by Shiloh White
“Ouch!” I said, sucking air through my teeth. On the back of my head sat a large lump. The added weight of that chair must have brought me down fast, and definitely didn’t give me any softer of a landing…
As much as I wasn't fond of where I'd ended up, I didn't want to go back to that kitchen any time soon. I thought about that crazy guy who wanted to squirt lemon juice in my eyes. His angry words rumbled around in my head: “You and those rats gone too far this time!”
Was whatever those...rats did enough to deserve lemon juice in the eyes? If it was, they probably should've been the ones put in the cell instead of me.
I looked to the sides of the cell out of habit, but there was no one there. I was alone in the cell, or as far as my eyes could tell. I also didn't feel my art bag anywhere near me on the bed. A bead of sweat trickled down the side of my face. I hoped it was just lying somewhere in the corner, too dark for me to see.
I heard keys jangling as someone walked over to the front of the cell. My heart started to beat in my throat. This was my chance to get out of here and back to my sister. I needed to save her from that fog. I tapped my finger rhythmically on the bed as I took each breath; a calming trick. Each time you breathe in, you poke something soft for three seconds, and then you let go and breathe out. Probably the only helpful tip I picked up from the stupid psychiatrist.
Or at least, helpful enough to not lose it when the person unlocked the door and did something on the wall outside the cell. I heard a click, and then the room lit up with panels of light on the ceiling.
“Did you sleep okay?” the stranger chuckled.
I squinted at the light and sat up again, much slower this time. I was still dizzy, but I managed. After my eyes adjusted to the light, I could see who was walking in.
It was Scott, the cop from the hospital room. He walked into the room and sat down on a bench that was against the wall to the right of the bed.
“Here.” Scott handed me a bottle of water. I scooted to the back of the small bed, staring him straight in the eyes. I expected him to do something crazy with the bottle. Between my sister being in a coma, the funnel cloud coming back, and the other crazy things, nothing seemed to be going right today. I decided it was as good a reason as any to not trust this guy. Especially since both times I listened to him, the one good thing that happened was countered by two bad things.
“Oh,” he exclaimed as he took the bottle back. “I'm sorry. You’re probably still pretty drained. I should have opened it for you.” He unscrewed the top and handed it to me again. I hesitantly took the bottle from him and held it. He sat there and waited, smiling awkwardly. I just watched him and waited. Now that I had a moment to see him without being chased by a rabid funnel cloud, I could actually see Scott. His face looked a lot younger than I originally noticed.
I figured he couldn’t be over eighteen, or maybe nineteen. And yet, he was tall. Even with us both sitting, he was still a whole head taller than me. He had black hair that was buzzed short, and from what I could see in his awkward smile, nice teeth. I paid them no mind.
After a moment he finally spoke up, saying, “You know, after what you've been through, it might be a good idea to actually drink some water. You're gonna need some energy.”
I took the smallest sip, to put him at ease.
You ever not realize how long it's been since you had something until you have it? Just a sip of the water was enough to wake me up, and remind me what I was doing here. Chloe...
I wondered how far the hospital was from this place.
He said something else, but I was too busy looking past him and outside the cell. Cops walked back and forth past the cell, making me feel skittish. Out the door and a little bit to the right hung a sign from the ceiling that said “EXIT” in big green letters. My heart skipped a beat. The building full of cops wasn't making me feel as safe as I guess I should have been. They probably wanted to interview me for the thing at the restaurant. Heaven forbid if they asked me about the funnel-cloud.
They’d think I was certifiably insane, and I did not have time for that. Scott might have been there, but no one would believe that thing if they didn't see it themselves.
Scott cleared his throat.
“What did you say?” I asked. I tried to convince myself, if I was ever going to get out of here, I had to put him at ease. And I suppose he did say something, whether I heard it or not. Since I was about to run out on him, I figured it was the least I could do to avoid being rude.
“I was apologizing,” he answered, “for the rough journey.”
I want to tell you that I waited patiently for the right moment for as long as I could. Truthfully, I lost my patience when he opened his mouth again:
“The trip to the Dep—”
I splashed the water bottle in his face and ran out of the cell.
“Hey!” I heard him shout, but I didn't stick around to hear what else he had to say. I turned right after the cell, past the corner with the exit sign. It led me into a long hallway with the same bland build as the cell. The floor was a dull gray like cement. The walls were a dark pale blue that only helped with the dullness. The only light came from the panels from the ceiling, and the occasional light against the wall. At the end of the hallway was another green exit sign pointing right.
I ran as fast as I could in that direction.
For about eight seconds.
The rest of the escape was more like awkward jogging and trying not to getting dizzy or killing my hurt leg.
It didn't stop me. I passed the exit sign and rounded the hallway. I looked at the new area I ended up in. Just a few steps in front of me stood a large black door. It was a good a chance as any. I pushed it open and all that stood in front of me was the gray expanse I saw in the hospital. The only thing different was if I looked down, I could see what looked like five big and dark spots, like black holes of extra-grayness within the gray expanse.
