Chapter 6-
All sound in the world stopped. My breathing stopped. My footsteps stopped. Time stopped. And though I was only stood there for seconds, it seemed like hours. The floor became a gaping hole and I fell, I kept falling, it was a bottomless pit and I was falling. Stood. My blood running icy cold. There. Sat on the other side of the visitors cubicle sat... The Hunter.
But...no he wasn't real, only I could see him... Right?
Still I was led forward and sat down at a stool. The nurse barked an instruction at me but all I heard was a faint mumbling, like the buzz of an out of tune radio. I wanted to stand up and run... I wanted to scream and run. There he sat, calmly, silently staring into my eyes as if looking through them and into my soul, if there was a soul there. I was a helpless prey and he was my predator, preparing to swoop upon me and rip me apart with his sharp claws.
Steadily, he picked up the telephone and indicated for me to do the same, as usual I had to follow his instructions, a puppet and a puppeteer. There was a moment of piercing silence where the tension built higher and higher before his smooth voice came through the telephone.
"Run Rowan," his instructions were simple, but I didn't understand...
"W-w-w- where?" My voice was shaky and the word caught in my throat.
"Out of here, when you get a chance, run, just run..." Then he gave me a satisfied look and placed the telephone down. Steadily he rose, keeping our eyes locked, and then he turned away and began to walk out.
I banged on the glass, trying to get his attention.
"WHY? WHERE? HOW?" I screamed at him, but he didn't turn and soon enough I was being dragged back to my cell, my happiness left back at the shower room.
When I was returned to my cell I was also given my lunch, a bowl of brown slop, I was to hungry to care what it was but it tasted a bit like dog food...
I sat, slowly chewing my food, considering what had happened today, I understood two things:
Firstly: The hunter wanted me out of the asylum...
Secondly: I wasn't safe out of the asylum, Hunter could make me do anything out of here...
I knew perfectly well why he wanted me out if here, if I wasn't in the asylum I wouldn't be safe. But the problem was, once he'd told me to do something, I had to do it, I had no choice.
That's how it'd been my whole life. My fifth birthday, I was found upstairs trying to cut myself with a knife from the kitchen. Everyone thought I was insane... One Fireworks night I remember throwing my hand into the bonfire and was about to throw my whole body into the hungry crackle of flame before I was restrained. My arm was still cursed with the grotesque scars that tattooed it. I didn't want to do these things but he told me too. Hunter told me to. It was after the family went swimming together that my parents finally snapped. I'd tried to drown myself, my lungs burning and my head dizzy, sharp chlorine stinging my nose.
These images were vivid and bright in my mind, but the other memories of my family were not. I didn't know if I had siblings, I couldn't remember what my parents looked like! God! My life was a pointless mess! When you can't remember your life, then it's pointless, you're pointless. An accident. A mistake. A grey rain cloud in a blue cloudless sky.
Sleep eluded me that night. I occupied myself by counting the seconds, there was no clock but the ticking in my head was the clock. A ticking time bomb. 372, 373, 374, 375, 376...
