A/N

This chapter is scary in its own way. It may be a bit confusing, but I will explain at the end.

Enjoy.

"Stop the ticking."

Tick…

Tock…

Tick…

Tock…

"Stop! Please…"

Tick…

Tock…

Tick…

Tock…

"I need you to stop!"

All was silent. Doors, doors, they were everywhere. Darkness made up the realm surrounding her. The air was thick, murky; she could not breathe.

"Where am I?" her voice echoed. "All I can remember is…" she trailed off.

Whenever she opened a door, a decaying corpse full of rot fell to its knees. She backed away as its head shook, twitched, faster and faster. Whenever it looked up, its soulless eyes wept.

"I can't find you, Mom!" the skeleton cried. Its growling voice changed. With radio static and sirens filling the background, the voice of her demons acquired the sound of her voice. The skeletons sounded exactly like her, but they were not her.

"I can't find you!" it said over and over. It resembled a child in the way that it dressed. A toddler shirt with a budding rose was its clothes. It was the exact shirt she wore when she was a child.

She backed away with hollow footsteps. Though there was no floor, nothing but darkness and shadows, she found that she did not fall. She glanced about, yet there was no place to hide.

The corpse wept tears of blood that stained its crusted cheeks. Flakes of skin chipped off. "Why are you leaving me, Mommy? I miss her!" it wept. It scratched the ground and crawled over to Gaz, clinging to her legs. "I miss her. I miss her. Lead me to my mother. Please, we have been parted for so long!"

She growled and pried the fingers from her legs. It cracked and fell back, shielding its face and ducking. The body froze and stone overcame its form. It remained stuck, frozen in the position of a frightened child, never to move again.

A door behind her creaked open. She faced yet another skeleton which shuddered forward on broken limbs. Where the legs and arms should have been, shards of bone jutted out from the splinted fissure. The bones were broken so that the being could only crawl on its knees and elbows; nothing else remained.

"Why won't you wake, mummy," it whispered. "Why do you still sleep…?"

Gaz recognized the very words she spoke from her childhood. "No," she shook her head. "No, stop it!"

"You are my sunshine," the rotting corpse sang, "my only sunshine. You make me happy, when skies are—" it's voice dropped to a growl and it faced Gaz angrily, "You took away my happiness," it accused. "You took away the sunshine. I am no longer happy when skies are grey." It grabbed her legs out from beneath her and she fell. It crawled on top of her and jabbed a shuddering finger in her face. "You took away my happiness, Dad."

She shook her head, "I don't blame Dad for Mom's death. There was nothing he could do. He tried his best!"

It hissed. "Then why do you hate him?"

"I don't, so stop trying to plant these thoughts in my head." She pushed the carcass away and when it thudded to the floor, it remained still as a coat of stone overcame its body, just like the one before.

A man opened the other door. Blood dripped from his temples and his dead, decomposing skin drank the crimson flow. He stumbled closer and when he was next to her, she recognized the white lab coat which lay wrapped in shreds around his crumbling torso. Cracked glasses sat across his eyes.

"Time is running out," he groaned. "The doctors told me so."

Just then, two other men appeared on the ground. They writhed in pain, their fingers clutching their ears and scratching at their throat. "Blame us, blame us," they chanted. "We did all we could. She was destined to die, destined to die…"

The first man in the lab coat stepped over to Gaz and clenched her shoulder coldly. He looked at her with calloused, wrinkled, and blistered eyes. The iris was no longer there and nothing about the eye resembled a human. The pupil had taken over and was now a murky orb of black.

"They did all they could, Gaz," he said.

He turned and sat carefully on his knees, head bowed. When he looked up, there lay a hospital bed dripping with blood. An indention on the sheets resembled a body laying at rest, yet no one was there. The part that frightened her most was that there seemed to be somebody tossing and turning in pain, the sheets wrinkled and folding, yet she could see no one.

"I never meant for this to happen," the man whispered. "It was an accident. I never meant to do this to you."

Gaz stepped closer to the man, listening to his voice. "Dad?" her voice trembled.

Her eyes scanned the white lab coat and fell upon the shattered white rectangle resting near the collar. She approached and when she saw that he did not move, she lifted the I.D. into view. There was a light coming from above, but she knew not the source. There was nothing around except for the darkness, the doors, and now the hospital bed. The other bodies were dead, frozen in stone. The light provided enough sight so that she could read the name tag.

Professor Membrane.

It was her father. But what of the other corpses? The first two were memories; they resembled her in the way that they wore the clothes from her childhood and had the same voice. They had repeated the words she had said, when but a child.

The two men in the white coats? They were doctors. She recognized their voices as they chanted their guilt. They had been there when her mother was dying.

