Part II
Suddenly, air was unnaturally
forced out of her lungs; she sat straight up, draining a bright yellow shriek
out of her body. The equinox of pleasure over terror made her feel somewhat sane,
being in the middle was always better than being on one of the two extremes;
she was finally in the space between spaces.
With every smooth breath she took careful notice of her surroundings.
A white bed sheet, a television
mounted on the wall, a large window to the right. She moved her toes about trying to get a feel
for the reality of her body, it felt like she hadn’t moved a muscle in days.
The limitless being she has
recently experienced was only a memory now, and attempting to tell anyone about
it would leave for an unsatisfied conversation. Presently, she knew roughly
where she was, but she couldn’t figure out why it was necessary to be there.
The change in scenery was puzzling her; “could it have been a car accident?” she
asked in a plum colored tone, “I don’t even remember getting into a car.”
There was a knock on the door and
two nurses entered. The short brunettes name tag read ‘Barbara’, and the taller
blondes read ‘Nancy’. Nancy stared at the chart clipped to the bottom of her
bed while Barbara injected her with a clear liquid.
“Does that stuff make for night terrors?” she asked with a
half smile, waiting for the nurse to smile back
“No, I don’t believe so. Feeling a little anxious?” she
returned the smile.
“I guess so, I had a terrible dream; it can still frighten
me now if I let it” she said, looking for pity comfort for her trauma.
“She’s probably still
groggy, she went through a lot” Nancy interjected.
“What do you mean ma’am?” the girl inquired while a small
red fear grew in the darkness of her confusion.
“You were left at the ER last night, no wallet, nothing, you
are lucky, most people don’t survive falls from that distance” Barbara
explained.
“A fall? From where? What happened?!” Slightly more agitated
than before
Nancy turned on the television that was mounted on the wall
directly in front of her after she closed the chart.
“A witness said he saw a girl running down his street
screaming bloody murder and without warning jumped straight into a landfill
that was easily 100 feet deep.” Barbara said recoiling to check if she had
upset the girl.
“Me?! What? No. Wait…
WHAT?” she sputtered out nonsensical words from the shock of hearing the nurses’
explanation.
“Your mother is here, if you need anyth…” Nancy’s words
became lost in the confusion of the situation and the garbled sound of the
television.
“I’m insane, that’s all there is to it; I’m clinical.” Her
mother overheard the muttered accusations
“Honey, there was nothing I could do, you just started
running, I didn’t know what, I…” Tears started to flow as the lavender heat in
the room intensified.
“Mom, I don’t know what happened, I would never do something
like that”
“Honey, there’s something I need to tell you, or show you at
least.”
Her mother gently grabbed a loose end of the sheet covering
her legs and pulled it back to expose them.
“The nurses said you were admitted with this on your leg.”
Her mother said in a cloudy tone.
A white, gauze bandage was over her right ankle, about 6
inches across in length; she sat up violently from the sight of it.
The bandages came off in a fast tear revealing a magnolia
pedal size gash on her outer leg and four long skinny red pedals on the inside.
“Look, you’re not crazy, in fact, far from it. There is no
reason for us to hide this from you, but it would go against ethics, so I’m
telling you this all in confidence, understand?!” said the blonde nurse who let
herself into the room and my curiosity, closing the door behind her.
“I understand, what is it?”
“There have been reports of people in this area who
experience episodes similar to ‘night terrors’ and ‘sleepwalking’. They are
usually struggling with some major issue in their waking life. It’s incredible
really, you could have jumped out of a 30 story apartment building like one man
did. All the victims were reporting blackouts and physical trauma as well as
the emotional trauma from the…ahem…episodes. There was a girl who was
experiencing a particularly terrible episode one night and she was able to tell
us what she was seeing as it was happening”
“It was you. You told us. You said there was a portal that
you came upon after being chased by some sort of demon. “The fall” caused you
to come back to reality as it had done the nights before but…” her mother teetered
off, questioning her place.
“We think that since you have that gash on your leg from the
last episode, a part of you is still on the other side with that…thing.” Nancy
concluded, but she wasn’t proud of herself.
The nights when the air was just crisp enough to allow her
mind to wander with ease, the deformed, gaunt face of Crux appeared just as
vile and horrifying as ever. The girl had been in the ICU for 5 days with no
signs of improvement her injuries become more and more severe until one night,
November 29th the beast struck at the most vital place, her heart.
The girl passed away from unknown trauma and a tremendous loss of blood.
Nancy and Barbara
moved to new floors in order to escape any association with the ‘Crux Case.’
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