Bluebeards Syndrome

The silence is deafening. If a pin were to drop, it might rip the world apart and bring down the apocalypse. Little sounds come back, trickling along the upper currents of the room, around the inactive lamps tethered by wire. My heart throbs, beating through my eardrums.

He's humming. The man. He saunters my way, as if he knows where every table is, every corner of the pillar.

With the camera pinned by my chin, I slip under the nearest table and curl into a tiny ball. The screen of the cameras visor glows against my dingy cloth, burning through the protective curtain. Carefully, I slip the little screen shut and still my body. I can't stop the hard quivers working under my skin, or my hands trembling on the camera.

I can't see anything, save for the distant blue of the windows on the other side of the world. I can hear him though. His delicate steps shifting over the silt on the floor, papers scuttling under foot. Somehow he can see. It's not possible, but it doesn't matter what is possible or not. Sanity has no place here.

"These little games are unbecoming, darling."

I wince, and bite into the fabric covering my arm. Hold still, don't make a sound. Don't even breathe. I can't hold my breath. My lungs crave air, burn to be replenished, my head spins.

After waiting lost in the dark, his steps begin to fade from my mind. His humming – he is humming – swims after his imposing presence. I exhale every ounce of hot air into my arm, and swallow down a mouthful of the foul spoil that has saturated my clothes. I almost can't wrestle my breathing under control. The shapes and blossoms of dark tendrils pulse in my eyes.

I crawl out from under the table, one arm wrapped across my chest. I take the camera in my free hand and get it up, aim it towards the window at the other side of the room. Before I move, I twist around and search along the table tops and sewing machines— There! On the other side of the room where the door is pinned. He disappears behind the shelf. I don't chance that he can't run.

I keep on my side of the room and move, one hand outstretched catching the tops of tables, or the boxes I pass. I nearly crash into a large barrel, but swing around it at the last second. I don't think he heard me, but I won't check.

I do slow my steps when I get near the light crashing through the window. I click off the night view and look up, but it's impossible to see the way I've come from.

"Let me love you!"

He's on the other side of that shelf, I'm certain. But I bolt. I tear through the light, bypassing sewing table and shelves, the clutter and broken furnishings of the room whisk by in a blueish glare. The soft crackle of the record clambers through my ears. Damnit! That song!

It's when I reach the ratty blanket that I pull up short. I don't know where to go. The only way I know of out, or in, was by the stairs.

I raise my head to the boxes scattered on the floor. Last time I came through I know they were stacked. But I see the door in the wall, the one that was locked before, is now wide open. I dive through, and wrench around to snare the door handle. My fingers brush over the cold knob, I'm not looking at it, I've looked across the room to the blood soaked bed.

I'm backing up, trying to turn myself around and find a path. The little chair beside the blood stained floor clatters when I crash into it, but I don't stop. I shove my free hand against the wall and catch my balance. My legs are already whirling under me, and almost— Almost! I brush by a door left open ajar. I don't waste a moment in slinging myself at the door, and throw it open with my arm.

It's a large closet, practically empty but for two large shelves and one door at the back wall. I shove the door shut, and cross to the only other door. I take precious time to listen, and peer through the netted window of the door. That music! I can't hear anything with it yammering in the background!

I pull the door open and ease my body through. The hall to me left looks clear. I inch a little more into the hall, and move to the left. There's a gate, and I think I already came that way. Indirectly. I can hear that damn music, but I don't hear him. I don't take that as a good sign.

I return to the door and pull it shut. Quickly, I go over the shelf across from the door, and on the lowest shelf I find a walkie-talkie with one battery. I remember where I put my batteries in the new pocket, and add it to my collection. I'll need a fresh one soon.

A piece of paper sticks to my foot as I walk. I pin the page down with the other foot, and snap it free. There are papers everywhere, but they're not outdated. I mean, the paper is old, but the pictures are not coated in dust and forgotten. The scribbles seem fresh, a lot of the pictures—

I recoil when I raise the camera, but the shock is fleeting. A dress startled me.

This should be funny somehow. I find some sort of awful amusement in this, with how ridiculous the whole… Where am I? I'm confused, and nothing is makes sense.

I glance at a large easel, with a sheet of paper draped over it. An elegant sketch is on it of a woman, or what I take is to be a generic model with graceful curves sporting a flowing dress. Other pictures are pinned to the sheet, of other dresses, other modes. I move my eyes from the pictures, and to the actual, physical dress that cloaks the mannequin. I can't rate the craftsmanship of the dress, compared to the sketch; not through the grungy haze of the camera. But it looks like a dress. It's a wedding dress.

