by Ivy Asher
Tyson blinks strangely, losing the friendly smile on his face. Then, without another word, he turns and walks calmly back through the front doors of Serenity Peaks without even a goodbye wave. I watch him go, bewilderment bubbling up in my stomach. “Ty—”
My words are cut off as Dr. Ophidian steps closer to me, and I’m forced to look up into his white snake eyes. I wait for the moment that one of his snake dreads will snap out at me, but they seem to be more settled now.
“Come with me, Sable,” he orders, his voice still dipped into that unusual tone that makes an itch start just under my skin.
He reaches out and grabs my upper arm as he starts to lead me away from the building. I go where I’m led, too experienced in listening to authority figures at the cost of my own instincts. I know I can’t trust myself, that my eyes and thoughts about what I’m seeing betray me time and time again, but it’s hard to swallow down the heady fear swimming in my mind and the instinct that flares through me to run.
As I’m escorted away from Serenity, I realize that the doctor doesn’t have my suitcase with all my valuables that Tyson so lovingly packed for me. I look back to see it sitting by the curb of the circular drive up, all alone and abandoned like I’ve been since I was three.
I lock my eyes on the door, hoping Tyson will come back out, but he left without a backward glance, and I’m forced to fold up my sentimental greeting card thoughts and tuck them away as tears burn the backs of my gray eyes.
Dr. Ophidian yanks me a little, and I stumble into his side. I swing my head forward to focus on where we’re going and cringe at the feel of his wings against my side. When his hold tightens on my arm, I bite back a whimper. It seems my new facility just might be more reminiscent of the one I grew up in, rather than the one in which I’ve spent the last four years.
I try not to feel dread at that thought. I know how to keep my head down and keep myself safe. And after what I did to land myself back here, I’d probably deserve it if things were a little less cushy and warm. Maybe it’s the universe punishing me even more than it already has.
Ignoring the snakes writhing and watching me, I keep my eyes averted on the parking lot as we stride forward. “So, you’re my assigned doctor?” I ask, but the man cuts me an unimpressed glance as he hauls me away from the parked cars and instead drags me over to the lot adjacent to the mental ward, my feet trying to keep up with his long strides as we hit the grass.
“What are we doing?” I ask with confusion, but as soon as we’re under the cover of the trees, Dr. Ophidian drops his hold on my arm and faces me.
I stay still as he starts to circle me, looking me up and down with clinical judgment. I don’t know what he’s analyzing as he looks at me, but when he stops in front of me again, his lips tilt up into a smirk. “I finally got one of you,” he says, but it’s like he’s speaking mostly to himself.
My brows pull down into a frown at his words. “Got one of who?”
His smirk spreads into a full blown grin. “Stop pretending. That won’t protect you anymore.”
I brush a hand over my suddenly sweaty forehead. “What?”
“You’re going to do exactly what I say, when I say it.”
Tendrils of black begin to slink into the edges of my vision as a cold wrongness fills me at his layered voice.
His hand once again comes to my arm, and I drop my eyes to it as my head begins to spin. What the hell kind of pills did Tyson give me?
“You forgot my suitcase,” I say numbly, though the words sound hollow in my ears, and it takes extra effort to get my tongue to move.
“You won’t need it where you’re going,” he says, his statement punctuated with the sound of his hissing snakes.
I swallow hard. “And where’s that?” I ask.
He smiles, and that’s the last thing I see right before my head spins and the blackness overtakes my vision completely. But I swear, I hear the faintest whisper in my mind right before I blink out. It’s strange, but I could’ve sworn he said, Hell.
3
A shiver runs through me as I start to come to. Coldness leeches away the oblivion I was finding so comfy, and I have no choice but to peel my lids back and search for anything that can help me feel warmer.
My mouth tastes like someone painted it with bile and then left it to bake in the sun. My head swims like I’m just waking up from a bender, but I know that life is way in my past, and rather than alcohol, I have two mystery pills to thank for my current state. I push up into a sitting position as I blink the sleep from my eyes and try to take in my new surroundings.
