by Amy Cross
Baring her teeth again, she seems to be examining me in great detail, almost as if she doesn't recognize me.
"Try to remember," I tell her, "try to -" Before I can finish the sentence, however, she gets to her feet and hauls me up before throwing me against the wall and then letting go of me. Whatever she wants, she seems to have decided that I can't give it to her, and she starts examining some of the equipment on one of the other desks. Once she's examined each item, she tosses it aside as if she only cares about finding whatever she's looking for.
Slowly, trying to make a little noise as possible, I get to my feet.
For the next couple of minutes, she seems to be totally engrossed in her search. It's clear that there's something in this laboratory that she's desperate to get her hands on. In fact, she barely seems to even remember that I'm here as she starts going through the drawers and cupboards. It's hard to believe that it's really her, since the physical transformation has been so extreme. Still, I know that the woman I love is in there somewhere, trapped in a body that seems to have been transformed beyond its natural boundaries. I just need to find a way to bring her back out of the abyss.
"Let me help you," I say after a moment.
She doesn't reply. It's as if she barely even knows that I'm here.
"Tell me what you want," I continue, convinced that I can get through to her and make her remember me. "Whatever you need, I can probably help."
She stops for a moment; she has her back to me, but it's clear that I've got her attention.
"Why don't you start by telling me what you really are," I continue, "because one thing's pretty clear. You sure as hell aren't just another nurse." Stepping closer to her, I wait for some kind of reaction. Figuring that I need to find a way to bridge the gap between us, I reach out and gently place a hand on her shoulder; she flinches a little, but she doesn't respond. "Who did this to you?" I ask. "Before you were a nurse at Tor Cliff, what were you? Did he..." Pausing, I realize that there's only one person who'd do something so horrific to a living creature. Over the years, Dr. Cole has caused so much pain and torture within these walls, it's hard to believe that no-one has ever managed to strike back at him. Today, however, the time has come to put an end to the torture at Tor Cliff.
She lets out a faint growl.
"I'll help you kill him," I say after a moment. "If you want Dr. Cole dead, I'll help. If we can just get him isolated, I don't think he can defend himself."
Slowly, she turns to look at me. A dark, reddened eye peers into my soul, and although I see nothing of Nurse Silk in her expression, I force myself not to look away.
"The pain will end," I say calmly. "There'll be -"
Without any warning, she suddenly swipes at me, knocking me to the ground. I try to get up, but she's already gathered me back up, and seconds later I'm thrown at the wall with such force that I can feel my bones rattle. As I slump down onto a nearby bench, I roll onto my side and try to get my bearings; my vision is blurry for a moment, but finally I realize that she's almost on top of me again. With a quick swipe, she lashes out and rips through my chest with her claws, before kicking the bench out from under me and sending me crashing down to the floor.
"Wait!" I shout, but it's too late.
I try to fight back, but she starts ripping into me with such unrelenting anger that the pain quickly overwhelms me and all I can do is struggle in vain until a sudden jolt burns through my chest and I feel my heart judder and then stop completely.
Chapter Three
Dronigan
I find her in the hallway. Or what's left of her, at least.
Abby Hart's headless body seems to have been left where it fell. Her neck is no more than a bloody stump; the top is mostly dry now, although it clearly spilled a great deal of blood earlier. As I make my way to the corpse and gently lift it into my arms, I'm struck by how light she feels. I would have expected a body, even a dead one, to have a little more heft, but as I dangle her in front of my vast eyes, I can't help but feel that her meat and bones don't amount to a great deal.
Holding her closer, I realize that her corpse is still slightly warm. It pains me to think that if I had just got here a little sooner, she might have been spared whatever agony was visited upon her. Still, there's no point dwelling on past mistakes. Her head must be somewhere, and there is no part of this wretched building that I won't rip apart in my search.
I look over at the stairs that lead up into the main part of the asylum.
Over the past few hours, I've felt hundreds of souls try to flee this place and escape into death. I pushed every single one of them back, refusing to allow them the opportunity they were seeking. I might permit death and dreams in this place again one day, but for now I need to keep souls and bodies together so that they taste better. Abby's body, however, is clearly devoid of the soul that burned so brightly in the forest, and it's her soul more than anything that I need to find. This headless corpse is nothing more than an old vessel, but at the same time I can't deny that I have a certain sense of loyalty to what's left of her.
I miss her presence. I only met her briefly, but something about Abby struck a chord deep in my being, and I would like to see her again; and once I have seen her, I want to keep her. She is the only creature in all of existence that I would not consume if given the chance. I have never experienced such a sensation before. I find it confusing to have an emotion that cannot be satisfied by my sense of hunger alone. I can only hope that once I locate her, Abby is able to help me navigate these new feelings.
From elsewhere in the asylum, there's the sound of voices. People are panicking and trying to get away, although the cell doors remain closed. Perhaps they, like I, can tell that Tor Cliff is soon to be no more. The stench of decay and destruction is becoming too powerful to ignore, and I can feel the building's collapse rumbling closer. Still, before this vile place is wiped from the forest, I must consume as many of its inhabitants as possible, and I must see if there is any way of returning Abby's soul to her body. After all, if she has not been permitted to cross over into death, she must be here somewhere.
