Page 24

N

othing could have prepared me for how boring it’d be to do nothing except stare at the ceiling. Sleep eluded me. Lacking distractions of interacting with people throughout the day, my mind drifted to the hows and whys of what was happening.

I’d never sleepwalked before, and to be determined enough in my sleep to break and enter? Why didn’t this freak me out more? Also, why had Ralph driven us there? Had I said something to him in my sleep and directed him where to go?

Why hadn’t he just shaken me awake?

Did my brain know something I didn’t? I’d sure appreciate being let in on the secret right about now.

When no answers mysteriously came forward, I scoffed, “Nothing,” and then I paused. “Great, now I’m talking to myself. This place is doing wonders for my mental health.”

One second, I was staring up at the drop ceiling, counting the tiles, and the next, pain, sharp and all-encompassing, racked my body, pulling me into unconsciousness with a harsh jerk.

My eyes blinked open to nothingness—and not just the nothingness of my dull, new living quarters, but an echoing void that pressed on the senses until I knew, deep in my soul, that I could get lost wandering around indefinitely.

“Hello?” I called. The tentative inquiry yanked from my throat as if some unseen being had robbed me of it, casting the question away until it was swallowed by the void.

A crawling sensation trailed over me, and I shivered.

No matter which direction I turned, emptiness greeted me.

“I’ve been here before,” I whispered in realization, frozen at the way the statement warped and echoed back at me, louder and louder, like some horror movie remix until it no longer resembled my voice but a deranged, cackling witch.

Wind nipped at me with a whisper of cruel laughter that cut razor-thin lines across my spirit.

I cowered into myself, hunching over and raising hands that didn’t exist to hide my face from the violent tempest.

“Stop,” I whimpered.

“Stop! Stoooop, sto-op, ah-ha-ha-ha!” the voice mocked, gaining in both power and volume.

My wrists ached, and my fingers grew numb.

I paused. What fingers?

I had no body here.

Did I?

The onslaught of wind halted as I straightened.

A quick glance down showed that no, I didn’t have any physical presence.

“This is all in my mind,” I affirmed, and as the words echoed around me, it gave my beliefs conviction with each repeat.

“No!” something screamed in anger as another violent burst of energy—not wind—blasted me, but without any form, it passed through me.

“This is all in my mind,” I repeated, my voice firm, and as if I’d snapped my fingers, on cue, the chaos stopped, leaving behind that unsettling but less malicious void.

Except, no, not that empty.

Some sort of pressure brought my attention to the left, and I got the distinct urge to follow it.

That alone should have scared me. There was zero information about what waited on the other end of this niggling feeling, but no matter how I tried to convince myself this was a bad idea proportional to the cliched start of every horror movie ever, I couldn’t shake it.

“Not like I have anything else to do,” I voiced with a shrug turned wince while I waited for my words to weaponize and beat back at me.

They didn’t.

“Cool.”

I… drifted would be the best word for it, not really moving any muscles. While there was no sense of distance with the lack of any discernible features in the endless landscape, the urge to keep going forward grew stronger.

I realized the draw was some sort of presence at the same time an indistinct form materialized.

“Hello?” I called as I stilled, wary of anything in this place.

Something told me that the blob also froze momentarily, even though nothing visually changed about it.

That suggested sentience though, right?

“God, I’m so out of my depth here. Can you hear me?”

Briefly, the form brightened, and that seemed like answer enough.

“You can?”

This time, the… thing visibly changed, solidifying until it became vaguely human shaped.

Some of my wariness receded.

“Oh, you’re a person!”

The more I focused, the more the image triggered a memory.

“I’ve seen you before,” I whispered on a breath. “You were there the other night.”

When all the orderlies’ faces had blurred, his had been crystal clear.

What did that mean?

Obviously, this wasn’t the land of the living. Was he just a mental construct I’d created, or was this some sort of afterlife? Had I almost died?

Was that why they’d needed to restrain me?

