The Rift

by Skn Hammerstone

  “No one even likes you! You’re so weird!” I moved across the middle school parking lot to see what was going on. A group of the popular people had gathered around Jesse, making fun of him again.

  “I am not now, nor have I ever been weird!” he insisted. They just laughed at him.

  “Everything you say is weird! You’re like some freak of nature!” One of the older ones pushed him and he fell onto the ground. He shouldn’t have to take that.

  “Hey!” I pushed my way through the group and helped Jesse stand up again. Why was it that no matter what they said to him, he never got angry? He calmly regarded them as they continued to make fun of him.

  “Oh look Jesse,” one of the girls said. “Your mommy is here to save you.”

  “I’m not his mother,” I told them. They may not make him angry, but they certainly ticked me off.

  “Of course not. Who would ever want to be associated with him?” Nicholas was one of the people there. Of course he was. He always was.

  “He’s my best friend! So I would!” I snapped at him.

  “Oh, I’ll bet. You’ve been friend zoned little man. No girl would ever want to kiss your baby face,” the entire group was laughing now. I didn’t really think about it, I mean I was only 12. I just kissed him.

  “I guess weirdoes belong together,” one of them said.

  “I guess they do,” I would never have been friends with any of them anyway.

  “Jesse!” It was futile to call for him. He couldn’t hear me.

  “What do you want to do with your life?” Jesse asked. Freshman year in high school. We were supposed to start making these decisions but I had no idea what I wanted. I was just lying on the ground, watching the night sky.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “I haven’t thought about it. What do you want?”

  “I want to live a normal, stereotypical life,” he decided. “I want to grow up, get a normal job, be with the woman I love, and have normal, stereotypical children who go on to live their own normal lives.”

  “Most people want something more extraordinary,” I told him.

  “I’m not most people,” he reminded me.

  “What about the woman you want to be with? What will she be like?” I questioned.

  “She will be beautiful,” he turned his head to look at me. “With incredibly dark, black hair.” Jesse reached over to me and softly touched a strand of my hair. “She will have brown eyes that say everything I ever need to know without her having to speak. She will be beyond extraordinary. She is beyond extraordinary. I will give her everything she ever wanted. She will never have to be afraid or alone. She will always have me. I will never let anything happen to her.”

  I shouldn’t have been surprised that he kissed me, but I was.

  “I will never let anything happen to you. You will always have me, Rachael.”

  “Take her back to her room,” the leader said. I couldn’t even move as they undid the straps and drug me back to my room. Was this how the rest of my life was going to go?

  27

  “Let’s all talk,” the nurse said. She had 10 of us sitting in a circle in a room together including Anna. “Does anyone want to talk?” She looked around as no one responded. “How about you James?”

  A guy who looked to be about 50 turned to look at her.

  “What do you want to talk about?”

  “Dead puppies,” he grinned to himself and several of the patients moved away from him. Trust me; I was staying as far away from that one as possible.

  “Let’s not talk about that James,” the nurse decided. “Who else? Anna?”

  “They’re here,” Anna said.

  “Who are here?” the nurse asked.

  “The demons. They’ve come back for me! They want her!” Anna pointed at me. “It’s not my fault!” She started to go into hysterics, jumping to her feet and screaming. “They don’t want me anymore. They want her! She’s the reason they are back!” The nurse pressed a button that paged security. “Don’t hurt me! I haven’t done anything!”

  “Calm down Anna,” the nurse ordered. Several of the creatures came into the room and I stiffened. They were everywhere in the asylum and no one else seemed to notice.

  “Oh God please save me! Take me away from this horrible Earth!” she was terrified and I guess she had good reason to be. I was terrified too.

  “Take her to the padded cell,” the nurse told them, a red glint shining briefly in her eyes.

  “No! Not there! Please!” the creatures she had called in took Anna out of the room and the door shut. Her screams were still echoing in the room.

  “What about you Rachael?” the nurse turned to me.

  “What about me?” I asked. I was going to die. I was going to die.

  “Do you believe in these demons?” it was a trap. If I said yes; she would lock me in the same cell as Anna. If I said no; she would make it her point to torture me into believing.

  “What are demons?” an irritated look came over her face. I could tell it was not the response she expected. What if Anna was right? What if these things really were demons?

  28

  They started as whispers but they swiftly grew louder. They woke me up and I was shocked to find myself alone. Where were the voices coming from? There were hundreds of them, all speaking different things at the same time. I couldn’t tell what any of them were saying because there were too many.

  I got up and tried to find the source. No matter where I went, they never got any closer or any farther away. It was like they were moving with me. That’s when I realized that the voices were inside of my own head. If I had ever asked for proof that I was insane, this was it. I tried to focus on just one voice, but I couldn’t.

  It felt like a fog had descended on my mind. They kept getting louder and louder. I covered my ears, trying to block them out but you can’t block out something that is inside of you. Not only were they getting louder, they were getting faster. I began to shake as I curled up in a ball on the bed. They just wouldn’t go away.

