Shining among Darkness
By
WingzemonX
Chapter 19
Dead eyes
Once the three left the monitor room, they began to hurry down the hall without looking back. Their intention was to go back to the waiting room, where they had promised to wait for those additional ten minutes. Also, it was the place where Cole had left his luggage, and he really hoped that with so many policemen hovering around the hospital, no one has dared to take it.
"That was incredible," Cody exclaimed, unable to hide his astonishment as they walked on. Cole walked forward as if he were the guide of a small excursion, while Cody and Matilda followed behind, the latter more behind than his friend. "How did you find out all that?"
"I don't deserve so much credit," Cole replied with a tone of false modesty quite evident. "I just find out one name, and the rest was simple."
"And how did you find out that name exactly?" Asked Matilda, sounding more like a demand.
"You did it with your Shining, right?" Said Cody, although he knew beforehand that he was saying something so evident that there was no point in wanting to clarify it.
Cole smiled, amused at the interest they both put in him suddenly.
"I promise I'll explain everything while we eat something..."
"Hey, wait!" They heard someone was snapping behind them, and the three assumed, or perhaps they knew for sure, that they were talking to them.
They stopped walking and turned almost in tune. Walking hurried down the hall in their direction, Matilda and Cody immediately recognized Adrian Wayne, the man who they had initially come to see. Cole, on another hand, would only remember him as another of the men who were in that security room. He did not think to question his identity because he assumed that he was another detective. However, seeing it already in the light of the corridor and not in that almost dark room, it seemed immediately apparent that he wasn't.
Wayne stopped a few steps away from them and looked at them with clear doubt and even fear. His hands were shaking a little, a sign of nervousness. It was as if those three people before him somehow infused some heavy presence in him. Something, perhaps more unconscious than anything else, capable of intimidating him on an almost primary level.
"All this happened ..." he began to murmur, making it difficult for him to express himself clearly. "What you said in the morning about Lily... Is all this real?"
Matilda and Cody looked sideways at each other, but none answered absolutely nothing. That created even more discomfort in Wayne.
"Who are you really?" The social work supervisor released with a confident presence of dismay in his voice.
Matilda breathed slowly through her nose and remained totally calm. Perhaps that man had not seen the same as that Detective, and maybe he had no more impossible things in his head that occupied an explanation. But it was evident that he had had one of the worst mornings of his life, and this had adverse effects on him. She would have liked to stay, help, and better explain everything that happened. There was an almost prefabricated speech that the members of the Foundation used with people who didn't shine and suddenly encountered incidents like that. For the most part, they managed to make these people calm down and remain at peace with their daily lives. She would have used that same speech with Vazquez if he had not become so reluctant to hear anything other than her confession of complicity in the kidnapping of a girl and the murder of a police officer.
But at that moment, she couldn't do such a thing. They had been stuck in that place for too long, and something serious was happening outside. They had to get out of there as soon as possible, especially before Vazquez or any of his friends present decided to invent a charge to retain them. All she had left to do for Wayne was to give him a warning she really hoped he would take into account.
"Take care, Mr. Wayne," Matilda declared stoically. "This is not over yet."
Wayne was perplexed by those simple words, which perhaps indirectly answered his questions in some way. Matilda turned again in her original direction and began to walk, passing Cody and Cole, and now taking the lead of his expedition. Cole shrugged and hurried to catch up, and Cody did the same. Wayne, on his side, stared as they walked down the hall and lost sight of him. And while this was happening, he couldn't help trying to give his mind order to all that. And mainly, what should he do from now on.
"I have work to do," is what Dr. Scott had said to his partner before going straight to his office and locking himself in it. The statement was not precisely a lie, but "work" did not seem to be the right word to describe what he was doing. Scott didn't know how long it had been and didn't really stop to ask himself. But he might have had been holding his finger on the "n" key on his computer's keyboard for about an entire hour. At the same time, he was almost hypnotized by the thousands of the same letters running through the blank pages of the word processor as if together they formed some kind of creeping animal breaking through.