"Love makes a house a home."

I have to lean on the wall, across from the white gown. I think… it's making sense. I think. Did we… Lisa and I, did we have a formal wedding? With bells, and a chapel? I'm not religious, but a big, wonderful celebration with cake, and family; that did appeal. Closeness. Congratulations. Experience. Wasn't she the one? I can't remember how I proposed. That should be something, it would mean everything to me. Yes. Say yes. I do's. Words like consent, and trust. Love. I don't know if I remember the meaning to those words.

The dress is glowing in the gloom, even without the blasted camera latched on it. I use my camera hand to rub at my eyes. Feels like my head wants to burst open. I hit my head pretty hard. My fist brushed over a large knot on the back of my scalp.

I stagger by the dress. My feet are not steady, I shouldn't be moving. But if I stay here; he's looking for me. I hear him humming somewhere nearby, before he begins singing.

"When I was a boy my mother said to me."

He does have a nice voice. I have to admit it. And under different circumstances, I might care to listen. But he's close.

At my shoulder is open space and a gate, on the other side is a large room with bright windows, and a staircase leading down. I tug at the handle, startled when the metal door creaks in its hinges. It goes no further, and only then do I see a chain and padlock. Ahead of me windows line the wall, another gate blocks the hall.

And a door left ajar.

Against my better judgment I inch towards the door, and nudge it open with my elbow. I hold back in the threshold, silent and attentive. Those light footfalls and coming from the hall, drifting with his song on the spiraling dust that glitters in the muggy film in the visor I breathe against.

"Get married son and see how happy you will be."

I jerk the door shut on my shoulder, but the wood panel does not stay in the frame. I grab a chair and lurch it over in front of the door and back away.

The room has enough light that I can lower the camera. It's full of broken crates, furniture; many of the tables not only have sewing machines, but large crates and canisters. I weave around the tables, bounding around for the bare spots on the floor that are not cluttered with cracked timber. The left wall of the room has a corner that juts out at my side, and a large metal canister sits by the flat side of the wall that faces me. There's another easel, but it's splattered with dry crimson, there's too much blood.

Somewhere behind me there's a loud Snap! I know where he is, but I don't know where I am. I imagine he must be angry, but he continues the melodic tune without hitch. Jovial, happy, delighted. My skin twitches.

"I have looked all over, but no girlie can I find."

This random pattern scuttles through my head, something about… program script. Numbers. All these numbers, and protocols. Read the program. It nagged at me, this unfinished…. code. There are no computers here, this place is obsolete and rotten. Rejected. I don't know why this is itching at my mind.

I hit a dead end. The weathered pale walls end at shelves and a door, but a large metal shelf is fixed to the doors front. It's no chair, I don't even know if the doors unlocked. But if the storage container is here, it's for a reason.

I sprint to the containers side, and brace my arm and hand to the cold metal. It burns my palm and at first the corroded wheels won't give an inch, but I shove my heels into the wall snug at my back and take a breath. The container shifts, and I keep shoving it until red pulses through my eyes. I lean on the door rattling at the handle, I push the door then pull, and all but fall to my butt. I crawl through the door but don't bother to shut it.

"Who seems to be just like the little girl I have in mind."

The black swallows me up. I stumble around, forgetting to get the camera up. I don't know what it is, this big metal construction that stands in the middle of the room. To the side. There are a lot of these big… look like generators. They're cylindrical, but I can't define their purpose. I move around them, the camera guides my eye with its all seeing vision. Flat metal disks make the upper portion, and the middle section has circular bars; the base has panels, and little latches, some have cables hanging out in loops.

"I will have to look around until the right one I have found."

I haven't stopped moving. I make my way out from these machines and plaster myself to a brick wall. The floor rattles under foot as I rush through, toward a table that's at the connecting wall. Cans of spray and a typewriter stand on the table. I pause here and fumble with the camera, I pull out the old battery— drop the new one. Rather fumble in the dark to find it, I elect to pull out one of the spares and move on.

Brick reminds me of fire, and scorched flesh; the walls around me have that smell engraved in their mortar. I rub a hand over my cut knuckles as I followed the wall, towards a splash of distorted light. I brush by a cloth basket, and the traitorous thing squeaks as it slides aside. I pick up the pace, hurrying past a wall of shelves draped with cloth, and make my way towards a light. An archway, into another room.

"I want a girl, just like the girl that married dear old Dad."