I must find her head.
Chapter Four
Felix
"It's okay," she whispers, leaning close to my ear. "I'm back."
Opening my eyes, I immediately realize that the pain is gone. When I try to sit up, however, I feel a great stiffness in my back and it becomes apparent that my injuries haven't yet fully healed. I manage to turn and look over at Nurse Silk, and to my immense relief I see that she has reverted to her more human form; all signs of the creature she became earlier have been lost, and were it not for the hopelessly lost look in her eyes, it would be tempting to believe that her transformation was just part of a dream.
"I was worried I'd caused permanent damage," she continues. "Once you were unconscious, my anger faded and I changed again. Whatever that thing was, it burst out of me like -"
Suddenly there's a distant rumble, and the walls shake once again.
"Dronigan," she adds. "He's on something of a rampage on the lower levels. I don't know what he wants, but I think he might be willing to rip Tor Cliff apart in order to get hold of it". She pauses. "Maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing. Someone needs to knock this place down."
"You changed," I tell her, staring at her beautiful face and trying to imagine what could have possessed her and caused her appearance to be altered so horrifically. I've seen werewolves become enraged with anger before, but this was something different: she turned into an entirely different creature, something that had a passing resemblance to a werewolf while being filled with a kind of anger I've never witnessed before. "What happened to you?" I ask.
"The same thing that happened to you," she replies sadly. "At first, anyway. Don't you see, Felix? We were both brought here as patients, a werewolf and a vampire, and Dr. Cole..." She pauses. "He's done so many things over the years. So many cruel, heartless experiments. In this case, he wanted to extract the best of each species a
nd merge them to create something new. With you, he seems to have removed all your anger and bravery, but with me he's gone the opposite way. I'm no longer just a vampire."
Reaching up and touching the side of her face, I realize that she's right: although it's only subtle, there's a very definite difference to the way her heart beats.
"I can't control it," she continues, with tears in her eyes. "Don't you see? There's nothing I can ever do to keep this fury contained. I almost killed you today, and the only reason you survived is that Dronigan is holding back death. That won't last forever, especially if we leave this place, so there's no way that this... I mean, we can't..." She pauses again, as if it's too hard for her to say the words. "What point is love if it can't last?"
"We'll find a way," I tell her, finally getting to my feet. "Between us, we can find a way to free you from whatever they've done to you. Even if we have to -"
"It's not possible," she says firmly. "These experiments have already changed me beyond the point of salvation. He's literally reached into my body and changed the most basic parts of my physiology. I'm not even myself anymore. The person I used to be is gone."
"I can still see her in your eyes," I reply, "and whatever happens, I won't abandon you. Even if it means staying here forever at Tor Cliff, I'll stay by your side."
"Then you'll die," she continues. "I'll end up killing you. When Dronigan allow death again, I'll tear you to pieces and there'll be no way to bring you back."
"So be it," I tell her, and even though I want to believe that she could never do such a thing, I can't deny that she's in the grip of a force that she seems completely unable to control. Stepping toward her, I take her in my arms and hold her for a moment. "But if I'm going to die," I add finally, "there's one more thing I want to do first."
Chapter Five
Dronigan
"Stop!" Dr. Cole shouts, backing away from the door as I enter the laboratory. "Dronigan, you have no right to -"
Before he can finish, I reach out and swat him away. I don't even bother to watch where he lands; instead, I make my way forward, looking around desperately for some sign of Abby's head. I'm carrying her decapitated corpse in my left hand, dragging it along the ground like some kind of discarded doll, but without the head it's worthless. I just hope I can find the rest of her before it's too late to put her back together again.
"Dronigan!" Dr. Cole calls after me. "You're making a terrible mistake! What the hell happened to you?"
"I discovered the pleasures of life," I tell him, pushing a couple of benches out of the way so that I can reach the other side of the room. "My eyes were opened," I continue, "and I finally understood that there was more to my existence than spending an eternity in the dead forest." Stopping after a moment, I turn to see him slowly getting to his feet. "Where is she?" I ask.
"Who?"
"Abby," I reply, holding up the headless body.
"What the hell are you doing with that thing?" he asks, as if he's disgusted by the sight of it. "For God's sake, Dronigan, get a grip. It's already started to rot. What are you going to do with it? Dress it up and watch as it slowly decomposes?"
"You will give me her head," I say firmly.
"Her head?" He smiles. "Do you really think it could be so simple? You're going to take her head and sew it back on, is that right? God, the mess you'd make if you were given half a chance. You're very good at taking people apart, but somehow I doubt you've got much chance of putting someone back together."
"Tell me," I continue, "is she still able to speak? I know her soul must be in there somewhere."
"You know nothing of the sort," he replies, limping toward a nearby bench. I clearly damaged him when I threw him down, but I no longer care about such trivial things: I would happily kill Dr. Cole a thousand times over if it meant that I was able to find Abby's head.
"I will have her," I tell him.