What the actual heck had happened? I’d been too scared to ask and get confirmation that I was actually crazy. Were they right to put me here?

Wait, was I dead now ?

“Who are you?” I demanded, drifting closer. “Do you know what’s happening to me?”

A humming of sound pressed in, as if the person—young man, was trying to say something, but for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what.

My incorporeal form closed the distance, until it felt as if the inside of my brain was being stretched in all directions like taffy. I eased off. Nothing appeared to be stopping me, but when I edged forward, the same, too full and too far apart feeling slammed into me.

I cast the figure an apologetic look. “Sorry. This is as far as I can go.”

The man—maybe early twenties if that—shivered in agitation before pacing back and forth on the other side of no- man’s-land. It had to be some sort of barrier, because he didn’t meet me halfway.

It did seem as if he wasn’t yelling anymore, so I took the time to study him.

He appeared to be Hispanic—dark eyes and hair, and full lips set beneath a slightly crooked nose, as if it’d been broken at some point.

For some reason, I fixated on that last point, until my conscious thought caught up and realized why. “You can’t be a figment of my imagination. My mind isn’t that detailed. Do I know you?”

The man waved me off, continuing his more urgent movements, as if he needed to move to think.

“But you’re a real person?”

He gave a single, sharp nod.

“Why can you hear me, but I can’t hear you?”

Without slowing, he threw an impatient hand at the invisible no-man’s-land.

“The barrier,” I said aloud, giving it another study, but it still just seemed like empty space. “Is there a way through it?”

That seemed to be exactly the right question, because the man rushed the barrier hard enough that I felt a twinge of outward pressure squeezing against my head. His movements were animated, and he was speaking again.

Guilt pinged through me because he seemed so desperate about something. “I’m sorry. I still can’t hear you.”

Instead of disheartening him, the man grew more determined, pushing and pushing against the barrier with increasing force until I balled up in pain.

“Stop! Stop! You’re hurting me!”

He paused, but if it was because of my distress or because of whatever it was that caught his attention as he looked up and over my shoulder, I didn’t know.

I no sooner turned to check what he was looking at, half dreading it was the thing that’d assaulted me earlier, when I was yanked hard.

A gasp escaped my lips as my eyes flew open.

“Oh,” a voice said, making me jump. An orderly in pink scrubs was washing her hands. “I’m sorry, honey. I didn’t mean to startle you. Did you have a bad dream?”

My head throbbed from the light streaming through the window, so I didn’t answer at first as I reoriented to the feeling of suddenly having substance and weight. “No. No, I… I didn’t dream.”

The orderly gave a bright smile. “I have good news for you. Your twenty-four hour period is up, so we get to take your restraints off.”

I blinked. “Oh?”

“Yes, it’s never our goal to keep people trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey, and since you didn’t show any signs of being a danger, we’re reentering you into the supervised program like before.”

At that point, I tuned her out, only moving when prompted as she removed the restraints.

Mentally, I cycled through the question of what was happening to me.

“You slept forever, dear. The morning shift tried to wake you, but you were out like a light.”

I paused at that. “What time is it?”

“Three in the afternoon.”

That wasn’t possible, and yet, out the window, the odd cast of the shadows from the trees confirmed her statement. How was it possible to have slept so long—well over twelve hours—and feel so exhausted?

“Did… Did anyone visit?” I asked, my brain slogging along, wading through thick molasses.

Ben had said he’d come visit. When had he come yesterday?

The orderly grew a naughty, secretive smile. “Oh, you mean that tall, handsome gentleman who visited you?”

My cheeks didn’t even have the energy to pull up a decent blush at her knowing look. “Yes, him.”

“Afraid not, dear, but there’s still time. Visiting hours aren’t over until after dinner, and hey, when he does get here, you won’t be tied down to the bed, so don’t fret.”