  “Stop!” I don’t know why I bothered with that. They couldn’t hear me. “Leave me alone!” I barely noticed the door open as I wrestled with the voices in my head.

  “Go away!” I screamed. But they didn’t. Someone pulled me off of the bed, but I didn’t know who. I didn’t really care either.

  “Get out of my head!”

  The person was leading me through the asylum as I struggled to gain control of my mind. The patients somehow found this normal.

  “I said stop!” It just got louder and faster. The person took me to another section of the asylum. It was a hallway filled with solid metal doors, each one with a name. Only one stood out to me. Anna Cortez. These were the padded cells. I had both of my hands on my head as I involuntarily began to try to tear them out. There had to be something physical in my head causing these voices. Something I could rip out.

  Another person joined the first and they took my hands away from my head, violently forcing me into a straitjacket. I didn’t care though. I had to get these voices out of my head.

  “Be quiet!” They strapped the jacket tightly and opened an empty cell.

  “You be quiet,” one of them said. They shoved me into the cell and shut the door. I tried to slam myself into the walls just to get the voices out but the walls were soft as was the floor and the ceiling. I couldn’t shut them out. They began to use my voice to talk but I still couldn’t tell what they were saying. It didn’t sound English to me.

  Strange words poured out of my mouth as I sat on the floor, rocking back and forth, completely unable to use my arms or control my own words. The voices continued for several hours before they finally faded, allowing me to sleep. It was the first time I had actually slept since the bridge. There was no City of Chaos or Joshua. It would have been the one time that I would have welcomed him.

  29

  I expected them to get me out the next day but they didn’t. They opened a small compartment
in the door and slid me food and water and came to take the dishes half an hour later. They didn’t talk to me or even look at me. The voices didn’t come back and neither did the creatures. I believed Anna now. They were demons. It made sense.

  She was wrong about me having a guardian angel though. I didn’t have one. He would have come to save me by now. He wouldn’t have let all of this happen to me. I had no way of telling time in the cell. The only indicator was the little bit of sunlight that came through a covered window on the ceiling. When it faded completely, I knew that it was night again. I fell asleep again without any visit from Joshua.

  Another soundless delivery of food and water and another long day began. What they didn’t seem to realize was that I couldn’t eat and I could barely drink because of the straitjacket. I spilled more water than I actually drank. They had to have known when they took the food back untouched. They knew, but they didn’t care.

  I was an outcast of society now. It wasn’t their problem if I ate. The sooner I starved; the better. The voices didn’t come back the second or the third day either. I was completely alone. I heard a few nurses talking outside on the fourth day. Anna had somehow gotten out of her straitjacket and hung herself from the window in her cell. They had a bet placed on how long it would take me to do the same.

  I began to wonder what had happened to Jesse’s promise. He had said he would get me out but I had been here for a week and he hadn’t come. It was probably just meant to give me hope. He couldn’t really get me out. My mom was the only one that could and why would she when she was the one who had put me in here?

  I tried walking around the cell but without anything to eat, I couldn’t make it far. I was never going to get out. I was woken on the eighth day by someone knocking on the wall of my cell. I moved over to the wall, leaning against it.

  “Hello? Is someone there?” I asked.

  “Are you Rachael Taylor?” it was a woman’s voice.

  “Yes,” I answered.

  “I was near the main office yesterday. There was a young man there with dark hair and blue eyes,” my heart gave a leap. Jesse was here. “They wouldn’t let him in because they claimed you were too sick for visitors. He started to leave and I told him where you really were. He told me to tell you that he is going to get you out. He said not to give up. I got the nurses to put me in here so I could tell you. They are coming to get me this evening. They are going to get you too because they want him to believe that they are treating their patients right.”

  “They will feed you and get you as close to normal as they can and then they will have him visit you. They are going to force you to tell him that you like it here and that is a nice place. If you don’t they will lock you back in here and they will never let you out.”

  “Thank you,” I told her.

  “Most of the rest of us never have anyone visit us. We would all help someone who had a chance to see someone they loved.”

  “Be quiet down there!” A man shouted.

  “That is all I can tell you,” the woman said.

  “Wait, has anyone ever left?” I waited for an answer but she didn’t give one. She was too afraid. Just like everyone else. I stayed against the wall, too weak to even go back to where I had been. I fell asleep once more. If they didn’t get me out soon, one of these times that I went to sleep I wouldn’t be waking up again.

  I didn’t have to worry about it this time. They woke me up by spraying me with cold water from a high powered hose.

  “Get up!” it was one of the normal nurses. Mean, but just human mean. I tried, but I couldn’t.

  “Someone come help me,” she tried to sound irritated but her worry overshadowed that. If I died, she was in huge trouble as was the entire asylum.

  “Told you we shouldn’t have left her in here this long,” one of the male nurses walked in, lifting me off the floor. “If she dies, and that kid finds out what really happened; I’m not taking the heat for it.”

  “I wasn’t the one who put her in here,” the nurse hissed as he carried me out of the cell and down the hallway. “Besides, none of us knew anyone would try to find her. Her mother put her in here and her father and brother are dead.”

