Chapter 53

Code Yellow


Razors pain you

Rivers are damp

Acids stain you

Drugs cause cramp

Guns are unlawful

Nooses give

Gas smells awful

You might as well live

The large, black Thing had successfully taken my entire right side through the curtain as well as both my legs. I was blind with both eyes open, but when I shut my left eye I was free to stare about the inside of the veil. Everything within shifted as if someone had put a pair of strong convex lenses over my eye, but the smoking figure glared at me through a smile in disturbing focus. On this side of the veil he was not overtly large or crooked or without flesh, unlike his state when viewed through my right eye, he didn't stand with stretched and marred proportions. He was straight and narrow and even had skin. White papery shifting skin, shaped in a fairly gormless mask, but pressed to flash a gargantuan nauseating grin. When its mouth opened ever so slightly a shriek almost as loud as my own tiresome terrified screams filled the air, pulling all the light from what was left of my heart. Only one thing could be derived from the ricocheting lamenting defeated keen.

Black, Sirius Black.

It flew back toward my prone figure and once again began to fight to claw me through the veil but seemed unable to pull passed the shining thread at my heart which still curled off, further infuriating the red-eyed wraith. I had taken to only breathing on occasion as tears ran one after the other down my cheek. I wondered why this was happening to me.

I knew the square root of pi was infinite, and that outside of the veil there were people. People had nothing to do with me, they existed like clouds. They looked like fun and I could imagine what time among them would be like, but I never expected to be near them. To understand them or feel them. I didn't name them or call them friends and they did me the same courtesy. I understood and knew plenty of things, but quite literally for the life of me I had no clue why it was me this grin was grinning at in fury.

The whispering had quieted, I wondered if it had ever been happening. The screaming grew louder, I wondered why I could understand the meaning of the other worldly sound. I wondered what had broken my heart, and then I wondered why I was desperate to die when I had nothing to die for.

When light leaves, dark comes but when light remains dark can not be. The light I saw straining away from the arch sourced at my thudding heart forbid me entry to the dark inverted realm. Full of half voices and light which acted as shadow, the other edge of the arch betrayed little but a horrible deep-seated fear. The thing allowed its creaking fingers to unfurl from my squirming disconnected form soundlessly. The skin at the side of my mouth split and dry from screaming, I allowed my lips to part, to take in a great rasping breath. My tongue was heavy in my mouth. I allowed my eyes to role and meet with the burning red of the unnatural creature.

"Would you let me go now please?" I croaked and it was followed pathetically by a rattling sob. It is my life after all. The words begged to follow but found no strength to promote them. I wheezed silently on the floor as the creature moved its collection of menacingly bared teeth intrusively close to my ear. It spoke in a voice, a human voice. A voice the same as my own but layered with every whispering voice around. With someone else, the voice of a man, I closed my eyes tight shut and shook my head painfully as I sobbed as it spoke.

You gave no true life left to live but one year of lies and then a merciless death. Go mortal and be mortal.

The words terrified me but my heart convulsed in my chest even as it stopped talking. I realised that in a distant echo of its words there was something that rang so clear and refined and homely that I craved it. I almost wanted it to keep talking and I opened my eyes to meet its gaze my mouth almost pulled up in a smile. I remembered to be afraid then, I remembered I had been promised death and I instead glared as best I could.

"I'll see you then," I hissed and the ghoul curled its hand around my eyes and dug its finger into my skull painfully.

No you won't.

Everything went very bright and very dark and everything in between.


I forgot why I was so afraid and what I had been. I sat up straight and clean in a small cot and felt instantly at a loss for how I had gotten there. The room span around me and I watched it, feeling dizzy. A beeping resonated from my left.

"Code yellow, Dr. Richardson to ward twelve, code yellow."

I stared at the cardboard tiles on the roof as an aging man slid into the room and instantly approached to shine a torch in my eyes. His free hand moved to press unrelated spots along my neck and the side of my head.

"Can you tell me your name young lady?" The man asked. I met his tempered brown eyes and frowned. I opened my mouth, home to a dense forest. My voice cracking out weakly through the trees.

"No," I answered honestly and a small hysterical laugh hitched out of my throat. A tear slid down my cheek and my lip quivered with a second hiccough. "No, I can't."


A/N: Thanks for reading 3