A return smile failed to make an appearance, so I glanced out the window at the bright, cheery afternoon, wondering why my eyes were burning with tears… and why I knew with certainty that Ben wouldn’t be coming.

He said he would.

He promised he would, so it had to be my insecurities rearing their ugly heads again.

The only thing I could do at the moment would be to figure out what was wrong with me—because at this point, I knew something was. I could admit that when faced with the overwhelming evidence stacked against me—from the highly abnormal, unlabeled medical condition to the hallucinations and my insane road trip half an hour from my house.

I’d start by getting some answers from whoever that guy was hanging in the shadows. I doubted it was a coincidence he happened to be around two nights in a row.

My steel-jawed determination died out briefly when dinnertime rolled around, and I realized that even if Ben wanted to come, he couldn’t now. Visiting hours were officially closed.

I kept the tears at bay through a tasteless, monochromatic meal served on a puce plastic tray and made it to the privacy of my room and into the bathroom for an extra layer of privacy before the dam burst.

My chest constricted until my vision grew spotty with the lack of breath. I collapsed into a ball against the tile wall as a maelstrom of emotions—anger, fear, anguish, confusion, and pain—all crashed into me with a vengeance.

No light.

No hope.

I’d never find my way back to the surface.

“Miss Walker?” someone called, knocking on the door, drawing me from the black torment. From the impatient, fierce cadence of the pounding, I knew it wasn’t the first or even third time they’d shouted my name.

“Sorry,” I croaked, scrubbing a fist over my eyes to dry them. “Sorry. One second.”

“I’m sorry, Miss Walker, but it’s policy.” The jangle of keys, muffled by the door, reached my ears. “This is your official warning that I’m entering now.”

I scrambled to my feet, unwilling to be caught in the middle of a freak-out. The water spurted from the faucet cold, but it helped revitalize my skin and reduce the swollen puffiness of freshly crying eyes.

Helped, that is, not hid.

The door flew open, and I spun to face the usual night shift nurse as well as the burly man they called for unruly patients when they went into rages.

That seemed a little extreme, considering I was all of five foot four and a hundred and fifteen pounds.

But, hey, they were the experts.

The woman’s face softened as she glanced at me. “Are you okay, hun?”

“Yeah. Sorry. Just stupid girl stuff.” I’d used that excuse on my dad a hundred times over when I wanted him to drop a subject.

The lady wasn’t nearly so easily dissuaded. “Is it about that young man? Kimberly told me he promised to visit you today. Did he?”

My throat spasmed, choking up. “No, he didn’t show.”

“There, there. I’m sure he’ll be by sometime soon. Now come on, dear. It’s lights out.”

I scrubbed my face clean with water one more time before doing as instructed.

“Now, you’re fresh off your twenty-four hour restrictive period, so I’m afraid the door will stay locked for the night,” the orderly cautioned as she backed from the room, killing the lights. “But if you need anything, just ring the buzzer.”

“That’s fine,” I whispered, not even sure if she heard me or if she needed to.

She was going to do it either way.

It was protocol, after all, and protocol was king around here.

The glare from the hallway filtered in until the door closed me in darkness. Nothing hid in the shadows of my room, no matter how long I squinted or stared.

Recalling my plan for answers, I searched again.

Spirit guy either wasn’t here, or he was playing shy.

Did I have to be asleep?

Or… whatever state I was in the night before that earned me a weekend trip to Restraint City? Drugged out of my mind, maybe?

I glared at the ceiling, finally writing off the search for my noncorporeal stalker as a lost cause.

If he was playing hard to get, I’d see him if I fell asleep. If he was just gone, gone, then he’d be missing inside my dreams too, right?

Right.

That was my plan, and I was going to roll with it, except my nerves were through the roof.

My foot bounced as I twisted and clenched the blankets close.

Ten minutes passed.

I sighed.

The clock read eleven.

I rolled onto my side.

Eleven thirty.

Just when I feared I’d be up the entire night, my eyelids drifted shut.