Irina had just stepped over to Sean when Micah suddenly shot up in bed, eyes wide, and opened his mouth. I was so excited and curious that I almost forgot to hold the camera up. I couldn't wait to hear what he had to say.
But Micah didn't say anything. He just screamed. The surprise and force of it made me stumble back into a wall. It was the most blood-curling scream I had ever heard. And then, Sean started screaming, too. Micah took no notice of him and threw himself off the bed to the floor, slamming his head on the wood over and over again. Sean had also jumped out of bed and run over to the wall to stand just 2 inches from it, screaming at it, as if he didn't know the wall was there.
My shock quickly gave way to panic. Micah's head was already bloody and the sound it made against the hard oak was sickening.
"Irina, help me!"
Irina, who hadn't moved since Sean had knocked her out of the way, stared at me wide-eyed.
"We need to get him off the floor, he's hurting himself!"
She opened her palm and looked down at the last tube of Romeo biologic as if she'd never seen it before.
"You didn't give that to her yet?! Give that to Holly! Now!" My voice was high and wild. I was holding Micah in my arms while he continued to hit his head against the air, as if the floor were still there. And the screaming, oh God, the screaming.
Both Micah and Sean were splitting my ears open. The horror on Micah's face as he beat his head harmlessly against the air, mouth open in a wide O and the sharp, agonizing terror coming out of Sean was enough to make me my eyes well up in fear. What had happened? What had they seen? The camera, long forgotten, lay discarded under Micah's bed where his flailing legs had kicked it. Irina was doing frantic chest compressions on Holly, tears streaming from her eyes. But I knew it was too late, Holly was lost.
"Irina, Irina, call 911." She didn't stop working on Holly, just continued on like she hadn't heard me. And perhaps she hadn't. The screaming... I let go of Micah just for a moment to grab my phone and he was up and running. He hit the front door and smashing his forehead against the glass.
"Micah, stop!"
If Sean noticed us near him, he didn't show it. He just continued that piercing, horrible scream.
Emergency services couldn't hear me on the phone but they had someone at the house within 5 minutes. A very, very long 5 minutes. Irina gave up on Holly at some point and just paced around the room mumbling "I don't understand. I did it right. I don't understand."
They took Sean, Holly and Micah away in an ambulance and they took me and Irina to the police station. They watched the videos. I never graduated but at least I didn't go to prison like Irina. I retreated into myself after her trial and refused to speak to anybody. I spent months holed up in my apartment asking the same question over and over.
What did they see?
And it's not like I could ask them. Sean had screamed until he permanently lost the use of his voice. Now he sits in a room in a hospital facing a wall with his mouth wide open as if he were screaming. And somehow, that's worse than the screaming. He hasn't said or written a word since that day. Micah, he's in a hospital too. Sometimes he screams and sometimes he's quiet. Sometimes he thrashes and sometimes he lies as still as the dead. I have visited them both many times, begging them to tell me what they saw. But my visits were fruitless until this last time.