There were voices behind me and footsteps that grew closer, but I didn't turn around. I could hear Scott's voice apart from the rest, yelling, “Lucy, stop!” I looked at the ground under my feet. Then I looked up at the gray expanse again. I did not want to jump into this thing again, considering where it took me the first time.
But Chloe was out there somewhere. I clung to the thought that wherever I’d ended up jumping to, jumping back would take me back to the hospital.
What a hunch, right? My headache made it challenging for me to come up with other ideas at the moment. And the footsteps were almost on top of me. I ran forward and jumped out of the door, and felt myself going weightless in the gray expanse. There was no going back now.
“Oh, no you don't!” My body went taut and my arms and legs flew out against me and I stopped floating. A pair of arms around my waist pulled me back down to the floor in the room. I turned around. Scott was holding me down, away from my reach of the door.
“Let go of me!” I yelled and flailed against him, trying to get free of his grip. “My sister is out there somewhere with that thing!”
Scott gave me a look that I got all too often. His right eyebrow arched and his eyes and mouth scrunched up like I was a puzzle he was trying to solve.
I hated that look.
“That's nuts. No one is out there.” he said, gesturing out the big black door. I watched the grayness disappear out of view as two the other cops came and closed the door.
“What are you talking about?” I asked. “My sister is back in the hospital with that Agent cloud! You were there; you saw it!”
The two cops walked away muttering something and laughing to one another. It fueled my anger. I pulled harder to try to pry Scott's arms off of me, but he held tighter than I could pull.
“You can't get back to her that way. The entrance to the Dust is not the exit.” he explained.
At this point I was just shoving my shoulders around and trying to wriggle free. It wasn't working. I was exhausting the little strength I did have. I put my arms down and quit pushing.
“The Dust? You mean that big grayness that we fell through to get...wherever we are now?” I asked.
He finally let me go, setting me down in front of himself. Now he stood between the doorway and me.
“One and the same,” Scott answered. “It's also the one that’ll literally scramble your thoughts until your brain was nothing more than an omelet if you jump into it from this side.”
At first, I thought he was joking, but Scott's eyes showed no humor. All of the motivation in me to run past him and make it to the door immediately evaporated.
He was telling the truth. I was in the Dust, wherever that was. I closed my mouth, wondering how to even respond to that.
Part of me still wanted to believe the whole falling thing was a dream. I was hoping when I walked out of the door, I would see steps in front of me.
But if he was telling the truth about all of this, then I didn’t like the idea of my brain becoming an omelet.
“Fine. You said you know how to save my sister. How do I do that?” I asked.
“Can you stand?”
I forced myself off of the ground without passing out, but it took a large amount of effort. Scott helped me up and said, “Close enough. Now, come on; the lieutenant will want to see you awake.” He started back down the hallway we came from. Instead of turning right, back to the cell, he continued straight.
“The lieutenant?” I asked. “I thought the police chief was in charge. Your department is making less sense every second.”
“Department?” Scott asked.
“Your police department,” I answered, pointing to the badge on his chest. The letters read ‘DPO.’ “What do your letters stand for?”
“Depression Force Officer, although—”
“Depression Force? That’s a morbid name for a police department. Why call it that?” I asked.
“It's a misnomer,” he sighed.
We're not a police department. We are what the name suggests; a force against Depression.”
8. Surprise! You’re Still Depressed!
“So you guys fight depression?” I asked awkwardly. “Like a big charity organization themed like a police department or something?”
Scott laughed. “No. I think the pain in your head is keeping you from understanding. We actually fight Depression.”
I shook my head, which probably just made me dizzier rather than proving my point. “Look,” I told him. “Maybe you just didn't get the memo at your last charity meeting, but depression is a mental illness. It's not something you can physically fight.” He gave me a puzzled look.
“I can see how this would be confusing. Come on. I'm sure the lieutenant can explain.”
We left the hallway and turned right; into a room that had to be at least three times the size of the hallway would let it be. It was a huge office room, with desks everywhere. They were all piled with computers and papers and printers and other office technology. Against the back of the room was this large computer-type machine with a bunch of screens. It spanned across the whole room. On top of it sat one large screen that took up the majority of the entire wall.
Also, almost everything in the room was white or made of glass, which hurt my eyes. I had to squint to really see anything. The room was filled with people bustling everywhere. They moved from table to table with clipboards and papers, and they didn't have dark blue uniforms like Scott. Instead, they wore white lab coats. (This didn’t help with the whole bright room problem.)
Down in the middle of the room stood a woman I assumed was the lieutenant standing over a guy who was sitting at a circular desk. Their backs were to me. The Lieutenant leaned on the desk with one hand and was clenching her fist with the other.
“Hurry up! He's gotta get out of there!” she yelled in a deep and scruffier voice than I imagined.
“It's no good,” said the guy at the desk. “We're running out of time.”
“Well, buy more time or he’s gonna get away—”
“Too late.” The guy at the desk sighed and closed the laptop in front of him.
The lieutenant cursed, and her hand started to fly towards the table, but she stopped and composed herself. She pointed to two other lab-coat workers on the far end of the room.
