Comments: Hello people. Once again, thanks for the reviews. It's been a
wonderful encouragement. Once again, I'm really sorry for not updating
quickly enough, Rachel. I have some other engagements in my social and
educational life. Meanwhile, I hope you enjoy my other fledgling project
'The Songs We Sing'. Yippee! I reached a milestone with this 10th chapter,
which also happens to be a milestone in the story. Hope you enjoy it!
Thanks a lot to ATX for suggesting the title to this chapter!
Disclaimer: M/S rocks! So does D/R.
Story:
FLASHBACK:
SCIENCE LAB
WARREN NEWTONIAN MECHANICS COLLEGE
23rd APRIL 1984
7:50 PM
The foursome remained suspended in air, three engulfed by a shadowy grey ray, and Nayle surrounded by green light. Terry was having an interesting experience - he felt himself being disintegrated painlessly, particle by particle. Then, he felt himself being rejoined particle by particle. This process continued, until finally disintegration of his body stopped. Then came the scary part. Every scary moment in his life, every moment in his life he felt inclined to fear, played in his mind like a continuous film, rewinding and replaying. He felt himself experienced every moment in full true-life colour. He started screaming, an empty scream, that seemed to echo into an abyss of nothingness. Finally, everything stopped - everything was black around him, and he felt his body land with a 'whump' on the ground. What he didn't notice was that some grey particles broke loose from his body.
***
Terry was running, running through a dark forest. He looked down at himself. He was a nine-year-old child. He looked behind him, a man holding a knife running behind him. Tripping over a grass root, he fell and landed on his knees. As he started crying and as his right knee started spewing a thin stream of blood, the man stood over him, his face covered in shadow, Terry lying between his legs, the man lowered the knife. As Terry screamed, he seemed to be lifted out from the dark forest and into light. He opened his eyes.
CUT TO:
JAMESTOWN HOTEL
JAMESTOWN
RHODE ISLAND
11:04 PM
"That was one of the most frightening moments of my life. That same man killed my mother when I was a child. He was coming after me, that scene had played in my mind for so many years afterward. I had to undergo therapy, and I had almost forgotten about it, when... when..." Terry wiped his eyes on his sleeve and took the glass of water Scully was offering him. Gulping thirstily, he then placed the glass on his bedside table. Looking at it as though repulsed, he continued with his story.
CUT TO:
HOSPITAL WING
WARREN NEWTONIAN MECHANICS COLLEGE
24th APRIL 1984
9:08 AM
Terry opened his eyes. Still recovering from the shock of his dream, he sat up in his bed and looked wildly around him. He was in the hospital wing - a white walled room with windows covered with translucent blue curtains, giving the room a sort of dreamy feel. Beside him, Nayle lay still unconscious, his glasses on his bedside table, covered with a white blanket. To the right of him, lay the other two students who experienced the grey ray.
Slowly, Terry lay back down on a bed, as the college nurse came in. Walking over to him, the college nurse bent over the bed and asked him whether he was okay. Looking at the college nurse bending over him, Terry slowly saw the nurse's face slowly morph into the Man in the Forest, and his surroundings slowly changed to forest environs. Again, Terry saw his body as that of a nine-year-old and stared up at the Man in the Forest holding a knife in his hand. Then, slowly, the Man's face contorted back into the nurse's face and the knife in her hand disappeared to reveal an empty hand, which made contact with Terry's cheek. Terry snapped out of the stupor he fell into and did not realize he was screaming. "Are you OK? Snap out of it!," the nurse asked and gave him another slap on the cheek. Terry closed his eyes - his vision had suddenly started to blur - and then he opened his eyes again. The nurse looked over at him concerned. Terry turned his head to one side and mumbled, "I'm OK".
"Well, I don't think so, young man. You seem to be suffering from some kind of hallucinations. God knows what that machine did to you. Now," she offered a glass of water and a pill to Terry, "take this so that you will become better." Terry lifted his head, and then his body, and sat on the bed. He took the glass of water and pill and obligingly popped the pill in his mouth. No sooner than he had kept his glass of water down on his bedside table than a crash erupted from to his left. The college nurse who was standing to the left of Terry's bed looked around in surprise, followed by Terry's gaze. A fan had ripped itself off from the ceiling and fell point-blank on Nayle's bed ... sans Nayle. The wing door was ajar.
