There was a knock at the door.
"Noah."
Another knock. Sharp and brisk.
"I would like you to let me in. They tell me you have not left all day. That is most unlike you."
Another series of knocks.
"I can let myself in if necessary. I would rather you allow me to come in on your own free will." After exactly sixty seconds, there was a sound of metal clacking and the door swung open. Doctor Charles Evans stepped into the room flanked by orderly Sullivan. The doctor swept his gaze across the room. The bed was upturned so it lay on its side, the mattress fallen on the floor, stripped of its bedding. The drawers had been taken from their rollers and looked as if they had been thrown against the wall. One of them had buckled into a number of pieces. Littered across the floor like tiny white jigsaw pieces were the remnants of the torn calendar that had been spread like seeds of misery.
Doctor Evans' gaze finally settled in the corner, where wrapped up in all the bedding like a cocoon sat Noah, eyes staring but not seeing. Doctor Evans sighed and motioned at Sullivan. "Please, wait outside for me."
"Are you certain?"
"I am not the one at risk in this room. Shut the door on your way out. I'll call for you if I need you." Sullivan nodded and obeyed the doctor, closing the door and waiting outside. Doctor Evans actually stayed away from Noah at first. He slowly walked around the room, picking up each overturned piece of furniture and setting it in its rightful place. With a little bit of effort, he even put the bed back upright and got the mattress back on top. He put the broken pieces of the drawer on top in a neat pile. Finally done with the lifting, Doctor Evans took off his jacket, laid it on the mattress, and sat down in front of Noah. "You missed our meeting, Noah. The first time since I have been here."
Noah heard the doctor's voice but failed to register any meaning behind the words. He simply drew the sheets tighter around his shoulders, forcing his brain to a standstill.
"Would you like to tell me what happened?"
What was the point in responding? He had already had a meeting with the doctor yesterday, only that meeting had never happened. What guarantee was there that this was a real conversation? That he wouldn't just wake up in the morning again, the words said not spoken at all.
"I am glad you have not hurt yourself."
Robyn's theories about the doctor having a twin, the brief interaction with Penelope at the entrance of the dorms, Banks bullying Ollie Cox. None of it had happened. Waking up on the morning of the 15th, Conner Shepherds murderous spree… That hadn't happened either.
"I would like to have a conversation and I would like it not to be one-sided."
Yet hadn't he felt like this before? Back at the beginning when he had first experienced that which was called a vision. When he had felt electricity surge through him, burning his nerves, spasming his muscles, to the point when he was certain that he was going to die. Noah had woken up then, at the beginning of that day, and that was when he had first experienced a vision. That was when people had started dying. That day was a vision, Noah knew that.
Noah had also felt exactly the same after the bus accident where Amelia lost her life. He had felt like he was having a vision but that time he never woke up. Despite how convinced he was that that accident had been a vision, they had told him it wasn't. They had spent seven years telling him it wasn't, trying to convince him that every day he lived was a new day, a real day. Noah had never been sure though. He had marked the days, every day, all those years, and they passed without error but he could never be sure.
If he couldn't be sure about a day's reality, he couldn't work up the courage to have conversations with people so he shut himself out. He was practically mute even during the sessions with doctors at first. With Doctor Evans, he had slowly opened up, slowly started conversing, almost normally. Robyn was the first resident that Noah had started speaking to and not just listening to. But even then it was hard. It was hard to make decisions, even decisions as simple as saying 'yes' or 'no', without fearing that he would wake up. That fear had dissipated slightly, never disappeared, but was going… slowly… and for the first time Noah felt that maybe he could talk to others. Maybe he could talk to Penelope and learn why she wore those bandages. Perhaps he could approach strangers and introduce himself. Maybe, just maybe, he could replace himself in his reality.
Now he realised that was all for nothing. The 14th had been unmarked. For the first time he had woken up and the day before had not been real. For the first time his fears had become his reality.
"I would rather not take this route, but if you do not respond I will have to put you in medical. I believe you can hear me, Noah. So if you can hear me, and if you can understand me, I would like to pose a theory." Doctor Evans reached over to a small waste bin where he had gathered the pieces of the calendar. "We have discussed your fears before, have we not? I would like you to answer, simply if you like, a yes or a no. Did you mark off one of these dates and then when you woke up, that mark was not there?"
Doctor Evans was always a smart man. Noah found himself finally locking eyes with the doctor. His mouth felt dry and it took a lot of effort for him to open it and say, "Yes."
"I see. Did it feel like a dream?"
"No."
"Did it feel real?"
"Yes."
"Could you recount the events that happened in detail?"
"Yes."
"Would you do that for me now?"
"No."
Doctor Evans leaned forward with a furrowed brow, full of concern. Noah could see it in the man's eyes. This doctor truly cared for his patients, Noah knew that. "Did something bad happen?" Noah found himself chewing the bottom lip. He could still remember the image of the pen stained in blood. Could see himself reaching out as the plastic impaled Robyn's chest.