I might as well be going in circles. More of the large metal structures greet me, shred through the green tint burning in my eyes. I edge around the section of wall and get close to the side of the room, and move between the cold machines and the brick. I smell rust, authentic rust that isn't organic or coppery. I sniffle on the air and cough. The dust coats my throat, stealing away my desperate gasps.

Two pairs of shelves lurch forward, their levels filled with canisters of every size. I'm thinking maybe, I could hold out here and lug these painful looking containers at the guy. It's a suicidal thought, but it feels like I'm fighting. Like I'm trying to get away. There must be a way, I'm not looking hard enough. There's a solution here. Something… something sane and rational.

I almost collapse in the light, under the window. I almost want to stop here and wait, let him find me. But I can't keep myself still, I can't wait.

Another archway appears, to the far wall. I breeze by a large metal structure and by a cracked pillar bent sideways.

Tables as far as the eye can see. Furniture stacked and packed, with chairs and trolleys, crates and broken shelves. I shuffled sideways, straining my eyes through the visor and glancing up with my own eyes. I can get through this. It can't stop me, I won't stop here.

There's a large opening, directly under a somber curtain of light. I cough on the air as I renew my sprint. My throat is parched and it burns, there's practically no liquid in my body. It gets worse as I go, and my eyes begin to water. I have to stop by one of the support beams and buckle forward, choking on air. It's the worst sensation yet and I feel like I'm dying as I drop to my knees, my one hand grabbing at my throat.

I'm sure I hear footsteps, but I don't hear him singing. I reason he doesn't always need to sing when he's chasing me, and I have no idea where he might come from.

I use the wood pillar to steady myself and I get up on my feet. I'm still gagging, but I have some moisture in my lungs. The room ahead is a straight shot, lined by the shelves and more furniture stacked, rows of tables and sewing machines; those little laundry baskets linger at the fringes of shadow.

Shelves dominate one side of the room, but directly across from the passage I enter from, there's a large smear of blood on the floor. I move to the side, my eyes skim over the corroded wall poking through some of the collapsed shelves and their contents. It's a dead end on that side, with one door pinned behind a wreck of twisted metal.

I return to the tables on the other half of the room, and climb over the side that isn't as stained. It's fresh, I call smell the heavy copper saturating the air.

This tells me everything. A story with a beginning, middle, and end. I think somewhere I died, and I've come back to retrace my steps. That doesn't make sense, but what else could?

More shelves stand to attest the path I have taken. In the center of the floor amongst tables, a thick puddle of red. The trail of it splatters across the floor, among box filled levels and stops – explodes – at the base of a metal cabinet filled with canisters. Behind the blockade is a door.

I hop over the sticky floor and put myself up against the grated side. I set the camera atop the the container, and shove my shoulder into its side. My feet skid across the floor and I try, struggle to find a foothold, but the floor is slick with sticky blood. It should make this easier— god, that's terrible, but I can't help but think that. Someone died here. This is the end. I don't want it to be my end.

"Darling." My head snaps up. I see him, leap over the table I slipped over, not a minute ago. "You could be so beautiful."

I latch my fingers over the top of the container and jerk back. It's at the same moment the cabinet starts to tilt, that I remember the camera. I snatch it from the top before the canister crashes over, but I don't stop; the base is still pinned at the door. I shove the side of my shoulder between the wheels of the container, and get one foot up on the grainy surface of the door. I take a deep breath and push with my foot. Inch by little inch, the bottom of the cabinet grinds backwards.

"I want you to have my baby."

The door snaps open enough that I can barely squeeze through. It won't stop him, but it will slow him down. My fingernails dig into the wood of the floor as I drag my body through. For a moment, I'm terrified I won't make it, that he'll snare my leg and rip me back through that crack of the doorway. But I'm tumbling over my knees, kicking away from the door as he steps up.

I pull up by the door handle of a gate, beside the door. It's locked. Where is… I snatch the camera up, and turn from dark windows in front of me, to the hall that extends to a gate. I don't look at him, I'm running. I get two strides and pause to check the gate at my left, locked or stuck. Another door, I need a door, someplace I can hide.

The gate at the halls end is locked. I jerk at the door handle, pull at the chain but it's rusted fast. A dead end? No, I'm not seeing, I've missed something.

When I twist back, the night enhancement catches the figures eyes as he steps through the entry. I slam back into the cold fence of the door. This isn't how it ends. It can't! No-No-NO!

As my arm drops, something flashes in the visor. I bring the camera up and duck to the side, right as the figure begins to stalk my way. An open doorway I missed. I could've died! By chance I'm still running, hurrying to a blockade of broken tables, shelves, wooden planks, filing cabinets. I can see enough with the windows beyond the obstruction, but only barely. Who put this here? Who would do this!