"Why?" he asks. "She's just one patient among many. Go down to the cells and take your pick from the rest. Take them all, if the mood takes you. I'm sure they could keep you busy for a while."
"They do not interest me in the same way," I reply.
"The same way?" He glances at me, and suddenly a moment of realization strikes his face. "No," he mutters, "Dronigan, please... tell me this doesn't mean what I think it means."
"I wish to have her with me," I continue.
"Don't do it!" he says firmly. "Dronigan, you were happy before. Why are you so determined to ruin everything? You'll gain nothing by falling in love with Abigail Hart!"
"Love?" I ask, trying to remember where I heard that word before. "Is that what this is?"
"No," he replies, "it's not -"
"Yes," I continue, "it is, isn't it? Over the years, I've found love in the souls and memories of my victims. When I pull the threads from their thoughts, I find different types of love mixed in there. I've always wondered what it was, exactly, but now I can tell that it's the same thing I'm feeling for Abby. It resonates on a frequency that I never bothered to think about before."
"And you call this love?" he asks. "Dragging a headless body around the corridors of an asylum, hoping to find the head of someone you barely even know?"
Holding Abby's corpse up, I can't help but feel a hint of sadness in my heart. When a creature dies, its soul departs and no more dreams reach out from its depths. When I met Abby for the first time, I recognized that she possessed a particularly powerful set of dreams, but now her body is just a collection of meat and bones, ready to be burned. It's hard to believe that something can be so vibrant and full of life one day, and so cold and dead the next; still, someone did this to her, and as well as finding her head and trying to put her back together, I also want to discover who caused this to happen to her in the first place.
After a moment, I realize that Dr. Cole has begun to fill a syringe with some kind of gray liquid. I watch in amused fascination until he turns to me and it becomes obvious that he intends to use the syringe on me. Although I'm quite certain that nothing could possibly cause me any problems, I can't help but feel angered by his refusal to let me experience these sensations.
"Who did this?" I ask.
"Who did what?" he replies, edging closer as if he thinks I haven't noticed the syringe.
"Someone removed her head," I continue, glancing back across the laboratory. "Who? Why? When? Did they -"
Before I can finish, I feel a sharp sensation in the side of my chest, and I look down to see that Dr. Cole has finished injected something into me. For a moment, there's nothing I can do except stare at the needle, but finally I realize that there's a strange burning sensation rising through my body.
"It's okay," he says. "This is just to calm you down -"
"No!" I reply, pushing him out of the way and heading over to the door. I never believed, not even for a second, that I could be affected by anything that these idiots try to put inside my body, but suddenly it's becoming clear that my enhanced size has perhaps brought about more changes than I'd anticipated. Feeling a little dizzy, I pause for a moment before lurching forward and crashing into the wall, causing it to buckle and collapse. I land on a pile of bricks and wood, and second later part of the ceiling falls down onto me. Pushing the rubble away, I get to my feet, but the effects of the drug are becoming worse by the second.
"Listen to me," Dr. Cole says, keeping his distance. "There's nothing to be scared about, Dronigan. Would I do anything to hurt you?"
"Abby," I mutter, lunging at him but missing by a mile; instead I crash into one of the benches, knocking it into a wall as I tumble to the floor. "Tell me who did this to her?" I shout, holding her decapitated corpse up again for him to see. "Someone removed her head on purpose. Was it you?"
"Of course not," he replies. "Dronigan, you're going to go to sleep soon, but it's only temporary. We need to make sure that you revert to your original state. This new form is causing too much damage. Don't you see? You've swung from one extreme to the other. Obviously your encoun
ter with Abby has affected you deeply, and I understand that, but you mustn't allow yourself to be fooled. Love is a slow process, something that takes a very long time to develop. This is just affection, or friendship... Maybe even lust. It could be any one of a lot of things, but it's not love, and it never will be. I'm sorry Dronigan, but that's just something you'll never be able to feel."
Although I try to reply to him, I can't shake the feeling that a thousand little weights have begun to pull my mind down into a kind of eternal darkness. I've never slept, but this is how I imagine it must be: a velvet world, hidden from the realities of the world. Looking over at Dr. Cole, I can see a smile of smug satisfaction on his face, and it's clear that he thinks his drug is working on me.
"When you wake up," he continues, coming closer now that he sees my weakness, "you'll be so much happier. You don't really think you can go on like this, do you?" He tries to slip Abby's body from my hand. "Where would it end? You'd end up consuming everything, and then you'd be all alone. At least this way, you can go back to the life you've always known. People can dream and die, too. Wouldn't that be good, Dronigan? Everyone needs to know their place in the world. Embrace yours." With that, he gives Abby's body a gentle tug, enough to work her loose.
"No!" I shout, striking out at him with such force that he's slammed into the wall.
Grabbing Abby's body, I haul myself to my feet and take a couple of large, heavy steps across the laboratory. I still feel as if the drug is pulling me down, but there's no way I'm going to allow myself to be distracted. All that matters to me right now is the search for Abby, and I know she has to be nearby. If she's not with Dr. Cole, however, that leaves only one other place, and I was hoping that the beast would have left her alone. With her body still in my hand, I make my way out of the laboratory.