He was unable to concentrate on any of the many reports he had to make or go to any of the therapies or sessions he had scheduled for that day, or make his usual rounds through the recreation rooms with the patients. Even distracting in their social networks or watching a video on the Internet seemed too strenuous tasks. His huge text file of hundreds of pages full of pure letters "n" seemed to have been the best option he was able to think about, and he had no regrets about it. However, that did not entertain him forever.
When he finally removed his finger from the key, he felt numb, and it wasn't for less. He waved his hand, hoping that blood would circulate better. Yes, that was what he needed, for his blood to flow freely... that red, warm, bright blood...
He leaned back completely in his chair and looked thoughtfully at the ceiling. He stayed there for a few more minutes, not contemplating anything. A UFO could have passed right over him at that time, and he probably wouldn't have noticed. Now his mind could only think of that image of blood flowing through his body like small rivers of freshwater, always in constant motion. As he thought about it, more began to feel dryness in his mouth. The thirst soon became unbearable.
He ran his big hand over his face, carving it from top to bottom. He stood and headed for the water dispenser and poured a jet of cold water into his cup. He drank one... two... three... up to five cups of water and the thirst just didn't quench a little; in fact, it felt even worse. Every drink he gave, and had no effect on him, made him more and more desperate. In the middle of the sixth cup, the despair and frustration were so great that he threw the cup without a glance at the desk. This collided with one side of the latter, slightly embracing the varnished surface, bouncing and falling to the ground to become several large pieces of porcelain.
"Shit," the Psychiatrist let out slowly and re-carved her face now with both of his hands. He then went to the remains of the cup and began to collect one by one. He took the pieces with his right hand and placed them on his left palm. One piece, two pieces, three pieces... the fourth piece did not reach his palm. Scott took and watched it fascinated in front of his face. It was perhaps the largest, even it still had part of the circular base. However, on the tip, it had been thin and pointed, as if someone had deliberately cut his edge.
Scott thought of an ancient knife, made by the first humans, based on pure stones. That piece of randomly broken porcelain sure looked better than those intentionally made knives. And it would surely cut better. That thin and rough side, but with the exact shape.
The ideas that came to his mind about everything he could do with that simple piece of porcelain would scare any sane person, and perhaps raise an eyebrow to the most upset of his patients. For example, for a while, he thought about the fact it was small enough to have it inside his coat pocket, and no one would have to question him about it. He would meet a patient in the hallway, the most pathetic and scary one, and begin to talk friendly with him, as he always did. "How have you been?" "Have you been taking your medications?" "Your progress has been remarkable, keep it up." "I am very proud of you." And as he spoke, he would put his hands in his pockets, as he always did; nothing weird. And then, when that pathetic man got distracted, smiling and showing those teeth that he surely didn't care properly, and nobody had the desire to look at, not even the whore of his mother, would quickly take his hand out of his pocket and stick that same cup's piece deep in his neck, pushing it as far as possible into his skin, while holding it on the opposite side of his head with the other hand. And there he would stay, holding it while watching the blood gush from his neck like fountain jets. That blood would surely quench his thirst. He would open his mouth and let all possible drops fall into it.
But these were just ideas, furtive thoughts that anyone could have throughout the day, and meant nothing, right? That image was a pure invention of his head, but his thirst was genuine.
He could not say at what moment his attention turned to his left hand, or rather to his palm where he still held the other porcelain pieces of the cup. He tilted his hand and dropped the pieces again. Some bounced, one more rolled under his desk, but it didn't matter. He looked carefully at his palm, every line on it and every wrinkle. His hand was so big, but his palm was white and soft. It was the hands of someone who had not had to work extensively with them, and therefore had no scar with some exciting story to tell or brought with it any memory that caused nostalgia. No mark that had been made when he fell from his bicycle, or during a fight, or when trying to open his car after the keys were left inside. They were ordinary and boring hands... That was really sad but easy to solve.