But I already know.

I don't look back as I go to work. I ram my shoulder into the lowest slope of a shelf, and back up as the structure quivers but holds tight. The camera is pressed to my chest, I could feel that piece of paper still wedged there, crinkle as I heave a breath and grab at a piece of wood. I wrench it back, but only the plank comes loose. The barrier stands, unimpressed.

He's right behind me. I whirl about and take a wide step back. He doesn't say anything, no more songs or talk. But he does smile. Something glitters at his side, and I look down. It's a knife, or piece of metal. It catches the light from the open elevator shaft—

His arm sweeps out for my head, and I duck low and dive down the elevator shaft. I didn't intend to fall, I promise Lisa. I couldn't get the spring under my feet, what with the way I had to evade his reach. I saw a ladder, Lisa. The ladder was my salvation. I promise.

I get the camera strap in my teeth before I snag the rungs. My grip slips, but my feet take the weight of my body on the icy steps. The entire structure vibrates up and down, rattling through my head. It's not pleasant, and my hands are barely able to keep locked on the bars. I groan through my teeth and the salty grime of the Velcro. My arms get me up an inch, and I manage to stabilize my footing.

Then, the ladder gives an eerie moan. I feel my body tilting, as bar after bar snaps out from under my feet. Soon, only my hands are keeping me anchored in place, but the ladder is twisting and buckling backwards. The inevitable happens, I turn my eyes up as the rungs come loose in my hands. I'm holding the cold metal, but nothing's holding onto to it. The light begins to fade in my eyes as the sudden weightlessness drags me down, down….

Down, down, down.

My hands grab out for the taunt cables right within reach, beside my shoulder. They whiz by my ear as I keep going further and further into the dark depths. I make a kind of muffled whine through my teeth. I manage to turn my gaze down, and see—

My body buckles. Goes rigid and relaxes. A sound tears out of my throat as I flop back onto the hard wood surface I've crashed too. I'm trying to make sounds through my teeth, but I've all but bit through the handle of the camera. The pain sweeps through me like white fire, sizzling up my ankle and searing through each nerve. I remember I have no water in my throat, but I taste something like blood.

I twist to my shoulder and jerk the camera out of my teeth. My whole leg, every inch of it blazes. It barely hits me that I can't feel the side of my foot, along the three outer toes. Is it broken? Where is my leg!

It's mostly there. The lower half below the knee is devoured by the shattered wood of the elevators roof. Hot liquid spills down my ankle and foot, and I savor the sensation of it slithering through my toes. The rest of my foot, doesn't realize what's happened.

"Oh god. Oh god, are you okay?"

Carefully, I put my hands around my foot and guide it free of the jagged trap. It hurts to flex that foot, the pain is vivid and sizzling all over. Oh… holy, Jesus. A huge splint sticks out of the side of my leg, I can't see where it is through the red cloth. I'm horrified, it looks like a chunk of bone. Relief doesn't come when I realize it's not. Red spreads through the side of my pants leg, when gravity shifts…. Shit… holy shit. There's so much blood.

It soaks into my fingers as I hold my foot steady. I grip the splint of wood in my hand – deep, it's in there too deep. Fast, like a thorn. Do it fast—

My spine snaps back against the rough gears of the elevator. Fuck! I press my palm over the wound. Red seeps between my fingers, it won't stop. I can't bleed out like this.

"Tell me you're okay." My stomach twists. He's still there, voice pained by whatever he envisions he's witnessed. I can't take these wild swings. Shit, there's so much blood. The bleeding won't stop. "I hate to think you're suffering without me."

My arms are quaking as I turn over. I use a ledge on the elevators roof to push up, get myself angled. Camera. I dropped the camera. There, I set it aside gently. I pull it up with me as I stand on my knees, the cold cables give stability as I wobble. I don't test my leg. The top of the elevator is covered with red, and the smell, the rich copper of my blood drowns out the tinge of dank plaster. My mind revisits so many places, too many, covered in gore and slaughter. Rooms, hallways a kitchen – I shudder.

"Why would you do something like that to yourself?"

I tilt back and see him, several yards above me standing on the ledge I leapt off from. I'm feeling light headed, but I do make out what he's saying. It takes too much effort to gulp down the hot breath in my throat. If I was willing to reply, I doubt I could form words.

"You'd rather… Rather die than be with me?" He leans forward, as if I've directly insulted him with my silence.