Instead of finding myself in a bed in some room painted a calming neutral color somewhere in the beige family, I sit up to find something that’s better suited to a Witcher episode or maybe a clip from Fifty Shades of Grey. Although, the pain room wasn’t a dungeon, so maybe I’m off the mark there.
I’m boxed in by a stone wall and tall bars. The space isn’t very big, but the back corner has a tiny enclosure where I can see an old metal toilet and a slightly dripping sink. Beyond that, there’s nothing in here with me other than coarse stone beneath my feet and a mangled blanket tossed carelessly aside. Dungeon was right.
There are matching cages on either side of me; one looks like there’s a small pile of rags in it, and the other is draped in shadows that my adjusting eyes can’t penetrate yet.
Across the room, a medieval table makes up the center of the space, and a small fire is lit in the hearth nearby. The fire doesn’t do much to add warmth, but it does make the tools that are hanging on the wall behind the old metal and wood table glint. The fire provides the only light in an otherwise dim and ominous space, and although I can see torches hanging on the walls, none of them are lit.
Fear crawls over me like hundreds of ants, biting their way through me.
Is this my new psychiatric ward? Is this what Dr. Gupta meant by unconventional methods? It looks like this place forewent all the science and advancements that have been made in regards to treating mental illnesses, and instead just went right back to the times of the Inquisition.
I hear a slight scraping noise, but when I look in the cell next to mine, where the sound came from, all I see is darkness.
A shiver goes down my spine as I stretch my legs in front of me. My head still feels slightly sluggish, but I do my best to push it away. I don’t know what those pills were, but nothing has ever made me pass out like that before.
As my eyes adjust to the dark room, reality starts to settle in as more seconds trickle by and I really take in my surroundings.
I force myself to get to my feet, noting that I’m still wearing the same clothes as I was in Serenity, though my plain gray T-shirt and sweatpants are dirty from lying on this hard stone ground, and my white tennis shoes now have both dirt and grass stains on them.
My eyes stare at those stains for a beat as memories of Dr. Ophidian trickle over me. Did he really drag me past the tree line? Is he even real?
I force myself to look up as I pad over to the bars, my hands coming up to grip the cold metal. Doubt sprinkles down my spine like wayward rain, seeping into me until I shiver. This...this can’t be real. But I’ve never hallucinated my surroundings before. My flickers only ever focus on people.
My eyes move from the raised table to the hanging metal tools, then to the fireplace and back to the barred cages. “I’m asleep,” I murmur to myself, my knuckles going white as I continue to grip the bars. “I’m still asleep.”
That has to be what this is. Those pills I took messed me up so badly that I’m dreaming right now, and all of this isn’t real. Maybe I even dreamt up Dr. Ophidian. All of that strange encounter was just a figment of my anxious imagination readying me for the move. Really, I’m still in bed at Serenity, and I’m going to wake up any minute now.
I squeeze the metal bars, feeling the coarse texture that’s rough enough to scrape the skin of my palms. I tighten my grip even more.
“Wake up,” I mutter.
&nbs
p; I blink hard, but I’m still stuck in this dungeon where it feels like all the warmth is being sapped out of the air and then my body.
“Wake up!” I hiss shrilly at myself, flinching when my words bounce off the walls.
“You’re not asleep.”
The gravelly voice makes me nearly jump out of my shoes as I whirl around in the darkness, my eyes landing on a figure in the cage next to mine—one I hadn’t noticed until right now.
He’s hunched against the stone wall with one knee up, his arm draped casually over it. All he has on are ragged pants, the bottoms of them frayed, while his chest is bare except for a link of iron chains that make an X across the front of his torso. Long black hair hangs around his head, blocking his face from view, and even though he’s slightly dirty and has streaks of muck marring his chest and feet, I can see that his skin tone is sage green.
He looks much too big to be stuck in the small space he’s been crammed into. His body looks like it was once toned and muscled to perfection, but now seems like he’s dropped too much weight too fast, so much so that some of his ribs are showing.
