Chapter Text
" Stand in line the next station will open at four o'clock, please refrain from stepping in the rails without a guide. "
The female speaker repeated. He looked at the rail and then at the walls, caught in swirls of fading yellows. Until he noticed a round table. And there sat Jake and Lisha
Blood dripped from Jake's eye, a hole of stranded meat and nerves where his eye once was, black goop poured from his other eye, sticking on his cheecks. Dirty blonde hair messy as always and the same distant stare.
It's a familiar view. He'd seen it before.
Lisha turns her head to him, her copper shimmer hair tied in a bun with messy strains of hair misplaced in her face. She faces him, a completely blank face, no, a hole where it is supposed to be.
He feels hands wrap around his neck. Recognizing those slim fingers, adorned with rings in one hand, and the other a metal glove with claw rings decorated with small chains and intricate designs of feathers.
The fingers slide from his neck to his cheeks, holding them, and he's forced to look up. To the dark holes of that mask.
Maybe it was ironic, he felt like a cornered animal and the thing staring back at him was nothing more than an animal skull, painted with small lines and circles, feathers on either side, and a bunch of red braids ending in white.
" Please remember that the paths are entangled down, spiraling and moving within the Half-Aether flow. Once you step in, hardly there'll be a way back. " The female speaker finishes.
Black goop falls from the mask eyes, like tears from the sky. Along with the female speaker voice, small whispers chant. He doesn't understand.
The goop streams down his cheeks, but his eyes are stuck on the mask. The fingers with claw rings move slightly and the mask approaches closer, almost touching his nose, making his neck bend uncomfortably.
Find the ghost.
It whispers.
" Do you remember when did these "dreams" start? "
The doctor asked, tapping her pink nails on the notebook laying in her lap. She stares at him through her square glasses.
" I think... about some weeks ago. " He clutches his fingers in the fabric of his white pants.
His eyes jump around the room. Watching the shelfs, counters, the small pots full of flowered bushes contrasting with the blue walls. It's small but big— he's been in many rooms like this.
She hums, writing something down, her wrinkled face stuck in contemplation.
His leg bounces uneasy, foot tapping the soft carpet as clock noises tick. Almost two in the afternoon, he's going to the garden.
Click.Click.Click
The cat-shaped clock eyes wander from side to side rhythmically. A scornful glare. Observing, smiling and the doctor clears her throat.
" Do you blame yourself? "
The ticking stops.
The room falls in loud silence and he sinks in the soft chair waiting it to swallow him whole. The doctor looks at him, she's waiting, even the walls are listening.
" What? " Disturbed, he asks.
" It quite common in this situation that most people have some... guilt. " She inclined forwards. " Even if it they didn't have control. "
" What— what situation? " Sweat runs down his back, it cold, the room is too cold.
The doctor tilts her head and it distorts and grows with disgusting spurts noises, opening it's petals up like an azalea.
He went pale.
" Resuscitator. "
Far distant someone calls for him. A hand grabs his wrist and another pushes his shoulder. He's sick, lips quivering as if delirious, everything is blurry, so so blurry.
" Hey, hey. Oi! " Something is grabbed from him, pulled away. " Careful with the knife, ya tryna make soup with fingers? "
He hunches over, breathing shudderingly, making noises between coughs and gasps, choking on nothing. Someone beside him was holding him, hands hesitantly massaging his back while he continued to gasp for air.
" Someone, call Luke, " Another person yells, " Is there a bucket? Any type, quick! "
His heart beats echoes in his head, loud and quick. Oh, he's so sick. His stomach drops, tense and heavy, he trembles as if thousands of needles are poking him. There's a ball stuck inside his throat.
And it goes out with everything, but doesn't leave, the bitter taste of bile, pieces of bread with chicken, the floor sways dark, with the tight ball stuck, it little paws carving inside, making him choke more and more.
His legs tingle and his throat aches, is he dying? He doesn't want to die. Not again. Not ever.
It's terrifying.
He braces himself, hugging tightly his stomach. The hand on his back doesn't stop circling. Quick footsteps approach and with blurry vision hee sees a white coat. This makes him engulf.
And he throws up again.
This time, the floor avoids it's fate when a bucket is pressed on his face. Briefly, he sees a spider amidst the vomit.
More of them crawl inside of the bucket and he's dragged away when a nurse starts spillig her guts.