Fever Dream Red

14

Nick slapped Eli. Hard. So hard it almost echoed around the garden. I heard a few audible gasps.

I didn't know what was so surprising. It was just a slap.

"Your sister. She's sick, isn't she?" Nick muttered to Eli. Nick's nose scrunched up as he said this, almost sneering at Eli.

I never knew why, but he stood millimetres away from Eli's face.

He always did that to people. Maybe he wanted to be intimidating. Maybe he wanted to scare them with his bad breath. Maybe he wanted to snog them. I didn't know.

"Maybe." Eli said to Nick, not relenting. Nick's breath must've smelt extremely bad, because Eli was there squirming around like a fish out of water in the man's arms.

"We can take care of her. We can give her the treatment she needs."

Nick paused.

"Only if you and your friends stay."
"I mean, you haven't given us much of a choice."

Suddenly everything relented. The guns were removed from the back of our heads, the men relented looking at us like we were world class criminals.

"There. I'm giving you a choice."

Eli paused for a minute, staring at the ground, thinking.

"How?" A quiet voice said from the corner. It was Mimi.
"Hm?" Nick asked.

"How will you make her better?" Mimi said, louder now. The moonlight made her features look even more dead, rotting with dread."Nothing has before."

"I have my ways."
"What are they?" Eli chipped in, done thinking.
"Treatments. Special ones."

Eli considered, and looked at Mimi. Their eyes linked, and then I knew what they would do. They both had the unfamiliar glint of hope in their eyes.

"If she doesn't get better, can we go?"
"Sure."
"Okay then."

Just our luck.

Danny pinched the top of his nose, whilst Skye sighed heavily, as if Eli was supposed to sacrifice his won sister for all the other idiots he had to cope with.

I would've done the same.

"Take me to her." Eli said simply to Nick. "If she's still alive after you forced her all the way here. Travel isn't good for her."

They both disappeared inside.

We sat in silence for a while afterwards, the men observing us like we were on our own dystopian reality TV show.

Then they escorted us to our rooms. I was led up stairs and stairs and stairs, all luxurious stone and elegant painted walls. It looked like a palace in a period drama, terribly classic.

There were statues everywhere, along with pillars decorated in ornate swirls of gold and pastel. My fingers stroked one of them, and I felt the slight error of the paint under my fingertips. It felt unnatural.

I couldn't help feeling like it wasn't me at all. I looked so terribly worn compared to the glittering floor, even though it had bore more history than my skin ever had. Humans rotted inside out; stone stayed eternal.

As i opened the elaborately carved door into my room, I was almost shaking with anticipation.

My room was big, massive, great. That's the first thing I knew about it. It wasn't like the other bedrooms I had seen, with their plain walls and impersonal views.

This room was worlds away. A delicate hardwood table welcomed me into the room, kept company by two antique blood red armchairs, dripping with luxury. Red curtains hung everywhere, like pretty facades. At the back of the room a poster bed lingered, opulence adorned into every stitch of the fabric. A hefty wardrobe lay to the side of it. I imagined clothes stuffed into it wonderfully, almost being thrown up.

The room was beautiful, if a little too rosy. Chandeliers dived from the ceiling, casting shadows around the room, turning cadavers into ghosts.

It was legendary. But it was made for me. It was too...old. Too dainty. It was not the sort of thing you would give to a teenager. But it was something I would love, which is strange.

Nick didn't know me at all. How could he have known what kind of room I loved? He couldn't. It was a paradise so disconcerting. Like a perfect present which you opened only to be stabbed in the back.

I landed my bag on the four poster, so consequently unimportant in the vast scarlet ocean, and sat on the bed with a confuddled sigh.

I didn't know what was going to happen. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know anything. But I knew that there was a lion growling deep in my stomach, wishing to be fed. I also felt an abyss of anxiety digging a hole down there. I hoped the hole would cover itself up soon enough, but I knew that wouldn't happen. With my luck, it would probably fester there for eternity.

I seemed to have skipped lunch and dinner altogether, and gone straight from mid-morning to night. Time is sneaky: it moves with haste when you aren't watching it.

I was deeply craving food of some sort. I didn't know how I was going to get it. I just knew I needed it.

I was scared to venture out. I didn't want a gun pointed at the back of my head. That detail had seemed to pass me by until that moment: Nick had prepared to kill us. We were motions away. Was he bluffing? I'd never know. He could've been.

But it was like he was waiting for Eli. He didn't even have to ask Eli for any kind of permission. He had Eli's hand tied. Quite literally.

The whole affair was strange. I had a feeling there was something more to the whole thing, like when you're completing a jigsaw and a piece you thought belonged in that place was actually just tricking you.

Nick was a wierdo: that much had been established. Nothing else had though. There must've been others hidden in the nooks and crannies of The Base. There were a few bedrooms.

I sat and I wondered. I felt myself shrivelling up. I was tiring. Although I tried my best to fight against it. Soon I was nodding off, my eyes closing. I went to sleep with an empty stomach and a mind full of questions.

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Thanks to dojacant for doing so. It is appreciated :)