The Haunted
Part 4. His Prison Cell – 589 words
The room grows cold again, and suddenly Yuka is standing right in front of him with an outstretched hand. Misaki rears back.
"Give me that box," she says almost frantically. "It should be somewhere he would never find. He shouldn't see this. He mustn't see this."
Even with the demon right in his face, Misaki clutches the box tightly and backs away. He feels as if his mind is playing a trick on him. He swipes at the apparition but feels nothing in the air directly in front of him. Yuka has disappeared as quickly as she had attacked.
Misaki continues to stare at the place where Yuka had been standing. Narumi gazes at him in silence and mortification as he tries to gather his voice.
"You saw her, didn't you?"
"What was—?" He couldn't form a coherent sentence. "Why was— why was she here?"
Narumi laughs. His voice is raspy and unnatural, as though it had not been used for some time. "She's always here." He points to his head. He points to his heart. He gestures all around the room. "Here… here… and here."
"Oh, Narumi..."
"It's becoming more frequent, and now that you've seen her too," Narumi mutters, "it's coming to an end. I know it."
"We'll move you. We'll take you somewhere else where the demons can't find you."
"If I thought I could escape, I wouldn't still be standing here. Neither would you."
"We have to try—"
"Misaki…" Narumi croaks out. "It's coming back— all of it. She won't ever leave me. She's making me pay for everything."
Misaki did not know what to say. What could he say to Narumi to turn it all around, to restore his peace of mind? Narumi seems to be broken beyond repair and he was playing an active role in his own destruction.
"Time is running out for me, old friend."
"I know."
"I need to end this. I can't run from the blood on my hands. Not now. Not ever."
"I… know," he says again.
Narumi stares at his hands again, as if they were tainted with something ugly. A wild look appears in his eyes, and he grabs a blood-stained glass shard from the floor. Misaki stares at Narumi, shocked at the scene playing out before him. He had known the man was broken but had never seen the true extent of it. Not up until that moment. Not like this.
"Narumi! What the hell do you think you're doing?" Misaki growls. It is his turn to lunge for his friend and Narumi struggles. Misaki wrestles the piece of glass out of his hands and throws it across the room. "Don't you dare take the cowardly way out!"
"Cowardly? You don't know what you're saying!" Narumi growls back, hot tears emerging from his eyes. "This may be the bravest thing I could do!"
Misaki recoils. His friend's deranged look betrays his true state of vulnerability. He shakes his head and hisses, "No. You're not ending it this way. I won't let you."
Narumi lets out a bestial, inhuman scream, his voice resonating throughout the hospital. He rushes to the window, in an attempt to jump out of it but it is locked and latched from the outside. He begins hitting the windowsill with his closed fists. He shakes it from its rafters and the pounding echoes into the night.
A beast is ensnared in a trap.
He cannot get away.
A beast is howling to the moon.
He is begging to be slain.