Lola pulls her matted hair back and leans forward. “I’m a painter, but I don’t paint just anything. I see these…things, I don’t know if they’re demons or what. I’ve never seen the same one twice, they’re all different. They’ve been around me since I was a child. My mother believed I was having nightmares, told me when she was younger she would draw her nightmares or whatever scared her. She would give it a name at the top of the picture and then it would go away. You following?”
Kiel smiled and nodded his head in agreement. Any word she said he would of paid full attention to.
“So, when I was young my mother bought me art supplies to draw on. I made paintings of the things I saw, and I would see them randomly. They would appear in the shower, in my bed, you name it. Of course my mom thought it was just nightmares, I was a kid with an over active imagination in her eyes. One day I was working on a painting in my room and heard my mom scream. She was about two doors down from my room, for some reason I grabbed the painting I don’t know why. I ran to her door and tried to push it open but it wouldn’t budge. I heard her scream in pain and then it got quiet.”
Kiel quietly asked, “What happened next?”
Sighing Lola replies, “I pounded on the door but no response. Blood began to leak out from under her door out into the hallway, I dropped to my knees crying and screaming. Then I heard scuffling in the room, and then it came out, the monster I have been seeing. It floated through the door and extended it’s claws towards me. I screamed crawling backwards as my hand accidentally touched the warm puddle of blood, my painting sat on the ground behind me as I scurried back past it. The monster breathed heavily with a gurgling sound popping in the back of it’s throat, my hand touched the painting leaving a wet mark on the bottom. The creature blew up into ashes dissipating into nothing. I thought I went insane, I didn’t know what to think. I curled up in a corner and cried until the police showed up. They found my mother slaughtered in pieces, the thing mutilated her. They found her blood on my dress and no sign of forced entry. Somehow they put it together and blamed me, and I ended up here.”
“Wait, so what was after you? Do you still see them?”
“I’m not sure what they are or why but I still see them sometimes. I figured out that painting them with a name and marking the picture with blood traps em. Don’t know why or how that works, but it does.”
Kiel exhales and looks down at his bowl. “I feel like I’m in a dream or something, have you seen any lately?”
“Let me go you b*****d! I’m not gonna strip you f*****g pervert!”
Kiel, Gil and Lola turn their attention to a young girl being dragged in. She was biting down onto the hand of a staff now while another carried her by her legs.
“I saved my family! I’m a hero, why am I here? You can’t do this!” She yelled. Behind her, crawling on all fours was a wrinkled beast with sagging skin; it looked like soggy sheets thrown over a skeleton. Snarling it followed close behind, it giggled in a hoarse rasp at the girls cries. Suddenly stopping it looks up as if it sensed something, slowly turning its head it makes eye contact with Lola.
Shoving herself away from the table Lola whispers, “Oh s**t.”
She bends towards Gil and whispers, “Cover me.”
Gil stands up screaming, “Hey let the girl go! Wanna f**k with someone come on, lets have a go huh?”
The staff drop the girl and begin to yell for backup. Gil runs over and begins to brawl with two staff. He kicks one sending him backwards over a table of food and punches the other one in his left cheek. Lola creeps down running past the staff coming out and sneaks in the door.
Kiel looks around confused and scared, the fighting and yelling makes some of the individuals begin to scream as well. The young girl is nowhere in sight.
Lola runs down to her room as staff run past her. Gil can be heard in the distance, the sound of his skin getting tenderized under the multiple night sticks is what stands out more than anything else. Lola grabs her brushes and begins to paint the creature she saw earlier.
A roar echoes down the hall, her spine tingles and her heart begins to race; it’s close. She closes her eyes trying to remember details from it. She swipes across the canvas creating an image similar to what she saw. She writes GUNTHOR at the top. The creature jumps in the doorway, it’s eyes widen upon looking at Lola.
“It’s you!” It shouts in a deep voice.
Lola bites her finger open and presses her thumb against the paper. Before it can say anything else the creature dissolves into ash.
Down the hallway Gil is dragged by two staff as he giggles. “Is that the best you can do? I can still move my jaw ya’ bunch of b*****s.”
A guard named Phillip punches Gil in the ribs and cuts his remarks off, Gil wasn’t hurt though. He was dragged past Wing C and saw Lola standing outside her door, she nodded her head in approval as Gil knew his deed was done.
Lenny walks though the recreation room and sees smears of blood on the floor covered with foot prints. Dishes knocked over on tables and individuals screaming and acting out.
Lenny walks by kicking one client in her ribs who happened to be sitting on the floor yelling, “Shut up already! Damn it, can’t even serve these psychos lunch without someone causing a f*****g scene!”
He walks to the back to see Gil on the floor beaten and bruised. “What happened?”
Phillip responds, “Wanted to be a hero to impress some j*******t, she’ll be found soon. I think that red headed girl is behind it though, they stick close and this ain’t the first time he’s done something like this for her.”
“Oh yeah I remember that one incident, so Lola again huh? I got something to make her behave. You two, take him to isolation. Leave him there.”
“Isolation?” Gil asks. Even that was a new one for him. The guards drag him towards the rotted wood covering the entrance to Wing E. A staff pulls a board loose and lowers it at an angle with ease, this has been done before.
“Hey hold up man, what are you doing?” Gil wasn’t afraid of the staff (or any human for that matter) but Wing E was different. He was sure he had fractures in his leg, he couldn’t feel it but his leg felt funny like a numbing sensation. He tries to stand on it putting his weight on his left leg.
One of the staff turn around and yell at him to stop, he slips shifting the weight and hears a loud snap as his leg gives way. “Ah damn it! Please don’t take me in there man, I’ve heard the stories!”
They grab him by the arms as he struggles to free himself, crouching under a board they drag him down a dark hallway. The ceiling had holes in various places from the hail damage, slivers of sunlight crawled through them making his path exposed partly at places.
They come up to a door near the end on the left, the metal door opens up as they toss Gil in. They slam it shut locking it afterwards. He screams trying to get up but his femur bone sticks out at an angle, a sharp white tip pushed through his flesh.
The guards leave giggling to themselves as they lower the board. Gil scoots back against the wall, he’s heard stories of this place. He turns his head around the cramped room, dark blood stains the walls around him. There was no bed frame or toilet even, just an empty isolated room.
His mind begins to race as he starts to realize just how bad things got. Something cold and rough suddenly runs across his neck, before he has time to react the light above blacks out.