I suck in a breath as he slowly lifts his head, and his eyes flash gold in the dark. “I thought you’d be one of me. But you aren’t,” he says, his voice sounding like he hasn’t used it in a while. He adjusts his position slightly, and the sound of the metal dragging against stone scrapes against my ears like nails on a chalkboard.
I press my lips together, refusing to answer him. He’s just part of the dream, I tell myself. Either that or my flickers have just gotten much, much worse. I’m no longer seeing just monsters. This dungeon is probably nothing more than a regular patient room, and my mind has become so broken that it’s transformed it into a thing of nightmares.
“Nothing to say?” he asks.
Refusing to talk to my hallucination, I turn away from him and go to the opposite corner of my cage—no, room, I tell myself. This is just a normal room. What I’m seeing isn’t really here.
“Hmm, that’s too bad,” he murmurs, his head settling back against the stone behind him. “It’s boring sitting here day after day, but if that’s how you want to be…” he trails off, and I chance a look at him again, but his eyes are closed as he relaxes against the wall.
I cautiously study the creature my mind has created. I realize that what I thought were more dirt streaks across his abdomen is actually some sort of geometric tattoo, with matching lines and symbols on the insides of his arms.
My neighbor doesn’t say anything else, and soon, the only sounds that surround me are the inconsistent crackling from the flames in the fireplace, and my own quick breathing. I’m not sure how long I sit, waiting for my craziness to ebb, but it doesn’t. I finally make myself close my eyes, hoping that when I wake up, this will all be gone. With any luck, I’ll either wake up in Serenity or things will flicker back and I’ll finally be able to see my new ward for what it really is.
I’m jerked awake at the sound of a door slamming shut.
I jolt forward from where I was sleeping against the bars, my body immediately alert, but the dungeon hasn’t dissolved. I’m not back in some plain hospital-type room, and dread constricts my lungs, making it hard to breathe.
I barely have time to lament the fact that I’m still stuck in this nightmare hallucination when footsteps wrench my attention to them. A dark figure strides straight for my cage, stopping right in front of the bars, and my heart drops.
Dr. Ophidian.
Everything is the same as before. White, slitted eyes, and black snakes hanging around his head, their bodies curling and coiling as they move. The only thing that’s different is the fact that he’s no longer wearing the slacks and button-up from before, and now has on some sort of thick black leather that hugs his muscular frame, leaving his dark brown wings free to flare out behind him.
“Good, you’re awake.”
Am I?
He places a hand on the bars, and a grayish light emits from his palm. It’s bright enough in this dim room that I’m forced to squeeze my eyes shut. When I blink them open again, a door in the cage wall has appeared that wasn’t there before, and he easily swings it open with a gritty squeak.
I suck in a shocked gasp of air as bewilderment rockets through me. What is going on? Why would I imagine this, and how do I wake up from it?
“Out,” he orders, his words accompanied with a snap of his fingers.
When I don’t immediately move, he narrows his eyes on me where I’m still huddled in the corner. “You won’t like it if I have to come in there to get you, Sable.”
I swallow hard and immediately get to my feet. I’m trying to tell myself that this is all somehow in my head, but I can’t help but feel like I’m walking into serious trouble as I follow the doctor’s instructions. He moves aside so I can pass through the doorway, and I chance a peek at one of the cages next to mine, but the green-skinned man appears to be sleeping, his form unmoving against the wall, and the other cage is still empty.
“Get onto the table.”
I snap my attention back to the doctor, noting that he’s already walked ahead of me. He’s standing in front of the fire, the orange glow of the burning logs highlighting his silhouette and making his features look even harsher. The flames reflect off the shiny skin of his snakes, creating an ominous visage and making him look like he’s standing in front of a hellish backdrop.
It’s only my steely mantra playing in my head on a loop that makes me walk toward him.
This isn’t real, this isn’t real, this isn’t real.
“Sit.”
