud. An object that began to roll. While spotting the sound, Gavin knelt down, then got on all fours, stirring the shadows until his thumb find the object.

A flashlight.

Before crying victory, Gavin preferred to make sure the battery was full, or the lamp would only be good to be swung at the other end of the corridor. In any case, it would serve for something.

Still kneeling on soft ground, Gavin tilted the button.

And a halo pierced the tall darkness.

Gavin let out a relieved sigh, ready to get back on his way, ready to explore all the rooms, all the areas of the hospital to find Connor.

But the lamp was still directed to the ceiling, and a detail caught Gavin's attention. The beam intermingled with entanglements of cables and control panels, a curious place, because inaccessible. Although there were more curious: between the electric wires, like bats disturbed by light, little creatures with long legs sought to hide in the dark.

Gavin narrowed his eyes, trying to understand: these naked spiders did not have eight legs, but five.

They were human hands.

The man fell backward, moving the lamp that lit up other parts of the ceiling, revealing more sliced hands, yet animated by themselves. The multiplied shadows distorted the numbers, but Gavin would have sworn that there were forty at least, and the tips of the fingers were still tapping, as noisy as nocturnal tarantulas.

He managed to get up and ran down the hall, fearing that a hand would come off the ceiling and land on him like a spider would have done.

It was impossible to know who the owners were, and in any case they were not there: the corridors were empty hoses, only inhabited by endless cables.

Gavin did not know if it was the blood beating at his temples, or the fear that was harassing him, but he was certain to hear some murmurings, while no one was there to whisper them.

Nevertheless, the thought of Connor gave him courage.

At the end of the corridor, an open door let escape whimsical neon lights. Short of breath and confused, Gavin hesitated to get closer. He tightened his grip on the lamp that he extinguished, it would serve as a weapon from now on, then, he walked towards the entrance trying to make the least noise possible, although he was still deafened by the whispers.

The fact of being a policeman helped: while his back was brushing against the wall, he repeated the security measures, his fingers holding the lamp in a firm grip, ready to fight.

He finally entered the room, watching the surroundings, but Gavin froze. His heart missed a beat.

Two neon lights were fixed on the ceiling, and if the light was not reliable, emitting only livid flashes, it still lit a bare room, not a single machine. There was only one operating table in the middle, an old model where no mechanical arm was attached, and sitting on the black mattress, Connor.

Or rather, two Connors.

The first was sitting, eyes closed, hands pressed between knees, back extended and face raised towards the second, a perfect look-alike, who was standing up, eyelids also closed. He was leaning on the mattress, allowing the twin faces to kiss each other. There was nothing romantic about this contact: the one who was standing pressed his lips with the greed of hunger, ready to devour the seated one who opened his mouth, unaware of welcoming that ardent tongue that stirred against his own.

The Connor who was standing suddenly stood up, turning at the same time as his double to the intruder. They now had their eyelids open: the seated one had dark eyes, the same ones that Gavin had known for so long, while the one standing up had frightful irises, so cold that they looked like white steel.

"What the—"

Gavin felt a hand grip his shoulder and he jumped. With a brutal transition, this absurd dream evaporated at once and the patient stepped back; lying on a rough hospital bed again.

This time, the room was not in the dark and he was not alone: beside him, a young nurse was waiting, her palm against his shoulder. Her head hid a round ceiling lamp like a moon.

"Mr. Reed? Everything's fine."

It was a young woman, at least, according to the voice and what he could see from the face against the light: the lower of her face was covered with a pastel green surgical mask, the same color as the sober uniform. No name was indicated, not even a hospital logo. Total anonymity.

Two blue eyes were staring at him, enhanced by gray eyeshadow, almost black, and eyelashes stretched by mascara, so long that Gavin thought of daddy-longlegs' legs—

He repressed a shiver and turned his head to his right: a huge window looked out on a mature forest that gave a sense of intimacy. The leaves were barely disturbed by a breeze. It was so easy to hear the birds sing, to imagine the smell of intact humus. It may have been just a selected video, as many hospitals were proposing today— so far, the establishment could be by the sea or in the city center.

When Gavin asked where they were, the nurse's eyebrows twitched, expressing disappointment:

"Don't you remember? Three days ago, you had a car accident. Since then, you've already woken up twice, but each time you ask me the same questions— This is disturbing, I'll have to inform the doctor."

In case she would go away, Gavin grabbed her wrist, almost aggressive:

"Where's Connor? Tell me if he's alive!"

She tried to move away, but the man clung to her wrist with the force of a lunatic.

"He's alive! Mr. Anderson's alive, I assure you, he's right next door." The fingers were clenching so hard that her wrist was burning, so she finally moaned. "He's right next door, I swear, I'll let you see him."

On this promise, Gavin finally released his grip.

On the other side, an opaque window divided the room, all black, opposing the window bathed in light. The nurse activated a touch sensitive panel and set the degree of opacity to the minimum. Like a mist rising, the dark screen faded away.

Near Gavin's bed, there were some machines, but it was nothing compared to Connor's: the body seemed dead, and instead of flowers, it was screens that had grown, displaying a chaos of numbers and codes around. Like if his life depended on this invasive technology, since it measured the slightest beat, the least breathe, the slightest degree—

Yes, Connor was alive, but in the medical sense only.

Gavin straightened up and tried to see better, ready to get up before the nurse held him:

"Mr. Anderson's fine: he was treated urgently. We don't know the after-effects, but his life is out of danger. For the moment, he's in an artificial coma so he doesn't suffer."

From where he was, Gavin could see at least that the shoulder, the one that had been pierced by the branch, was now held in a solid bandage.

Connor had his eyes closed, his chin up: a posture that reminded of the sick dream.

Gavin was unaware of this crap about interpretation in dreams, and Freud would have had too delusional theories, all he knew was that he was disgusted by a bitter taste in the back of his mouth, disturbed by Connor's unconscious air. And it had given to this kiss an appearance of rape.

"You must rest, Mr. Reed: you wasn't hurt badly, but you need rest. A lot of rest."

"Leave the window this way. Even if you've some operations to do, I want to be able to see Connor."

It was the order of a man gnawed by regrets, and if the nurse had refused, Gavin would have stood up to make her obeyed by using strong-arm tactics.

The young woman agreed, calming Gavin's anger. Now he could watch over Connor, well, that was what he hoped for—