I want to see him fall, but I don't want him down here.

"Then die," he growled. He backed off, out of sight, and drew the metal fence of the elevator across the access.

The elevator lurches under me, and begins to rise. I toppled sideways, but managed to avoid the deadly cogs exposed on the elevators roof. The container is rising, not quickly, but I can't get mobile and upright with its jostling movement. The passage in the wall beside me is shrinking with each minute. I pull the camera up to my chest, and use my free arm to pull myself over the side of the carriage. The container hasn't lifted high enough from the floor, to make the drop painful. I spill out onto an uneven pile of wood, and it knocks the wind out of me. I hiss through my teeth, and set the camera on my chest as I put my blood soaked hands around my leg.

"What have you…?" I can pick up on his disbelief. "Ha! Then we continue."

My neck aches. I have my jaw locked too tightly. He's looking for me. My leg is wounded, and he's looking for me.

I turn my head and stare at the corridor behind me, where the glimmer from the elevators lamp stretches short up the walls. The hall behind me is packed with tall filing cabinets, shelves, ladders. Secluded at the inky depths, is a smoldering red blob –

EXIT

It's in bright glaring letters. I can see it from my position, between cracked and interlocked pallets. I can't focus on how far that would be, if I was able to walk over there. The walls are obscured by the blockade, the door itself is hidden. I doubt… if I had the time, I could get through with my leg in its condition. There's a way around, I'll find that.

Pain twists into the back of my brain. All the nerves up and down my spine are splint and crackling, on edge. I… I don't know if I can walk like this.

I drag myself over the uneven wooden frame, toward a makeshift table by the wall. The wood boards are nailed together, something like a work bench; plywood lies across the top. I grip the edge and turn over onto my side, but pause. My leg is broiling and wet, a thick splatter of red trails after me, soaking into the dusty floor. Shit. Shit. Holy… oh god.

Gotta get up. Up. Have to stand.

I wriggle my good leg under me and anchor my arms over the corner of the table. I press my chin onto the folds of my filthy sleeve and take another breath. Every pulse of my heart vibrates a new wave of agony down my leg. I can do this. I can. I'm not dying here. But first, I have to move. My leg is still present, I have to use it.

One forty-four. Two eighty-eight. Twelve. Twenty-four. Forty-eight. Glass boxes. Men behind glass. So much blood. I'm losing so much blood.

I brace my heel into a corner of the wood frame, and shove my arms into the table under me. I keep weight off my foot, but the shift in gravity presses down on the gash. I can hear the pip-plip of my blood leaking onto a sheet of wood under my suspended foot.

But I'm up, I can get moving. The slacked stacks of wood skid out from under my good foot, I can't keep my balance even when leaning hard on the wall to my side. I hobble one footed, but every tremor of my body drives more blood, more pain surging through my leg. It's cruel, and when I finally reach flat stable ground, I completely lose my balance and fall into the doorway of a metal gate. I keep the camera safe in one hand, and place the brunt of my weight along my ribs and arm. I choke on silt, and grit my teeth. I can do this. But I won't, it can't be possible if I don't move.

I raise my body. Climb up on the chain-links of the sturdy gate I've fallen by. I saw the words illuminated by the lamp dangling from the ceiling. They chill me. Things are getting put together in my head. I don't want them to, but I'm still trying to rationalize what I'm processing. I'm figuring through a mutilated dream that's creeping in; everything becomes a living, breathing nightmare.

"A woman's work is never done."

Below the words, blood is splattered across the wall and floor. I haven't come through here. The path is marked in painful crimson, the splayed pattern contorts in my head. There has to be another way! Someone had to have found the way!

I turn the camera to the open hall to my left, but find nothing. It's a fence, and I easily locate the large chain coiled over the door and metal frame. I put the camera strap between my teeth – I'm going to need it – and claw my way up the metal fence. I hear metal clacking. Elevators, I took an elevator into the lab. It's what I saw as the dark receded and the world became white rock, chiseled. Stale, recycled air. People… in lab coats talking, always talking about the Project.

My leg can take weight on my heel, and maybe the side of my front sole. It works better if I drag it, I don't agitate it too much. The skin tugs across the ravaged skin and everything else inside the gutted hole, but I start to move a little easier. The camera strap, it helps. It reduces the pressure in my jaw. I don't feel like my teeth are cracking in their roots. I'm moving. I can still walk.

I keep close to the rough flakey wall and lean on it often as I move across the hall, towards a door that is open. Papers crumple under my leg and stick, I know I'm dragging blood. But maybe, it'll camouflage my path. He couldn't… possibly remember all these blood stains exactly.

