Kiel is instructed along with the other clients to head to their rooms, one by one the doors slam shut behind them. As he walks to his room he catches a glimpse of Lenny stopping a few doors away.
Curious, he follows behind a little ways and sees him go into a room slamming the door shut behind him. Who was he seeing?
“You get lost or something?”
Kiel is startled by Nurse Penny, a lung puncher hanging off her lip she looks irritated as Kiel walks past her to his room. Too scared to tell her anything, he walks down the hallway and enters his room with a staff coming up behind him to lock the door.
He starts to step in before he’s shoved in by a staff. He turns around to read his name PHILLIP before the door slams in his face.
“Another riot during dinner? Can’t even eat a meal in peace around here.” Mrs.Cranston shuffles through some papers talking to herself. Lenny comes in pulling his zipper up with a grin. “I tell you what Cranston, you don’t know what you’re missing. It’s like being a kid in a candy store with all the different flavors you could ask for.”
He stops for a moment and sighs with a smile. “But cotton candy has to be the best, especially when they fight back, that’s my favorite part. I mean what an adrenaline rush!”
Mrs.Cranston looks over completely unamused. “Really darling, why do you insist on telling me these things?”
“Well i’d tell my dad but never see him” he chuckles.
A scraping sound comes from the storage room nearby. Lenny pulls his stick out and braces for a fight. “Hey you hear that?”
Mrs.Cranston nods her head and whispers, “Did you find that new patient yet? Heard they lost her in the riot?”
Lenny smiles while licking his lip crossing his wound. “Cherry pie, I’m on it.”
He pushes the door open and glances over the room, tables and chairs stacked everywhere. The room almost looks hazy through the sunlight with how much dust is floating in the air.
“Come on out now baby girl. I ain’t gonna hurt you, just wanna have a chat with you is all.”
He rips a sheet back off a pile of chairs and looks underneath it.
“Oh hard to get? That’s fine with me. You see, I love to play games, and you’ll learn that if you wanna keep f*****g with me. Now come out before I lose my patience!” He kicks some chairs over and hears something in-between them crashing on the floor. A sound of a young girl.
In a dark room Gil screams trying to swing his arms around but is useless. His arms hang by his side like putty, the only part of his body useful is his mouth. His leg pounds in slow rhythm, he assumes it’s from the broken bone. He slides down the wall feeling helpless.
A low sound comes from somewhere in the dark, almost like someone with asthma struggling to breathe.
“Who’s there, huh? Let me out man help me, please!”
Sharp ebony pierces his cheeks from both sides, digging into his skin he can tell they’re claws of some sort. The fingers attached are ice cold as they rub against him.
Crying he screams, “F**k man come on! Please somebody, anybody!”
He feels steam against his face getting closer along with the sound. A warm liquid spills onto his forehead, saliva.
The sound grows louder into a roar when he falls through the floor ascending into another realm.
He opens his eyes and sees his torturer in a black cloak. That’s when it hits him, it’s lights out at the institute. He was saved from death in real life but would die excruciatingly in another world.
Gil sighs from relief. “Never thought i’d be glad to see you. Alright, let’s get this over with.”
The young girl peers around a corner from behind a wooden table leaned at an angle, she holds her mouth closed afraid another whimper will escape involuntarily.
A tear rolls across her speckled nail polish on a trembling finger. Lenny kicks more furniture around yelling in all directions.
“Last chance before you really piss me off. Trust me, you don’t wanna do that. You will find out my punishments are worse than anything you ever had. Come on now, s**t!”
The girl shudders as Lenny continues to kick and swing at things in-between yelling. He turns to a corner away from her and begins to creep towards it. A table set up with a cloth over it draping down with enough space underneath for a kid to hide.
He crouches down with his night stick preparing to swing. She realizes it’s her chance to escape and begins to run as fast as she can.
She passes him as he turns around yelling for her to stop. Her emotions collide, she wants to cry and scream, she wants to fall to the ground and beg for mercy, but her body won’t allow it.
She runs as fast as her weak legs can take her. She trips losing her balance slamming into a wall but quickly regains her stance with Lenny’s threats as a motivation. She sees Mrs.Cranston as she shrugs her shoulders turning away from her.
Running past her she pushes the doors open expecting them to be locked. They swing open and fresh air hits her face, there was nothing she craved more at that moment. She begins to hurl herself down the ruined steps with a small rejoice in her soul.
Lenny comes running down the hall and halts as Mrs.Cranston holds a hand up.
“She’s getting away! The f**k are you doing?” He shouts.
Calmly she responds, “Love, let the guards take care of it. We haven’t used them in a while. Let them have some fun, shall we?”
Lenny spits and grunts while turning away. “Fine, let them do it. But the next one that tries to escape is mine.” He pushes two doors open after unlocking them and disappears into another room.
Mrs.Cranston sits down in her chair and adjusts her vest. She creases out the wrinkles and reaches under her desk pulling out a small horn. A curved yellow horn forged from bone with a yellow hint from old age, carvings etched across it with deep grooves forming odd symbols.
“Dr.Arbatian you might just be the craziest man out of all them, but damn it did you think everything through.” She inhales softly and blows into the horn.
The sound carries outside past the large black doors, the doors rattle as the two angels start to shake. The walls tremble as the statues creak and groan, one grabs the door and pushes its hand against ripping itself off, the floor cracks under it’s heavy weight as the foot lands. The second one follows landing on the ground in a heavy thud, a vibration waves across the building.
Their rusted bodies twist and snap, they look at each other for a moment before walking down onto the ground. It cries under their weight.
The girl runs past brushes and tree shrubs, the muscles in her legs burn as she tries to make her way back to Mooncrest, her hometown. In the dark there’s no telling where she is though. She feels like giving up, maybe finding a spot to sleep for the night and continuing in the morning.
She drags her feet to a secluded spot thinking she’s ran far enough to stay ahead and plops down on the ground. She thinks of how nice it would be to lay down and release the pressure from her legs when she notices something.
Nothing but silence in the woods, as if all the animals have become quiet suddenly.
Looking for any sign of danger she hears a loud crackling noise. She rolls over narrowly avoiding an enormous tree hammering onto the ground, dust and leaves drift into the heavens.
Her chin pressed against the hard ground she feels her body fill with small vibrations. She pulls herself up coughing on the dust, her body still consuming the grounds vibrations sending them trickling down her spine. Horrified she picks her head up to see two monstrous angels made of bronze.