With that excuse as the basis for reasoning, he took the piece of porcelain firmly with his right hand and brought that flirtatious edge to the left palm. There were no hesitations, no doubts, not even groans of pain. He only pressed that makeshift knife against his skin, as much as he could, and then ran it across the entire width of his palm from side to side. He felt no pain, but in fact, he was quite fascinated when he saw how his skin was opening, and that bright passion-colored liquid began to sprout from him, run through his palm and drip down his forearm until he even soaked the white sleeve of his coat and dyed its tone. The image seemed even more hypnotic than pages and pages of letters n. The blood kept coming and going... and he was so thirsty.
He was so focused on his palm, on the blood, on the porcelain knife eager to cut a little more, that he didn't hear what someone knocked on his door. Nor did he hear how it ended up opening, an instant before he was encouraged to bring his face close to his palm and take a long lick.
"John!" He heard exclaim with resounding fright behind her. "What are you doing?!"
Scott froze in place. He didn't bring his face close to his hand, but he didn't stop seeing it either. Johnson rushed forward to him and snatched the weapon he had used to hurt himself. Then he took his left wrist and checked his palm, especially that ugly deep wound that just by seeing it, he could know that would need stitches.
He looked at John then. His wide eyes looked through his thick glasses, but they looked absolutely nothing.
"John, can you hear me?" Johnson passed his hand in front of his face in an attempt to make him react. "Talk to me, come on. What's happening to you?"
Before he chose to slap him, Scott alone seemed to react, if it could be called like that.
"I'm fine..." he exclaimed slowly, and then stood up slowly.
"You're okay?" Johnson snapped with notorious disbelief while standing still. "You were cutting your own hand."
"No, it was just an accident," Scott replied in a monotonous voice and then headed for his private bathroom. "I'll only wash and bandage."
"Let a nurse check it, that wound looks terrible," Johnson insisted but received no reaction from Scott. He entered his bathroom, turned on the light, and leaned over his sink to wash his left hand. "That was not an accident, John. It was Samara, she did something to you, and it is affecting you. You must let us check you thoroughly."
Johnson approached cautiously toward the open bathroom door as he spoke. However, he had to stop a meter away from it when, after giving his last suggestion, Scott turned on him so fast that the movement went unnoticed by the youngest doctor. But what really stopped him was not that, but the hard, harsh, and intimidating way he looked at. In all the time Johnson had been working with him, he had never seen him like that, so... The doctor wouldn't even know with what emotion to label that expression.
"Check me?" Scott asked, and then pulled away from the sink, leaving it still open. Johnson instinctively backed away when he saw him approach. "You mean lock me up? Like her mother? No, I won't allow it. I'm fine, is that clear?"
Scott didn't wait for him to give an answer. He returned immediately to the sink and continued washing the wound with great care.
"How is she?" He suddenly asked in a much more reasonable tone than Johnson more than reassuring him, put him more defensive.
"Samara? We slept her, and as far as I know, she has not woken up. She is still asleep and calm, and I prefer her to stay that way, really."
"What about Dr. Honey? Is he back?"
"No, she hasn't been reported at all."
"If she comes and sees Samara sedated, she may make a fuss."
Johnson snorted, sarcastic.
"I don't care much what that woman says at this point. Since when you do?"
Johnson noticed at that moment that Scott was staring at the mirror, still with his hand on the stream of water. He was no longer doing anything else as if he were paralyzed, and his gaze was drowned in his own reflection.
"John?" Johnson exclaimed forcefully. And either by coincidence or because he really managed to hear it, Scott closed the faucet, took a couple of paper towels and dried himself. Then, he went to a drawer of his desk where he had a small medicine cabinet.
"I have work to do." It was the only thing that came from his lips at the time, making almost a remembrance of what he had said that morning.