Terry was first to recover from the shock, and he jumped out of his bed and ran out the ajar door into the hall, followed closely by the nurse. Nayle was standing in the hallway, floating a few inches above air. Terry heard a gasp from the nurse behind him. He was surprised himself. A cupboard was in the narrow hallway. Nayle was staring at Terry and the nurse and he fed Terry particularly with a look of loathing. Remaining suspended in air, green particles erupted from his hand and surrounded the cupboard. The green particles first orbited the cupboard, similar to electrons and a nucleus. Then the green parts formed a thin plastic like covering around the cupboard. Nayle raised his arm and the cupboard rose too. Nayle gave a pushing motion to the air, and the cupboard pushed ahead, straight to its target: Terry and the nurse. Everything then seemed to happen in slow motion. In an involuntary motion, Terry raised his hand. The cupboard was coming towards the nurse. Mustering all the effort he could, Terry felt grey particles tear off and leave his hand. They surrounded the plastic film of the cupboard, and just before the cupboard hit the nurse, the cupboard stopped in mid-air, and fell. Not realizing what he had just done, Terry looked at his hand in surprise, while the nurse gave him a mixed look of astonishment and fear, taking in deep breaths due to her narrow escape from imminent death.
Tearing his eyes from his hand, Terry looked back into the hallway. Nayle had disappeared... but the door opening the hallway to the outside courtyard was ajar too. Rushing outside, Terry was just in time to see Nayle cross the main road ahead of the school. Nayle didn't look left or right: not obeying this rule of the road made him overlook the car that was coming towards him. Nayle was running, but the car was faster. Realizing imminent collision, the driver applied the breaks. But it was too late. The effect that followed was curious, not to mention really really freaky and odd. Nayle turned his face, and for the first time, Terry saw it was contorted with fear. For the second time that morning, everything seemed to happen in slow motion. The car passed through Nayle, or rather, Nayle stood where he was and like a ghost, passed through the car. As soon as the car left Nayle's body, it crumbled into a luminous green powder, as if Nayle was made of luminous chimney dust, and this green powder lay in a small hill on the road. After a few seconds gap however, the green dust rose up and reassumed Nayle's body shape and outline, and gave rebirth to Nayle. This time, Nayle's face was really really tired, like as if he ran a mile under 3 minutes, and he fainted onto the ground, for the second time in two days.
FEW DAYS LATER RHODE ISLAND HOSPITAL
WARREN
RHODE ISLAND
8:30 PM
Terry entered the spotless white reception hall and asked the lady behind the counter in which room Nayle Northern was kept. Room 295. Taking the stairs to the third floor, Terry glanced through the window embedded in the door. Nayle was lying down on the bed in white pyjamas and was connected to a machine that recorded his pulse and vital signs. Terry opened the door and sat down on a chair beside Nayle. Despite having treated him so bad, Terry still had a soft corner towards Nayle - after all, who won most of the academic prizes for their class? Sitting there and thinking, Terry was jerked back to attention when he noticed something odd. Nayle looked older... his face was beginning to wrinkle, his skin was beginning to wrinkle. As Terry watched in amazement, Nayle progressed from young to old in a matter of minutes. Then the 'ageing' seemed to stop. Terry, curious, stood up and moved closer to Nayle. No sooner had he moved closer than Nayle's body burst into flames. Surprised and scared, Terry watched in fear and amazement as Nayle's body was engulfed in flames. Running out into hall, Terry ran wildly, looking left to right for a nurse. No nurse in sight. Running down the stairs into the reception area, he gasped to the nurse at the reception counter: "Nayle... Northern... body... burning".
Surprised, the nurse asked him to calm down and explain the story. As Terry calmed down, he explained what had happened in the room in the past few minutes, but the nurse looked at him sceptically. A sudden crash from up above caught her attention. Running and climbing up the stairs, the nurse and Terry went in the direction of the noise - Nayle's room. Opening the door, Terry opened the door to see - nothing. Nayle's bed was empty, and no scorch mark left any history of any burning. But Nayle was gone, and a small pyramid of greenish powder was on the bed. The window was broken, as if someone had jumped through. Looking down the window, Terry saw a green trail leading down the wall and onto the hospital compound, and he also saw a figure running away, with an eerie greenish glow.
Terry ran down the stairs and so did the nurse. Going to the area below Nayle's room, Terry followed the trail. The trail led across the compound, across the road in front of the hospital and into a park, where Terry saw a figure jump behind a clump of bushes. Running towards the bushes, Terry saw an eerie green light erupting from the clump of bushes as if something exploded. Stupefied for a moment, Terry regained his composure and ran behind the clump. Behind it was a larger pyramid of green powder, and no Nayle. Holding the green powder in his hands, he felt his hand become cool...