A motor is grinding at my back. The elevator. He's coming down.

The room is large, open, bare of furniture. A mattress lies along the farthest wall, a table, garbage littered the floor. There are no places or spaces, or dark corners to hide. Only marred windows, and blood.

I work my way around the rubbish, struggling through hastening my pace without slitting my heel. The echoes of the elevators carriage fade with each step, each grating movement withers in my wound. He'll follow, and there is nothing here; only air, vibrations, and whispers. I'm bleeding too much, can't keep facts straight. Blood spread all over the floor. I haven't been here in this room, but blood is here; a long streak on the floor extending from a thick, black puddle. Futile struggle.

If I've come through these rooms before, and he… I don't make it. He finds me, and I have to start over again? But I get further each time. I can… I know I can do it this time. He won't catch me.

"There's no place like home."

It's written across another big easel, with blood speckled along the base. He won't find me. I won't.

Stop.

Off center of the room, there's another mannequin by the pillar. I didn't look twice the first time, but I'm not sure if it's leather or plastic. I'm not sure. The air is saturated with rust and copper, most of it's mine. But the mannequin. I can't look, I lope past. I think pieces of it are crudely repaired with needle and thread. Insects eat the cloth, chew whatever's edible. The mannequin, I think what the bugs ate, was later replaced by a person.

I stumble against a sturdy bookcase in my path, and try to pull cooperation from my hurt leg. There's a stabbing pain in the toes that have feeling, like someone's jamming needles all into my foot sole. It's like a Charley-horse, but there's blood everywhere, and the spasms are dragging me down to my knees. Keep moving damnit! Something inside my body physically snaps, and I'm pushing on. A glowing red haze floods my vision, blood is spilling across my brain. I can't breech the flood, can't breathe. I follow the splotches of crimson all over paper and ruble, the desperate last mile. They lead somewhere. These footprints. I came through here, I knew where I was going. There are shoe prints.

He's singing again, sometimes humming. Or is that me?

The hall is lined with lockers. All open, all empty. The light bearing down is no welcomed relief; it burns into the smoldering haze and makes it worse by an exponent of 10. There's nothing under foot, no crutches I can use. Can't escape the sound, that awful crackling record followed me.

"If mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy."

I grip one of the last lockers on my left, and stare at the words on the wall. There's only enough light that I can translate what I can't see. I'm not sure if I read them right. I'm only positive I don't want to know. Too much, I see too much.

I have to tear the camera from my teeth and slip the wet handle hold over my fingers. The light cut off and the dark suppresses, digging its cold fingers into whatever crevice it can find. I stumble through it and manage to grab hold of an empty bookshelf that is directly in my path. There's almost too much room, not enough holds to find my balance. I take the weight off my leg and feel the slow roll of blood slipping down my heel. The fabric of my scrubs clings to my leg, up to my knee. How much blood am I loosing? A quarter a minute? How much blood is in my body?

I can't get ahold of the doorframe. I'm pushing off with one hand, and trying to find stability with the other arm. But the camera occupies my hand, and without it I can't see in the dark so I fall. Something under me tears, and I roll onto my side as a wave of pain sizzles through my nerves. Needles and cold spots bristle all across my skin. The damp page rumpled against my chest, crinkles as I wheeze at the foul air. I feel a sudden spark of clarity, lying in the dark like this. I have nothing to brace my weight on, but I can see through the green glow of the camera. It bobs around as I flop and drag my body towards a wall of crumbling bookshelves and a basket, a laundry basket.

The camera sees, I can't. It's momentarily dark as I shove the cloth container aside with my elbow, and use my other arm to find a hold of the wood. The first shelf cracks when I fight to drag my body up; I grope around in nothingness until I shove the camera into my face. I climb up like Spiderman, sideways and up at a slope, my good leg finally finds the floor under me and distributes some of the bulk. I can see more, but I keep grabbing at whatever surface is within reach. My breath fogs the screen, but there is enough movement and light that I can find a clear path.

The wall parallel to the shelves is an ornate but shattered window, I can see the next hall and some of the light lingering there. I might be able to crawl out the shattered frame, but glass is everywhere. Boxes and desks are shoved against the wall, and lockers, a stool— I can't tell which blood is mine, or what blood has already been here. The blotches get thicker, spread wider. I've come this way many times, again and again, until I get it right. I can do this.

"That part of you the world sees, they think is perfect. As God intended."