"So then what are you saying?" she asked her father.

He did not respond for in his mind, she was not there. He held the hand of someone she could not see. "I'm so sorry," he muttered. "Forgive me? Forgive me." He waited for a response no one could hear before nodding. "Dib is crying. Gaz is asleep in the other room." Just then he turned, as though hearing a noise.

The bed disappeared, the remaining corpses vanished, and she was alone with the corpse of her father. Skin grew and covered his bones. The dead flesh withered away. The cracked glasses were now new. He was now the man she recognized as her father.

He shook his head down at his daughter. "I'm so sorry, Gaz."

She glared up at him bitterly. "I don't understand. What happened to her? You said she was sick with a disease, but that's now how it really happened, is it?"

He shook his head. "I tried to save her. I did."

"What happened to her?"

He did not respond.

"Tell me!"

He said nothing, but pointed behind her. She turned and found a bedroom. A hospital bed rested in the corner with two men standing circled 'round it. Several clothes covered in dried blood rested on the bureau. She crossed the floor hesitantly, her footsteps tapping the hollow, wooden beams.

From their stethoscopes and confusing talk, she recognized them as the doctors who had diagnosed her mother. They whispered and muttered. She could not pick up but fragments and pieces of their conversation.

"…husband did it. I know he's a scientist, but what kind of person does this to his own wife?"

The other man shrugged. "All I care about is getting the job done. We have to cover his trail, make sure it looks like an accident. The story is that it is a terminal disease she had the misfortune of catching and we're sticking with it."

"But what if someone finds out? Then we could all lose our jobs."

"And that's exactly why we are here; to make sure no one figures it out."

The first man kneeled to feel for her pulse. "Those two are going to be a problem you know, those two kids," he pointed out.

The other man sighed. "Their dad's taking care of that mess. We just have to take care of this and then we're done."

Her dad came into the room and whispered something before nodding. The doctors exited the room, leaving him alone with Gaz's mother. She watched the same scene from before play out as he kneeled beside her.

Her mother opened her eyes for the first time since Gaz had arrived. She coughed hoarsely. "I'm going to be leaving soon."

The Professor nodded meekly and muttered, "I know, honey. I know."

"Where are the kids?"

He looked at the door. "Dib is on the couch. H-He's kind of out of it."

"Is that who I hear crying?" she frowned.

"Yeah," he nodded, "he's not taking it too well."

"Make sure to tell him I love him. I never wanted him to hurt because of me."

Her father nodded again.

"What about Gaz, where is she?"

"She is asleep."

"It's for the best," her mother voiced weakly. "I don't want her to see me this way."

The Professor continued to nod, but his head fell and his shoulders shook violently as he wept. He caressed her face slowly. "I never meant for this to happen," he whispered. "It was an accident. I never meant to do this to you."

"If you hadn't, we would have never had Gaz," her mother replied. "I would never have had it any other way."

"I'm so sorry," he muttered. "Forgive me?" He rested his head against her chest and begged, "Forgive me."

She was about to speak but broke into a fit of coughing. Blood sputtered from her mouth and landed on her chin and cheeks. The Professor quickly grabbed the rag from the bureau and dabbed her face clean.

Her mother grabbed his hand and pleaded, "Please, watch over the kids. I don't care what you have to tell them, but do not let them find out. They can't know that you—" She stopped. She peered fearfully past her husband at the door. He followed her gaze and found a little girl clutching a stuffed bear.

"Why are you leaving me, Mommy?" the child of Gaz asked.

A/N

Okay, now to explain what happened in this chapter. So this is all happening after Stayne left Gaz to die in the river. She doesn't know where she is or what's going on, except that there are doors scattered about in the darkness which she is currently trapped in. Whenever she opened a door, a decomposing corpse fell out and began to voice her memories. Whatever the skeletons said are things that she had said or things that had really happened in her past. The first two are "memories" of her as a child, the man is her father, and the other two are the doctors who are covering up for the Professor's mistake (which you will find out about in chapter 27). The constant ticking you heard in the beginning is to represent that she is, to put it vaguely, "stuck" between lapses of time. She isn't n the past, present, or future. She just exists.

Whenever she steps into the bedrooms with her mother, the doctors, and her father, that is a memory of what happened right before her mother died. I know, confusing, but you will find out more in the next chapter.

Wow, this was a hard chapter to write. I was hoping to have a sense of fear and make it somewhat scary, but emotional too. Hopefully that worked out the way I had planned.

Feedback would be great to let me know how I can improve, because I know I need improvement, but someday I hope to be an author so all helpful criticism is welcome (just please do not be rude).

Chapter 27 will be here shortly!