by C. J. Sutton
Walter made for the door, shaking his head and stamping his rod against the floor.
“Some people leave with scars, others loss. Many can’t live with what they’ve done. But you…you’re sick, Magnus Paul. Dozens had to die to give you this office, this prestige, this power…and it’s all bullshit. You’re not saving anyone. You can’t even save yourself.”
The man limped to the wooden door, waited for the click and left, a final turn of the head revealing the circular scar one final time, a part of Magnus forever attached as remembrance, a sign of mercy that every mirror would remind him of.
Magnus sat, blended into the couch, preferring a drink stronger than water. The past crashed against the inner walls of his mind like a wave over pristine rock, wetting the surface; and he saw swift snakes slither on the land, chaos vibrating against the rocky edge, the voice of a man reborn recounting days of thunder.
His hands shook, the glass walls pressed in.
Her taunts were coarse, sand now damp in mounds, pressing against his skin. Numbers flashed brightly, photographs to be used as evidence. Muscle constricted, squeezing air out of the setting as a coloured substance fell from the sky, rain to poison the waves. A recurrent nightmare locked away for three years broke completely free, unrelenting. A man with no eyes approached, arms outstretched and moaning for relief, footprints in the sand. He fell off the rocks, a deep splash in the waters below. Magnus peeked, forever curious, the vision now altered; the body lay broken on the rough surface below. It had never proceeded this far.
His legs kicked.
Another wave threatened, bigger than any other, a face within its foam. There was no escape. Jasper called to him, seeking his company, if only for one last time. As Magnus rose to greet his brother, a hand steered the doctor through the nightmare.
“Dreams again?” asked his secretary, her blonde hair a lighthouse against the rocky surface.
“Always, Lee.”
And he fell to the ground, still a prisoner of Dortmund and that place atop the hill. For the nine may be free of the Asylum, but their new home afforded all the spoils of war.
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