The blood ended around the bend in the shelves. I pause, jagged little puffs threading through my lips. It was a large pattern, it had the vague reminisce of twisting shapes burning in my eyes, and the distant warble of the whirring rasp; of dark jagged silhouettes peeling off of walls and encircling my brain, caging me in. Me. Mr. Waylon Park.

"Even these idiots and lunatics see it," he's muttering. Sounded mad, frustrated. "There's something special about you. On the surface."

I swallow down the taste, and turn the camera to the wall built around me. Someone built this. Someone put this here. A trap. That is why the blood ends. Shoe prints. They are clear, and smeared, all through the blood making the patterns larger; twisted.

I press a hand over my face, and dig the edges of my fingers into my brow. Ended. Code end. HTML script errors. No. There's a door beside a locker, unbarred.

"But when they look deeper, when anybody with eyes to see looks at what you truly are."

Beyond all rational, beyond hope and aspiration. The door is locked. It is locked, the knob is rusted, and it is jammed.

I shove my shoulder into the splintered wood, and crumple. A cold wave bore into my leg and twisted through the core of my knee. No. This door can't be locked, just this door. This once. Please.

"That's why they don't trust you." His dark shape glides past the window in the door. He's come down from the elevator, and he'll… the path I took. A trap. "You're not what you're meant to be. Not yet." He knows.

I drive my elbow into the door, then my shoulder. The wood shudders against my assault. I push back and ram my shoulder into the door once more, over and over. Outlines double and pulse, my leg blazes. I beat my palm at the glass, and scarcely recall the camera that is still locked in my fist. If anything, I don't…. the evidence is more important than my life?

"Hmm. Close." Not far! He's in the same room!

I collapse and press my back into the door. End. It's a dead end! Where—

"This place can see into your mind. And the things you've done. Oh, they're a sin, darling."

My leg slips on the thick puddle of fresh blood slipping down my heel. I squeeze my eyes shut, shake my head against his words. He knows nothing. He can't understand, never! "I had no choice. Did what I have to. I did… I know, and I regret." A tight sound chokes in my throat. My family. They deserve better. I could've done more, could've survived.

"But a flower is only as sweet as the soil that nourishes it. And yours needs nourishing, and pruning, and care."

"No. No…."

As I'm sliding down against the wall, the tips of my fingertips brush over cold metal, hollow. I climb up and peer through the cameras visor. It's a locker. A cage. A hiding place. I pull the latch and slip inside. The door whispers shut. In a few seconds, the interior scent of ancient metal and rotted books is drowned by copper. A somewhat welcomed breeze creeps through the large gap in the doors cracked vent. I can see out. Too well.

"I can…, ah, the smell of my love's arbor." I stuff the camera into its pack, and grip the latch mechanism of the locker interior. "Darling, you can't hide from me." He brushes by the opening, leaning over. I tightened my hold on the little gear housing on my side, and feel the vibrations through the thin metal as he… he doesn't try the latch. He does something else.

The locker pitches over. I'm in momentary black as the whole container tilts dangerously to the side, and keeps going. My voice is saying something, I'm screaming through the thunder hurtling through my head, the panic that I'm falling blindly. On reflex I try and get my arms up, but they're pinned under my side and—

Buzzing is in my ears. I smashed my head on the inner metal when it crashed to the floor, think I hit something sharp. The sounds around me are vague, muffled by the ringing. I'm burbling through my panicked voice, soon choking on the thick film of silt ignited by the lockers collision.

"You make yourself a gift for me."

I'm sliding on my shoulder as the locker flips once more. I groan in my throat, papers and weight shifts around my bloodied leg. I'm suffocating on the heavy air, but the more I struggle to calm my rapid breaths the more panicked I become; the faster my heart beats.

My abductor swings into view above me, and leans toward the opening in the lockers front. "A delicacy to be unwrapped and unwrapped again." His eyes are red, practically glowing. I'm pushing my hands into the edges of the locker, trying to get away from him. "And savored."

He disappears for a short while. I lay there, blinking at the dark, listening to nothing but my heart echoing against the metal walls of my coffin. He's not completely gone. I can hear him shuffle around somewhere, and in the fringes of the murk above I see movement. He fiddles with the foot of the locker, the minute bit of tampering is enhanced by my bloody leg. Something clatters over the head of the locker, and I see him pace around. It's impossible to miss the slightest change in the area around me. Briefly, I do believe he'd forgotten me and left. I thought this, but didn't believe it.