3 HOURS LATER
Terry had left behind the green powder. Now however, it started glowing. After a while, the glowing green powder started rising and swirling in the form of a mini tornado. Particles of green clumped together into bunches of green - bunches into lumps. These lumps finally crashed into each other at one point, and immense green light broke into the night. The lumps had formed a small sphere, which blew up slowly into a big sphere, holding Nayle...
Disclaimer: M/S rocks! So does D/R.
Story:
FLASHBACK:
SCIENCE LAB
WARREN NEWTONIAN MECHANICS COLLEGE
23rd APRIL 1984
7:50 PM
The foursome remained suspended in air, three engulfed by a shadowy grey ray, and Nayle surrounded by green light. Terry was having an interesting experience - he felt himself being disintegrated painlessly, particle by particle. Then, he felt himself being rejoined particle by particle. This process continued, until finally disintegration of his body stopped. Then came the scary part. Every scary moment in his life, every moment in his life he felt inclined to fear, played in his mind like a continuous film, rewinding and replaying. He felt himself experienced every moment in full true-life colour. He started screaming, an empty scream, that seemed to echo into an abyss of nothingness. Finally, everything stopped - everything was black around him, and he felt his body land with a 'whump' on the ground. What he didn't notice was that some grey particles broke loose from his body.
***
Terry was running, running through a dark forest. He looked down at himself. He was a nine-year-old child. He looked behind him, a man holding a knife running behind him. Tripping over a grass root, he fell and landed on his knees. As he started crying and as his right knee started spewing a thin stream of blood, the man stood over him, his face covered in shadow, Terry lying between his legs, the man lowered the knife. As Terry screamed, he seemed to be lifted out from the dark forest and into light. He opened his eyes.
CUT TO:
JAMESTOWN HOTEL
JAMESTOWN
RHODE ISLAND
11:04 PM
"That was one of the most frightening moments of my life. That same man killed my mother when I was a child. He was coming after me, that scene had played in my mind for so many years afterward. I had to undergo therapy, and I had almost forgotten about it, when... when..." Terry wiped his eyes on his sleeve and took the glass of water Scully was offering him. Gulping thirstily, he then placed the glass on his bedside table. Looking at it as though repulsed, he continued with his story.
CUT TO:
HOSPITAL WING
WARREN NEWTONIAN MECHANICS COLLEGE
24th APRIL 1984
9:08 AM
Terry opened his eyes. Still recovering from the shock of his dream, he sat up in his bed and looked wildly around him. He was in the hospital wing - a white walled room with windows covered with translucent blue curtains, giving the room a sort of dreamy feel. Beside him, Nayle lay still unconscious, his glasses on his bedside table, covered with a white blanket. To the right of him, lay the other two students who experienced the grey ray.
Slowly, Terry lay back down on a bed, as the college nurse came in. Walking over to him, the college nurse bent over the bed and asked him whether he was okay. Looking at the college nurse bending over him, Terry slowly saw the nurse's face slowly morph into the Man in the Forest, and his surroundings slowly changed to forest environs. Again, Terry saw his body as that of a nine-year-old and stared up at the Man in the Forest holding a knife in his hand. Then, slowly, the Man's face contorted back into the nurse's face and the knife in her hand disappeared to reveal an empty hand, which made contact with Terry's cheek. Terry snapped out of the stupor he fell into and did not realize he was screaming. "Are you OK? Snap out of it!," the nurse asked and gave him another slap on the cheek. Terry closed his eyes - his vision had suddenly started to blur - and then he opened his eyes again. The nurse looked over at him concerned. Terry turned his head to one side and mumbled, "I'm OK".
"Well, I don't think so, young man. You seem to be suffering from some kind of hallucinations. God knows what that machine did to you. Now," she offered a glass of water and a pill to Terry, "take this so that you will become better." Terry lifted his head, and then his body, and sat on the bed. He took the glass of water and pill and obligingly popped the pill in his mouth. No sooner than he had kept his glass of water down on his bedside table than a crash erupted from to his left. The college nurse who was standing to the left of Terry's bed looked around in surprise, followed by Terry's gaze. A fan had ripped itself off from the ceiling and fell point-blank on Nayle's bed ... sans Nayle. The wing door was ajar.
