I couldn't cower in the bushes much longer, pins and needles were beginning to stab away at both my legs and a migraine was launching its terrible campaign against my vulnerable head.
I slipped towards the entrance once more and stared at the road, still desolate of any traffic and with a creeping mist smothering the tarmac it looked incredibly uninviting but with no where else to turn I left, knowing my inaction was cowardice of the worst kind. I'd only gone a few feet when a feeling rose in me that had never overcame me in such a way before, a roaring upward-firing Niagara of emotion that engulfed my usually indifferent heart in its intensity.
I turned from the road, still not knowing if it led to my salvation but beyond caring, I strode towards one of the unmanned lorries, hoping that someone was negligent enough to leave the keys in the ignition.
As I flung open the door I was greeted with such a sight, a ring of keys lay on the passenger's seat and I dived in, still unsure of what I was going to do but was glad I was doing it. It took a mere three or four seconds to properly start the truck up but that was all it took to attract the attention of the workmen. They swarmed to my right, jumping up and pulling at the handle, I struggled to control the machine and just managed to get it going when the door flew open. A dozen hands seemed to grab me by the hair and the shock of memories knocked the fight out of me before I could start. They dragged me out of the leviathan vehicle and onto the ground while others scrambled into the cabin to stop it crashing and perhaps exploding, I was cheering silently for it to blow up in an inferno of retribution, but hey who cares what I was wanting.
I sat on the ground, watching my very spontaneous, very unintentional plan flutter in the wind as scraps of burned hope. Two built up workmen stood guard-like at my sides and a very short, weedy man with a flopping moustache and a permanent sneer marched up to me, so red with indignation that he was surely in danger of a heart attack.
"What do you think you are doing you stupid little girl? You could have gotten a lot of people hurt; you must be very very stupid indeed!"
He most likely had a little man complex, I felt like laughing but noticed it was probably very "inappropriate" for this situation, and thinking of that made it all the worse. It was most possibly the shock making me feel like this, so I calmed myself down. My complete silence he took as insubordination and he yelled at the man
"Take that…that BRAT down to the basement!"
With that he swiftly left, his moustache flopping all the way. I was fuming but just managed to avoid a full blown tantrum, extremely inappropriate for a women to be doing at the age of twenty-three, even if she is under a mountain of stress.
The men looked uncertain for a moment then pointed the direction in which I was to walk and they monitored my progress from behind. For that mercy I was grateful, my mind was still reeling from the effects of my new curse.
A disturbing thought ran through me, if I could no longer have any physical contact with anyone without that spasm of pain how was I to…No, I pushed the troubling reflection on the turn of events away and gave myself a mental shake up, there were more important things to think about but the worrying consideration stayed there, at the edge of my thoughts.
They men showed me through the clearing to a front porch of such and opened a huge glass door, the same glass in the hallucinations, and directed me inside.
A maze of glass they led me through, so many twists and turns and stairs that there was a snowball's chance in hell that I could find my way back out quickly. I suddenly felt much like a little white sphere of snow, trapped in the eternal fire, with no real chance of escape.
They stopped at a cube and pointed inside, I sighed and nodded, surrendering to my fate readily with none of my before attitude, there seemed little point now. Walking inside I noticed that the writing covered the floor and ceiling too, mysterious if not just plain weird. Doors that I hadn't ever noticed being there swished shut and I jumped a little, not much mind you.
One of the men, it was difficult to tell between them, grimaced and threw a pair of plastic laboratory spectacles.
"Them's for help seeing the show if you needs 'em"
He said with a solemn look in his eye and his mouth an outright frown. They both nodded to me and left but not by the way we'd arrived together.
As I watched them go I stared at the specs, confused by the man's comment but even more confused by the almost sorrowful way he'd looked at me, as if he pitied me. At any other time in my life I would've laughed scornfully, I hated pity, especially coming from strangers, but here and now it seemed okay to accept it, to feel it and love it in case it was the last interaction with another person.
I kneeled, picked up the glasses and stood again.
I raised my hand, almost ready to put them on when I heard laughing, the same cold high laughter I heard in my vivid dreams. An ice spread through me at hearing that insane mirth, through my limbs and up my spine, its frozen fingers stroking the small of my back. The laughter held the air for a while but soon descended into crying, cries that I had heard before, cries that were so familiar to me. The name tripped out from my mouth at the same time I saw him, Ryan Kuhn.
He was in one of those tall glass cages, his wide eyes were red rimmed from fierce tears and he was bleeding from many self-inflicted slashes on his face, being free of the straightjacket. Ryan saw me and beat fitfully at the solid glass, crying out incoherently, screaming and tearing at himself before collapsing in a heap on the floor of the cage, twitching and mumbling to himself. As before the workmen pushing the stand seemed not to hear these screams of terror.
I had a thought and pulled the glasses to my face. When I resurveyed the scene I almost yelled out. The creature I remembered from the asylum, the one I had seen inside Ryan, stood over him, stroking at his head with it's claws and giggling in sinister glee from behind the iron bars.
With no way to stop the workmen from pushing the cage away I watched terrified as the creature kneeled to Ryan and whispered into his ear through the bars, whatever was said scared him. It scared him badly, he bucked at the monster, swinging at it with all his might but it stood and began to laugh again, such a terrifying sound that resonated through the air. If forced to listen to it any longer I too would surely go the way of Ryan and his sanity, luckily the sound faded away soon enough and I was left with silence, so pure I could almost feel it. I felt pity then for him, no wonder his condition was worsening. No wonder he was crazy, with that…that "thing" hanging over his shoulder. I had another thought. If he could hear it and see it perhaps he suffered from the same curse as myself. I suddenly understood of his fear of being touch.
I wept then, for myself in majority, trapped in this wretched place, tangled in this situation so bizarre I wondered if it was all an elaborate joke in which the punch line was still to be delivered. But I also cried for Ryan and for whatever hell he'd been put through, for whatever hell he was still to endure.