Johnson noticed that he was taking out cotton, alcohol, gauze, needle, and thread from the medicine cabinet.
"Don't you want a nurse to help you with that?" He asked, quite worried.
"You also have a lot of work, so go and do it," Scott replied in a rather sharp and even a bit aggressive tone. "And not a word of this to anyone. We are about to achieve something important here, and if you want to be part of it, you will have to learn to be a good boy and obey."
"A good boy?" Asked Johnson, confused. Scott began to clean his wound with alcohol and no longer made the slightest gesture of wanting to continue talking to him. That was his exit signal. "Excuse me, then..."
When Johnson closed the door and saw Dr. Scott for the last time in the remainder of the day, he was still healing his wound, but he wouldn't know for sure if he had done it thoroughly. He questioned himself whether to tell anyone about it, but who exactly? Was it worth the risk of losing his steady position that took so many years to achieve? He decided, perhaps being a little selfish. That he would wait a couple of days to see if that strange behavior was corrected. And if not... he would see what to do.
Meanwhile, indeed he had work to do, and it was better started doing it.
Samara was sleeping, but not as calm as Dr. Johnson claimed. On the outside, the girl was lying on her stretcher, tied from her feet and wrists with leather straps. But just as her barely appreciable eye movement could imply, she was dreaming, profoundly and vividly. But for Samara, dream means be plunged into absolute darkness. And one of which she was not able to wake up no matter how hard she tried to, poke by the poison they injected to keep her asleep. She was trapped, trapped with no way to out from her own mind... and she wasn't alone...
In the beginning, everything was indeed dark and very cold. For a good while, Samara thought that if she stayed there, squatting and hugging herself in the shadows, without attracting attention and making no noise, then she would be safe. Her eyes were closed tightly, and she repeatedly carved his arms with his hands to warm them. She slowly hummed that old song in the tone of a lullaby that made her mother so angry because the girl repeated it again and again when she felt scared. And, in fact, neither her parents nor she knew clearly where she had heard it for the first time because it had not been from them.
"Round... we... go..." She murmured slowly between stutters, placing great emphasis on every pause the tune took. "The world... is spinning... When... it stops... It's just... beginning..."
Everything was quiet, and that was good. When that was close, it was usually accompanied by horrible crawling and painful sounds. But the silence was okay; in the silence, she felt safe.
"Sun comes up... We live... and... we cry..." Something began to sound in the distance. Although she could not clearly distinguish what it was, she knew that it was not one of the sounds that always accompanied that. "Sun goes down... And then... we... all... die..."
The sound became more and more present, more and more constant until Samara finally recognized what it was: the sound of the waves, the waves of the sea.
She opened her eyes by mere instinct, and that ended up being a severe mistake. She was no longer squatting in the dark, she was no longer surrounded by silence. The entire scenario had changed. Now she was standing. Above her head, there was only a gray sky, completely cloudy as if it were about to hit an intense storm, like those that hit her island. And around her, wherever she looked, there was only water. On her right, on her left, behind her or in front; water, only water to the dark horizon, as if it were literally standing in the open sea miles of land. Even so, her bare feet could feel the sand stirring between its fingers, and the water reached a few inches above her waist.
She began to breathe heavily, panicking. "Water... there is always water", in all her nightmares was always present.
"It's just a dream... it's just a dream..." She repeated herself between moan and moan of terror. She then began to walk forward, making it difficult to move. The water was freezing, so much that it made her skin and bones ache. Everyone said that in dreams, nothing could hurt you. For her, that was a lot of lies. She could feel everything, and it always hurt.
Samara continued to sing her song very slowly, hoping it would calm her down, but it couldn't. Her heart was beating violently in her chest. She felt it even in her neck, suffocating a little and making it difficult for the lyrics of her short melody to come out naturally. She didn't know what would find if she kept moving forward, but had a strong feeling that if she stayed too long in one place... that would appear, would take her by the feet and sink her. And once there... She had no idea what would happen to her.