“See if you can trace his location.” But the two workers were busy giving me a weird look to notice their new orders. “Hey!” she barked, jostling them out of their daze. They scrambled away to the back corner of the room and started pressing buttons on the giant machine in the back. Then she turned around and followed their gaze up to Scott and me. He helped me down the stairs and we walked to where the lieutenant was.
“Ma'am.” Scott let go of me and saluted at her. I wasn't expecting it to happen so quickly. I almost lost my balance and fell over. But one up close look at the lieutenant intimidated me enough to want to stand up straight front of her.
She wasn’t that much taller than me, but she stood as straight as every inch would allow. She was dressed in a dark blue police uniform with a green-camo army cap that said “Hollister, F” on the front.
“At ease,” she told Scott. Scott nodded and his body relaxed.
“This is the girl,” he said. “Lucy Hale.”
The lieutenant slowly turned to me with cold electric blue eyes.
The silence after her words crept into the room. I couldn't see any clocks, but the time seemed to tick away. It couldn't have been more than a second before Scott cleared his throat. But the second was long enough for this woman. I tried to keep eye contact, but I couldn't even think straight with her looming over me. My body started to feel heavy. I felt like I was zoning out. I tapped my fingers against the side of my leg, just trying to focus on breathing.
I almost didn't even hear Scott introduce her.
“…is Lieutenant Allison Hollister. She's currently in charge here at the Depression Force HQ. Most of us just call her ‘Lieutenant’.”
The Lieutenant held out her hand. I tried to move mine to shake it, but it wouldn't budge. If this was the person who could help me, I didn't want to get her on my bad side. But my body felt frozen. I pinched my leg to snap myself out of it. Then I took a deep breath and shook her hand.
Crisis averted. Or so I hoped.
“So, you're the one who tried to run out into the Dust?” The Lieutenant said.
“Uhh,” I started, staring at the ground as I talked. I still felt frazzled from how intimidating The Lieutenant was, and how tired I was from standing on my own two feet. It also surprised me how fast that news spread.
I tried to form complete thoughts before I spoke this time. “I was trying to get back to my sister, Chloe. She's in danger.”
“What kind of danger?” The Lieutenant asked. I bit my lip.
“I don't know, exactly. There's this big black cloud that chased her down. Scott said you could help.” I said.
The Lieutenant nodded and turned back to the guy at the desk behind her. “Dart, bring up Chloe Hale on the main screen.”
“You got it,” said the desk guy who must have been Dart. He clicked around some stuff on his laptop, and then there was a big humming noise coming from the back of the room.
“It takes a sec to warm up,” he explained. “In the meantime…”
He pushed his chair back from the desk and slid it over to me. I thought he was going to fall over until I saw his chair was on wheels.
“I'm Officer Pascal Dart. But you can just call me Dart,” he said with a smile. Then he leaned closer and whispered, loud enough for everyone to hear. “I have to introduce myself around here, but don't let anyone fool you, Hale. My job is the most important.”
Scott chuckled at that comment.
“Pay him no mind,” Dart said. He scooted back to his desk and immediately after, the big screen in the back of the room lit up.
It showed Chloe's hospital room, and there it was. The giant funnel-cloud swirled around the walls and covered the doorway. As a piece of the cloud would pass by Chloe, it would brush h
er arm. It was weakening her, like it tried to do to me. Chloe was lying on the bed, still unconscious. “Chloe!” I shouted. “How do we get that thing off of her?”
“It's a Depression Agent.” The Lieutenant said. Something clicked in my brain. I turned to Scott. “When you said you fight depression...” He nodded.
“Here in the Dust, each person's Depression has a physical form that wreaks havoc. It's our job to take them down.”
At this point, my head was about ready to implode. And it might have, if not for every other crazy thing that happened in the last twenty-four hours.
“So then…” I said, grasping for words. Depression was hard enough in my head. But now it could physically hurt me?
“What kind of depression could do THAT?” I finally asked, pointing up to my sister on the monitor. “Oh,” Dart chimed, “I could answer that one. It's simple. That,” he said, pointing to the gray blob swirling around my sister, “is your Depression.”
✽✽✽
I felt like the world got flipped on its side and I was the only one still trying to look at it like it was right-side up.
I fixed my eyes on the monitor, staring at Chloe and the dark gray cloud that flew around her room. Before I could do anything, the thought was there: I was staring my own depression in the face. But that wasn't possible. I shook my head, as if I could make the thought fly right out.
“Depression is an illness. It’s-it’s a feeling.” I stammered. “But it's not...” I searched for the right word. “It's not alive.” I said, my voice shaky, like I was trying to convince myself.
I stared at the big shadow, clearly moving around like it was alive. Then I looked back at Dart, trying to find any ounce of humor in his expression.
This had to be some big practical joke. I expected the cameras to pop out at any second. But when Dart looked up from the monitor and saw my expression, he just shrugged.
My eyes turned to Scott, and then to The Lieutenant. She looked dead serious, like I just insulted her dead grandma or something. It was clear she didn't see any of this as a joke.