Room of Angels Pt 3

OBSIDEO

Callia Beaumont, pure white hair torn and tattered, tightly ground her teeth together and shut her eyes, trying to block out the sounds of screaming and crying. Nails from the neighboring cell dragged against the wall. She heard them break, then stared down at her restrained arms and imagined the blood dripping from her fingers.

The girl cringed in horror.

Get me out of here! Mama! Daddy! Please! Get me out!

Her parents would never come to free her. They had always imprisoned Callia and she could never escape that.

Doctors walked along the corridor outside the door, carrying papers and needles, with-drawing and injecting. They frightened her, especially the nurse that visited every day. The nurse possessed such strong and violent eyes.

"Callia...."

She ignored the whisper coming from the dark corner of the cell. Gnashing her teeth would have to suffice in suffocating the restless silence.

"Look at me, Callia."

The restrained patient whimpered, face drowning in tears. "I can't, I can't, I can't look at you."

"You don't want to see what you've done?"

A sob escaped from Callia, followed by a gasp of breath. "I know what I've done. Leave me alone, please! I can't look at you."

Cold hands pulled her head to look up at who spoke to Callia Beaumont. Impossible.

"No.... You're dead!"

Before her stood the specter of Laura, a girl Callia accidentally killed along with several others a few years ago. Their deaths sent her to this place, her own tomb. "Yes, Callia. I am dead, thanks to you."

"I didn't mean--"

"Didn't mean to kill me? Of course, you didn't mean to kill me, but you did mean to do it, otherwise it would not have happened."

Laura bared back her bruised, dead lips, exposing her teeth as if she were a feral creature. Her breath was heavily scented of ash. A small line of blood fell from the open corner of her mouth, running down from neck to foot. The apparition's eyes glowed an unnatural red. A hide-ously sharp tongue flicked around the edges of her lips and brought a few drops of the red liquid back inside. "I will get the pleasure of watching you die."

Callia screamed bloody, filthy murder.

"Open cell 21! Hurry!" a light voice cried from down the hall outside. "She's Dr. Hoff-man's patient!"

Keys clanged loudly in the lock and the door open quickly, allowing light to flood and overtake whatever darkness enveloped the prison. Blindness crippled Callia's vision.

"Hey, Callia, it's me, Victoria. Your nurse," the small curly-dark-haired woman softly spoke. The patient, however, still observed the bestial animosity carried within.

An orderly stood aloof in the doorway, face shadowed with light shining through from the hall behind him. "I don't see what the fuss is all about, Vicki. They all scream."

"I know they all scream, but this one doesn't." The nurse quickly undid Callia's restraints and carefully slid out an arm., checking for a pulse, then drew, from her neckline, a set of keys, one of which she handed to the man at the door. "Take this and fetch a sedative. Hurry."

The man locked the door as he left, sealing the two women in the vault to the unrelenting clutches of the dark.

"She--" Callia gasped, her lungs unable to fill with air. "I saw her!"

"Saw who?"

The girl spoke no more. In the corner, in the midst of the looming shadows that masquer-aded as simple spider webs, she was watched by Laura's harrowing gaze, red with anger, with rage, resentment, indignation, aggression, ire—

How mad she must be.....How strange that the word ire resides inside of fire....

At that moment, the orderly returned with the sedative and light poured into the cell again. But Callia soon felt nothing as the needle easily slid into her skin, releasing the drugs into her veins.

She fell through adrenaline and thick vast waves of hazy uncertainty.