"…Yes."
"Was it fatal?" The doctor's gaze was intense but Noah found himself unable to pull away. A part of him deep down wanted to spill it all and empty his thoughts but the stronger part of him simply asked what was the point. So he stuck to his one-word answers, just as the doctor had said he could, using them as mental crutches.
"Yes."
"For multiple people?"
"Yes."
"Tell me, Noah. Did it feel like what happened at the bridge, with the bus, with Amelia?"
"…Yes."
"And did it feel like what happened a year before that, at the Crosshatch Club?"
The Crosshatch Club. The vision. The one that had started off this miserable series of events in Noah's life. The one that he didn't quite remember if he had told Doctor Evans about. He tended not to tell people about what happened with the Crosshatch as they told him he sounded crazy, which he found morbidly funny considering his presence at Hearthome. Whether or not he had told the doctor about the Crosshatch Club, Noah found he didn't really care one way or the other. He answered the question. "Yes."
"Thank you for responding to me, Noah. I only have a few more questions, is that okay?"
"Yes."
"Did you wake up after the Crosshatch Club before it had happened?"
"Yes."
"And did you wake up after the bus accident before it had happened?"
Noah grit his teeth so tight to the point that it hurt his gums. It took him a long while before he could respond to the doctor's question. "…No…"
"And what you experienced after waking up this morning… Tell me honestly, Noah." Somehow, Noah already knew what the doctor was going to ask. In fact, he had been thinking about that question and what the answer was the whole day. "Do you think what you experienced was what you call a vision?"
Noah found himself shaking hard. Underneath the sheets he was squeezing his fists open and closed. He found himself crying but he didn't care. "I-I…" The words stuck in his throat. It felt like he had swallowed cement. "I…"
"Noah. I would like you to answer me truthfully. Did you experience what you call a vision?"
"I… I don't know… I… I don't…"
"Noah. Did you experience what you call a vision?"
"…Yes." With that word, Noah crumpled into a ball, falling forward, completely wrapped in his sheets. Saying the word seemed to free him but at the same time it seemed to break him. He didn't even hear Doctor Evans leave, just moaned and wailed, crying and choking, shaking like a leaf in a storm. Yes. It was a vision. It was what the Crosshatch Club was. It was everything he had wanted the bus accident to be. Noah had seen Conner murder people in a certain order, starting from the doctor, the two orderlies, Ollie and Penelope, Robyn… and Noah himself.
As if they were numbers on a list.
The stars were bright in the sky when Noah awoke, feeling exhausted and yet somewhat clear-headed. He suspected it was likely somewhere in the region of two or three in the morning. His thoughts were still full of the words spoken by Doctor Evans, but they weren't swirling anymore, rather simply drifting around. Noah let them drift. For now, he needed to get out of this room and get some fresh air. He felt that if he dwelled too long on those thoughts, on what it meant to have another vision, on what he should do, that he would truly go insane and have to be locked up in the deepest, darkest pit Hearthome had.
He opened the door and was surprised to find the corridor empty. Noah had suspected that Doctor Evans would have left Sullivan or another orderly here but instead it seemed the doctor had trusted Noah not to act out. Doctor Evans himself also occupied Noah's mind. He had always evaded talking about the Crosshatch Club with the doctor and while he couldn't be certain it never came up, something in his gut told him the doctor knew more than he was letting on. If he knew about the Crosshatch Club, why had he never brought it up in any of their sessions?
As Noah padded three steps away from his door down the corridor he paused. At first he couldn't quite put his finger on just what felt so wrong until his eyes rested on the door next to his, the one that was always closed. Only it wasn't closed right now. It was slowly opening.
Noah froze, gripped by a fear of the unknown as a wiry and long hand gripped the edge of the door to pull it open. The hand ran up an equally long arm, and the arm sat at the shoulder of a man who stood so tall that he had to lean under the doorframe. The light inside the room was not on, so all Noah saw was this tall, gangly, shadow of a man. Had he always been in here? This room was supposed to be empty, the door was always shut.
"…You are a very loud neighbour…" The man spoke in a voice low but smooth. The words were slow as they emerged from the shadows but emphasised and almost deeply melodic. "You disturbed me yesterday." Even if Noah had wanted to reply, his throat had seized up. It was like a monster was standing in this doorway, threatening to pull him into the dark room and tear out his heart. "There is a reason the good doctor does not hold sessions in these rooms. The walls can be thin. If one were to put their ear against it, one can hear all manner of things." The shadow leaned forward and Noah found himself staring at a mass of black hair completely covering pale skin. A shaggy beard covered any flesh on the jaw, and the hair itself netted and matted itself down the front of the man's face. A flash of red as if pure evil emerged from one gap as if the man had the eyes of a hellhound. "So Noah Barker, I believe I can help you with your problems. Nothing would please me more."