Agent (Book 1)

Chapter 32-Nolan

32

Nolan Hood

Agent: 21

Mission: Not Applicable

Date: September 11th, 2089

Time: 0100

    Under the nurses' persistent demands, I finally give in to rest. It isn't easy, but I eventually let it come. I can't escape this feeling that someone's going to creep up on me in the darkness, but after a somewhat brief visit from Rap (of which he insisted to hear every single detail of my capture), I'm almost too exhausted to care. I can just imagine the sighs from the nurse who comes to check on me, finally able to go back to her other duties. My slumber is not one given to me from their fluids this time. Just as I'd feared, a nightmare jolts me from my sleep.

    It's of that blond boy, Tenor, shoving me to the edge of an endless cliff. I push against him, scraping my heels against the rocks. There is the gurgling of water lapping in the distance, but it is heavy, like the entire tunnel will flood in a matter of minutes. I lash out with my arms, hoping to push him back far enough for an escape route, but his body is steel. I struggle, lying at the edge as he prods me forward.

    "If you don't," He says, mirthless, voice raspy. "Then he will." Tenor motions to the opposite wall where a man with a straggly gray beard stands in wait. His face is placid, eyes set directly ahead. I barely have time to choke the warning words out, before my grandfather goes plunging over the cliff's edge, landing with a crunch on the surface below. 

    I wake up at this point, caught up in the falling sensation I get so often in dreams. My breaths come in heavy pants. His face. It had been so...real. So cruel.

I wipe a bit of sweat from my forehead. Though there are no windows, so I cannot be sure of the definite time of day, I assume night has fallen, because everything is duller and quieter than it had been in the daylight. I flip the covers back and swing my legs over the side of the mattress, sketching a passage to the bathroom. I can't stay here.

    When I rise, I find that their tubes and wires have been disconnected, and though still a bit shaky on my feet (which I assume is from my lack of moving around this past week) I feel exceptionally well. This being the case, I push myself out of bed and make my way, a bit clumsily, into the bathroom.

    I flip on the light and splash some cool water into my face, meeting my eyes in the mirror. I have to straighten up to see myself in full effect, but my face is paler than I would've thought, and the black spot covering my eye has faded enough so that only a light shadow remains. There is no sign of the blood that had been once been pooling down my nose. In fact, it looks completely normal again, although most everything else does not. I feel different then I had before, with my hair shaggier, face heavier. I wonder what it was that changed me so much. At what point did the defeat take me over?

    The slightest of knocking at the door is what tears my eyes away. It is ever so faint, eerie almost, sending chills down my spine. My entire body stiffens, and I flip off the bathroom light and gravitate towards the door with the smallest of footsteps. The room is shrouded in complete darkness, despite the rays of blocked florescence at the bottom of the door. With my hands clenched into fists, I reach out to touch the brass handle.

    It's probably the nurse. Knocking to see if I'm still up. It has to be.

    Steeling myself, I pull it open.

    I'm looking straight ahead, so I don't see who it is at first. However, in the moment it takes me to glance down, she's already started stumbling towards me. The silhouette of a small girl against the dim hall lights. Hair pulled into two sloppy auburn braids at her sides, big brown doe eyes insistent. Her breaths come in hiccups, like she's been crying.