Terry was first to recover from the shock, and he jumped out of his bed and ran out the ajar door into the hall, followed closely by the nurse. Nayle was standing in the hallway, floating a few inches above air. Terry heard a gasp from the nurse behind him. He was surprised himself. A cupboard was in the narrow hallway. Nayle was staring at Terry and the nurse and he fed Terry particularly with a look of loathing. Remaining suspended in air, green particles erupted from his hand and surrounded the cupboard. The green particles first orbited the cupboard, similar to electrons and a nucleus. Then the green parts formed a thin plastic like covering around the cupboard. Nayle raised his arm and the cupboard rose too. Nayle gave a pushing motion to the air, and the cupboard pushed ahead, straight to its target: Terry and the nurse. Everything then seemed to happen in slow motion. In an involuntary motion, Terry raised his hand. The cupboard was coming towards the nurse. Mustering all the effort he could, Terry felt grey particles tear off and leave his hand. They surrounded the plastic film of the cupboard, and just before the cupboard hit the nurse, the cupboard stopped in mid-air, and fell. Not realizing what he had just done, Terry looked at his hand in surprise, while the nurse gave him a mixed look of astonishment and fear, taking in deep breaths due to her narrow escape from imminent death.
Tearing his eyes from his hand, Terry looked back into the hallway. Nayle had disappeared... but the door opening the hallway to the outside courtyard was ajar too. Rushing outside, Terry was just in time to see Nayle cross the main road ahead of the school. Nayle didn't look left or right: not obeying this rule of the road made him overlook the car that was coming towards him. Nayle was running, but the car was faster. Realizing imminent collision, the driver applied the breaks. But it was too late. The effect that followed was curious, not to mention really really freaky and odd. Nayle turned his face, and for the first time, Terry saw it was contorted with fear. For the second time that morning, everything seemed to happen in slow motion. The car passed through Nayle, or rather, Nayle stood where he was and like a ghost, passed through the car. As soon as the car left Nayle's body, it crumbled into a luminous green powder, as if Nayle was made of luminous chimney dust, and this green powder lay in a small hill on the road. After a few seconds gap however, the green dust rose up and reassumed Nayle's body shape and outline, and gave rebirth to Nayle. This time, Nayle's face was really really tired, like as if he ran a mile under 3 minutes, and he fainted onto the ground, for the second time in two days.
FEW DAYS LATER RHODE ISLAND HOSPITAL
WARREN
RHODE ISLAND
8:30 PM
Terry entered the spotless white reception hall and asked the lady behind the counter in which room Nayle Northern was kept. Room 295. Taking the stairs to the third floor, Terry glanced through the window embedded in the door. Nayle was lying down on the bed in white pyjamas and was connected to a machine that recorded his pulse and vital signs. Terry opened the door and sat down on a chair beside Nayle. Despite having treated him so bad, Terry still had a soft corner towards Nayle - after all, who won most of the academic prizes for their class? Sitting there and thinking, Terry was jerked back to attention when he noticed something odd. Nayle looked older... his face was beginning to wrinkle, his skin was beginning to wrinkle. As Terry watched in amazement, Nayle progressed from young to old in a matter of minutes. Then the 'ageing' seemed to stop. Terry, curious, stood up and moved closer to Nayle. No sooner had he moved closer than Nayle's body burst into flames. Surprised and scared, Terry watched in fear and amazement as Nayle's body was engulfed in flames. Running out into hall, Terry ran wildly, looking left to right for a nurse. No nurse in sight. Running down the stairs into the reception area, he gasped to the nurse at the reception counter: "Nayle... Northern... body... burning".
Surprised, the nurse asked him to calm down and explain the story. As Terry calmed down, he explained what had happened in the room in the past few minutes, but the nurse looked at him sceptically. A sudden crash from up above caught her attention. Running and climbing up the stairs, the nurse and Terry went in the direction of the noise - Nayle's room. Opening the door, Terry opened the door to see - nothing. Nayle's bed was empty, and no scorch mark left any history of any burning. But Nayle was gone, and a small pyramid of greenish powder was on the bed. The window was broken, as if someone had jumped through. Looking down the window, Terry saw a green trail leading down the wall and onto the hospital compound, and he also saw a figure running away, with an eerie greenish glow.
Terry ran down the stairs and so did the nurse. Going to the area below Nayle's room, Terry followed the trail. The trail led across the compound, across the road in front of the hospital and into a park, where Terry saw a figure jump behind a clump of bushes. Running towards the bushes, Terry saw an eerie green light erupting from the clump of bushes as if something exploded. Stupefied for a moment, Terry regained his composure and ran behind the clump. Behind it was a larger pyramid of green powder, and no Nayle. Holding the green powder in his hands, he felt his hand become cool...
3 HOURS LATER
Terry had left behind the green powder. Now however, it started glowing. After a while, the glowing green powder started rising and swirling in the form of a mini tornado. Particles of green clumped together into bunches of green - bunches into lumps. These lumps finally crashed into each other at one point, and immense green light broke into the night. The lumps had formed a small sphere, which blew up slowly into a big sphere, holding Nayle...