  “Then the person who put her here can take the heat for it,” They took me back to my original room and dropped me on the bed.

  “Get an IV in her,” the man said. “Get all of the energy in her that you can. We’ll find her a nice uniform and make sure her hair is done when the front desk calls that kid and cordially invites him back to visit his friend.” The nurse nodded and forced the needle into my arm. Then the two of them left, leaving me alone once again.

  30

  Don’t tell him about the cell or the straitjacket. Don’t tell him about Anna. Don’t let him see the ECT marks on your temples. Keep your hair there to hide them. Tell him how happy you are. Tell him all about the friends you have made and how much you enjoy the time we give to talk to the other patients. Tell him how you are happy here. They repeated the instructions to me numerous times. Each time was followed by the warning that I would never get out of the cell if I didn’t follow them exactly.

  They had given me a uniform that was far different from the white jumpsuit that we normally wore. Instead it was similar to a private school uniform. They had even curled my hair to make me look “normal”. They were trying to make it look like I hadn’t spent most of my time here abused. It didn’t really work. I was too thin to be healthy and too pale to have had all of the “outside play time” that they wanted me to mention.

  None of this was going to fool Jesse and I was almost willing to risk more time in the cell to tell him what was really going on. If my Mom knew, maybe she would get me out. I believed she might hate me too much for that anymore. Better someone else killed me than her.

  They took me to the visiting room, a room that definitely did not match the rest of the asylum. It made it look like they actually spent the funding to better the asylum.

  “Don’t forget what we told you or you know what will happen,” one of them hissed in my ear before they opened the door and let me into the room. Jesse was standing, awkwardly, waiting.

  “Jesse!” he smiled as I ran over to him, jumping into his arms. I shouldn’t have doubted that he would come. He had kept every promise that he had ever made to me.

  “Hey,” he held me at arm’s length after a few seconds and immediately frowned, which wasn’t a common expression for him. “You don’t look good.”

  “Thanks dude. I appreciate it,” I told him. Maybe I wouldn’t have to tell him. It looked like he had figured it out on his own.

  “You know that’s not what I meant,” he corrected. “How much weight did you lose?”

  “Not a lot,” I lied. He raised an eyebrow. “Ok, a lot.”

  “What kind of treatment are they giving you?”

  “Normal treatment,” the threat of the cell was slightly overpowering.

  “You’re lying to me.”

  “No I’m not,” I was lying again. He moved my hair to reveal the ECT burn marks.

  “Yeah, normal for 1940. What are they doing to you?”

  “I have a problem, they are trying to fix it for me,” I didn’t want him to believe that but I said it so I didn’t end up dead.

  “You don’t have a problem,” he glanced around and leaned towards me to whisper. “Are they here?’

  “Yes,” I whispered back.

  “How many?”

  “I don’t know. Quite a few,” I told him.

  “Did they do all of this to you?” he wanted to know.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m not going to let them keep you here. You’re coming with me one way or another,” as much as I wanted to believe it, I knew he couldn’t get me out.

  “You can’t help it. The only person who can get me out is my Mom,” I said.

  “There is more than one way to get you out,” he stated.

  “One of the patients here had a similar reason to be in
here to me. Her name was Anna. She said she was an angel. She told me that the creatures following me were demons,” he didn’t answer me, avoiding my eyes.

  “You think I’m crazy too,” I slowly backed away from him.

  “No, I don’t think you’re crazy Rachael. You just weren’t supposed to know that and she knew it,” he didn’t try to stop me physically but he was attempting to stop me with what he was saying.

  “They’re demons?” I swallowed hard.

  “You need to understand that you are safe. Your guardian angel…”

  “No! Don’t even mention a guardian angel or me being safe! I am not safe! They tried to shock my brain out of my head! I was locked in a padded cell, alone in a straitjacket for 9 days! Don’t tell me that I had a guardian angel! If I have one he obviously doesn’t give a damn about me!” Jesse cocked his head to one side like he was listening.

  “They are coming back. They are going to put you back in that cell but you won’t be there for long, I promise. You aren’t going to stay here,” he told me.

  “No, I can’t go back in there,” I could hear them now on their way in. “Jesse you can’t let them put me back in there!” He hugged me tightly as they came closer.

  “It won’t be nearly as long this time. I can’t get you out on my own. I’m going to get help and I am going to get you out. You just have to hold on for a few more days,” he said. The door opened and they came in.

  “Don’t let them take me! Please! I’ll do anything!” I held onto him as tightly as I could as they tried to pull me away.

  “They aren’t going to hurt you! I am coming back to you. I promise!” they ripped me away from him and started to move me towards the door.

  “Jesse!” I fought them but I couldn’t get away. The last thing I saw was a tear falling down his face.

  31

  I shivered alone in the same cell that I had spent the past nine days in. I still didn’t know who the woman had been that had told me Jesse was coming. She was gone now though. I tried to fall asleep but I knew it wouldn’t be easy. So Anna had been right. I was being pursued by demons. The problem was that no one would believe me anyway and there was also the problem of them being demons.