For a long time, she found nothing but that massive dark and cold sea. But suddenly, something was distinguished in the distance. The kid didn't know what it was, but it stood out from the water and floated on it. Samara, by mere instinct, began to walk faster towards that, almost running as the water allowed. She ran, ran, trying to reach that as if it were some kind of exit from all that grim scenario; a flotation device, a door... but it was not that.
Samara stopped suddenly as soon as she managed to distinguish what that object was. However, when she was able to do so, it was less than a meter away, and the water stream eventually pushed it toward her. The head of the corpse, cold and pale, crashed directly into her belly. Its eyes were wild and swollen, totally white as if a milky layer had formed over them. Its mouth was completely open and crooked in a disgusting and unreal gesture, with its tongue bulging and bluish. Its body was stiff and petrified. Its arms were twisted, and the fingers were contracted. Even so, it floated on the water as if it were the table of some shipwreck.
Samara let out a loud shriek and quickly stepped aside, shaking and stomping. Her right foot ended up twisting and thought she would fall, but she managed to sustain herself. Her ankle was sore, however. She looked ahead, from the direction in which that body was coming. Behind it came several similar lumps, pushed by the flow. Samara turned around, trying to get away, but it was useless. When she turned, she saw more of those bodies. Now they were in all directions, everywhere, surrounding her like wolves lurking. Everyone had that horrible expression on its face, those gray and empty eyes, and their bodies contracted in themselves...
Her breathing became more agitated and overwhelming. She was afraid, so afraid...
"It's just a dream... it's just a dream... it's just a dream..." She repeated again and again, clenching her eyes tightly and hitting her head several times with her fists clenched. She tried to wake up, she wanted to get out of that awful nightmare. But she couldn't, just couldn't wake up.
Completely desperate, she began to run. To move between all that sea of dead corpses that seeing her with those dead eyes as she advanced. She had to get several out of the way, and just touch their cold, viscous skins stirred her stomach. She moved and moved along, but they did not end. As far as she could see... there were more and more of them...
She ended up running out, stopped, and started shouting at the sky with all her might. She screamed and screamed, but she had no idea if her voice could really come out.
"Get me out of here! Take me out!" She sobbed with despair, with fear, with anger, frustration. "I'll be good! I'll be good! Just let me out...!"
She began to cry inconsolably. She knelt on the sand floor, and the water reached her shoulders. The corpses kept surrounding her, and moving around, touching her on the back, arms, torso... And then, one of them passed right in front of her, and stood there, as if the flow had stopped. Samara looked at it and felt that it was looking at her. It was a woman with black hair and a long dress of the same color. Its face had the same expression as everyone else, but there was something different... And Samara knew what
"Mo… mom…?" She exclaimed in deep sobs. "No... Mommy... no..."
Samara touched its face with her little hands. The feeling was the same as the others. But it was her mother, she was sure of that. Even in spite of her horrible and disgusting expression, she knew it was her. Her cries became sharper. Why did they show her that? Why did they make her see something so horrible? Who was doing that to her...?
Her mother's eyes moved, and they focused directly on her. Samara was startled and moved away from the body.
"Mommy…?" She whispered, dragging the syllables with a lump in her throat. The corpse suddenly extended its petrified hand toward her. It took Samara tightly by her arm, squeezing it with its fingers and hurting her. From its crooked mouth came a voice, her mother's voice, that voice she had heard all her life...
"I'm not your fucking mommy...!" Shouted her mother's voice filled with uncontrollable anger.
Her mother's body began trying to take her with both hands. Samara tried to get away from it as much as possible, trying to make her hands off with total despair. The dirty nails of that body scratched her arms, her face, and her neck. She thought she couldn't get away, that its mummified fingers wouldn't let go, but she succeeded. He took its hands off her and freed from the grip. As soon as she did it, she began to run in the opposite direction, making her way through all the other bodies. She ran for her life in panic. She didn't know if that body with the appearance of her mother was chasing her, nor did she stop to verify it.