I make my way to the hard metal table and jump up on it, immediately feeling a strange semblance of normalcy. This is just a padded checkup bench in reality. He’s probably about to take my temperature and blood pressure. Nothing out of the ordinary aside from the fact that my mind is tormenting me into seeing this terrifying mirage. I just wish I could figure out why.
But maybe that’s just more evidence of my broken brain. I could never figure out why the flickers happened, so what makes me think that I can puzzle out this new development in my illness?
Dr. Ophidian looms over me, the sounds of his hissing snakes battling with the spitting fire. “Did you really think the Mortal Realm would keep you hidden from me?” he asks, irritation dripping from his tone.
I freeze, my eyes trained on his nose so that I don’t have to look into his creepy eyes. “Excuse me?”
Crack!
I don’t expect the hit. How could I? It’s as far from a normal reaction to a question as one can get. He hits me so hard that my head doesn’t just snap to the side—my entire body does. The left half of me crashes down onto the metal and wood table, and I don’t even have the chance to get up before his hand is suddenly wrapped around my throat, pinning me down as his other works to strap me to the table.
“Do not mistake me for a patient being. I am not,” he says quietly, his tone carrying an undercurrent of vicious intent as his long nails dig into the sensitive spots on my throat. Not enough to cut off my air supply, but enough to hurt. “I have been trying to get one of you, and now that I finally have, I won’t tolerate your games, your lies, or any more delays.”
He releases me, but I don’t move. I’m too confused and terrified. Instead, I watch him with wide, petrified eyes as he walks over to the wall where the hanging tools are and plucks one of them from its hook.
My earlier mantra dies in my head as a shocking reality starts to burrow into me, trying to crawl deeper, like I’m prey that’s attempting to hide from it. Because...this doesn’t feel like it isn’t real.
“Now,” he begins as he walks back over to me. My wary eyes don’t stray away from the coil of metal wire he’s now gripping. “I need you for one purpose, and one purpose only,” he says conversationally as he stops at the foot of the table.
He pulls off my shoes and socks before fluidly tugging my sweatpants off my body, tossing them onto the floor and leaving me bare in my underwear whi
le I look up at him, frozen in fear and uncertainty. I don’t even voice a protest as he removes my pants and shoes, my lungs and muscles suddenly feeling like they’re dipped in hardened concrete.
What is happening to me?
“You will call your scythe,” Dr. Ophidian declares, confusing me even more. It’s clear he expects me to understand what he’s saying, but I don’t. “After that, I’ll handle the rest.”
He looks at me expectantly, and dread cinches around me even tighter than before. After another silent beat passes, he gives a long-suffering sigh and then slowly begins to uncoil the wire in his hands.
I flinch when he lifts my left foot, his hold firm around the bone of my ankle. I watch, my breath coming in uncoordinated spurts as he takes the end of the metal wire strand and presses it into the arch of my foot. “I have to admit, I was hoping you’d be difficult,” he says with an ill-fitting grin that curls his lips. His teeth gleam, so at war with the grim surroundings of the room. “This helps me let out some of my frustrations. You and your sisters have been very difficult.”
Sisters?
The doubt that’s been in the back of my head, sounding alarms that I’ve been ignoring, grows louder, like it’s demanding I accept its warnings as truth as Dr. Ophidian begins to wrap the wire around my foot. I gasp at the first constricting loop, but he doesn’t stop. With deft, meticulous movements, he begins to twine it around my limb, and every loop he makes digs in harder and harder until he reaches the bottom of my calf, and the metal slices right into my skin.
I cry out at the sudden pain and try to pull my limb from his hold, but he doesn’t relinquish it. One look at Dr. Ophidian’s face tells me he likes that he’s hurting me. He likes the struggle that just shot through my veins. My mind slams and spins, thoughts rattling around like marbles spilling from a glass.
What the hell is happening?
I shake my head, thrashing to pull my body from his hold, but my top half is secured to the table, and impossible strength holds my bottom half still. I can’t move. I can’t get away.