"Here we go. And—"

I don't hear what he says after that. The locker, my coffin, begins to grind over the ground. It roars through my ears; every little bump and crack is amplified through the walls of the container. My leg isn't holding my weight, but all the shivers hammer away at the scorched nerves. I grab at my knee, then at the latch on the door. It's fixed tight by something, a wire. My blood slicked fingers can't get a grip.

"I've been a little… vulgar," he says, through pants. "I know, and I want to say I'm sorry. I just… you know how a man gets when he wants to know a woman."

All the blood on my hands may not be from my leg. I can't see far enough down at the angle I'm lodged in. There's a little box that houses the mechanism for the locker's latch, I should be able to get a finger through a gap and pull something loose. But this is an old model, the metal is thick and the housing for the latch has no openings. I push at the door. Try and get my palms and elbows braced inside, maybe I can force it off.

"But after the ceremony," he goes on. "When I've made an honest woman out of you… I promise I'll be a different man."

I stop fighting the door catch and stare up, out the broken vent in the locker as the ceiling and wood boards drag by. I wince as light pierces the gloom, and fades. The steady scrape of the container pauses briefly; I think a door clicks or creaks, and then the scrabbling racket resumes.

I don't want to think about his words, or imagine… remember too much. Instead, I focus on counting the number of cracks in the ceiling as they pass. Sometimes my finger fumbles at the inner case of the latch; it gives me something to calculate on. As my breathing falls back into a steady pattern, I feel the crumpled piece of paper pressed to my chest. The boards sweep sideways. That means he turned a corner.

There's a pause in the scratching, and for a moment it's quiet. A low humming tingles in the back of my ears. I wince when he leans down onto the locker door. The metal buckles under him, and I push at the door. I can't withdraw any deeper into the rusted metal.

"I want a family, a legacy," he proclaimed. He's speaking right into the tiny opening where fresh air comes in, and his breath is rancid. Like he's dead inside. It all makes perfect sense now. "To be the father I never had. I'll never let anything happen to our children. Not like…." He looks angry, remembering something awful. Was he once a child? That doesn't seem realistic.

All I can think about… are my boys. And marvel at how sheltered they are, how safe they should be. They are a million miles away from me, and I know I love them. I can't think of them… and all those little chairs I've seen. I could be wrong. But my stomach churns, and I'm frightened for them. Lisa. Take care of our boys. Keep them safe. Please. Don't let them take the boys. They won't… there are so many different ways to die. I've seen a hundred today, but the worst is looking me right in the eye.

He disappears, and the locker continues to grind at the ground. The vibrations and rattling get lost somewhere deep in my head, distant from my direct presence and self. I'm not aware of half the time that passes, but I'm certain he hasn't spoken. A putrid odor begins to spill over the opening, and swirls about my head. I'm suddenly all too aware, and the moment I start to shift my body, the jagged threads constrict into my leg.

"You'll have to wait here." I'm lumped with a heavy weight of vertigo as my coffin shifts, and begins spinning. I press my face into my shoulder and stifle a whimper. I'm suddenly upright, with all the weight in the world piled onto my wounded leg. The smell. I miss the smell of my own blood.

"I know," he continues, ducking into view. "You must be just as eager as I am to consummate our love." He lays a gloved hand over the cracked vent, but I see through the spaces in his spread fingers. "But try to enjoy the anticipation." Red tinge, chains. A lone arm sways in midair. I gawp at it with the edge of my eye, and try to focus on the awful scent of my scrubs. "Here, darling."

I'm not listening. He pulled his hand away, and my eyes locked on a blood soaked table, severed bodies hang around the room. Everything is shaded in this rosy light. This single random phrase keeps repeating in my head, "I need to get home to my… I need to get home to my…." I scarcely glance at his hand as it rests just below the lockers window.

"This will help you relax."

A bitter mists envelopes the interior of the locker. Immediately, my eyes turn fuzzy and I'm sputtering, hissing at the icy liquid that fills my nose and throat. I struggle to raise my arms and defend my face from the poison, but my limbs are already detached; the rest of me is coming apart. It nullifies the pain in my leg, but feeling nothing… isn't it terrible?

The sounds vanish, the light evaporates. I fall into a deep black pool of mud and glass, everything cold and hot all at once, and always fluctuating. If I never wake up, that seems fair. I've done so many things I regret. So much is left unfinished. Fucked up so bad. But in this empty haze, I don't care. I can't fix this. In so deep. You're in too deep.

All gone.

Lost it all.

I'm sorry.

Lisa.

As Waylon sleeps, a half a mile away another man awakens in a white room. This man is certain his contact is dead.