And then, again, she stopped...
The water calmed, and the tide stopped. It no longer seemed to be the water of the sea, but the calm and static water of a lake. Everything became silent again. The bodies had opened sideways, leaving free a circular area in front of her. But that little oasis in the desert of water was anything but comforting.
A black dot formed in the water right in front of her, and it got bigger and bigger. Something was emerging from the depths. That black spot expanded everywhere, to cover much of the surface like a dark oil spot. And then that began to rise, and Samara knew exactly what that stain was: hair, long black straight hair. What emerged from the water was a humanoid figure, with long hair completely soaked and falling everywhere, covering its face, front, and back. On the sides, two thin and long arms peeked out, covered with a damp white cloth and dark spots. Samara knew who it was... or what it was.
The girl had the immediate urge to run away, to turn around and not look at her how she had managed to do previous times. But she felt then how two hands held her tightly by her ankles, preventing her from moving. Two more took it from the wrists, others more from the shoulders, from the neck. Several of those corpses that floated around began to throw themselves over her, placing their hands all over her body to hold her firmly in place. She could not move, could not turn, and could not run. And in front of her, that thing began to approach her slowly, dragging it heavy feet through the sand.
Samara closed her eyes tightly and began to sing again, now with much more force, but it was challenging for her to be able to do it among her loud cries of fear.
"Round we go… The world is spinning… When it stops… It's just beginning… Sun comes up… We live, and we cry… Sun goes down… And then we all die… Round we go… The world is spinning… When it stops… It's just beginning... Sun comes up! We live, and we cry! Sun goes down...!"
"And then we all die..." the being finished before her, releasing from her dry, wrinkled and calloused lips a voice that Samara recognized immediately.
She felt how that thing placed its icy hands tightly on her cheeks. Her eyes opened on their own, and they found themselves facing that. Among its long hair that fell on its face, Samara saw those deep, gray eyes, empty of any trace of life or humanity, beyond the latent and tangible feeling of hatred and total rage. The dead eyes of death itself...
"Aaaaaaaaaaah!" Samara yelled when she finally woke up with all the strength that her little body had until she almost tore her throat.
Her scream of terror resounded throughout the hospital, and every doctor, nurse, and patient was able to hear it directly in their heads. The lights jingled, and the whole building shuddered as if an earthquake had shaken it.
The first to notice something strange was a guard, who barely managed to see Samara on the security monitor. For a few seconds, she was trying desperately to break free from the straps that held her while she screaming. And then, the security camera simply exploded, and the image vanished entirely.
The guard was followed by two nurses who were closer to Samara's room at the time it all started. The walls of the corridor began to tear, and the paint on them to disappear as if a fire consumed it, leaving in its place only old walls, full of moisture and mold that began to eat everything before their eyes. The glass from the windows broke, and the lamp bulbs exploded. The door to Samara's room completely oxidized until it became completely dark. The hinges that held it simply yielded as did its safety, and the door simply collapsed to the ground causing a heavy and thunderous sound.
"My God..." exclaimed one of them, terrified.
From their perspective, they could see that the interior of Samara's room was in an equal or worse state than the hall. And the last thing they saw, before they both ran off as fast as they could, trying to leave the girl's screams behind, it was water, dirty dark water that began to leave the room and then extended by the hallway creating a long and dense puddle.
In a few seconds, the entire corridor seemed to belong to a building abandoned for decades and strenuously affected by nature. A place where simply no human being should or could live. Samara's cries and cries lasted for hours after that, but no one dared to even approach that hospital section.
All the staff desperately searched for Dr. Scott after that, but he was no longer in his office. No one could find him. It was the responsibility of Dr. Johnson to decide what to do with his patient. Still, when he saw what had happened in that corridor himself, the young doctor was simply shocked. He had only one thing left to do, even if he didn't like it...
END OF CHAPTER 19