GLASS CHILDREN [Completed]

CROSS MY HEART AND HOPE TO DIE

Like Nikolas, the words repeated over and over in his head like a tricycle with only one back wheel: forever going around without interruption.

"You made Lily upset." A child's voice broke the endless repetition. "Why did you make her upset?" the voice got closer. "She was being nice to you."

Stopping in his tracks of walking down the desolate hallway in front of the room where William, Arthur, and Judith once sat playing with blocks in the corner. He remembered them being happy and singing along with each other like normal children did; of course, they weren't normal children. Normal children had eyes and perfectly white teeth. They didn't wear gasmasks, either. "I didn't make her upset," he commented, "She made herself upset because I wasn't going to follow her and the line of little weirdos that she apparently has control over."

Before he could continue walking again, a little boy came up beside him. His features practically spelled lack of sleep with a hint of paranoia in there somewhere. "You made Miss Andrews mad, too, because you scared Georgie."

Suddenly, Nikolas remembered the face of the child. He'd seen him before, he was sure of it. Thinking hard about how the boy's uninhabited-looking body had been examined by his eyes before, he recalled the infant in Room 6 that had perished into worms and maggots right before his eyes in an old crib; not only did he remember that, but he remembered the boy from the closet who warned him saying that 'Georgie was special,' and that little boy was the one who currently stood to the left of him. It had to be. "Y-You're the kid from Room 6, aren't you?"

"Yeah," the child answered. "Sorry that I scared you. My name's Henry."

"Nikolas," he took his hand from his pocket to shake Henry's hand. "By the way, do you know where Lily went?"

"Why should I tell you?"

"Because."

"Because why?"

"Because I said."

Henry stopped and fixed his hat that was on his head. Gray and old-seeming, he wiped the dust off of the fabric, folded it, and stuffed it into the back pocket of his trousers. "That's not a very good reason." He stated, glancing behind Nikolas for a brief moment with widened eyes. The more he looked ahead, the more color that his innocent face lost. "Don't go down that way anymore."

"Why?" Nikolas turned around and continued walking backwards. "It's not like I'm going to die—I'm already dead."

"Yeah, but it's not safe for us."

"And I care why?"

"You'd care if you knew," Henry whispered as he turned around to jog away, causing some of his light blonde hair to flop in front of his forehead.

Not realizing that it was already too late to talk to Henry, Nikolas stopped walking all together and tried to catch up with him. "Know what?" he asked aloud, turning the corner but finding nothing but an empty hallway full of open and closed doors with rusty hinges, "What am I supposed to know?!"

He knew that there wouldn't be an answer back unless Henry or one of the other children appeared out of nowhere like most of them did; that didn't happen. He was left alone and clueless in the intersecting corner of the hallway of the Children's Ward and the opposing hallway leading to some place in which Henry had warned him about.

Shrugging off the blonde boy's warning, Nikolas started down the mysterious hallway. He noticed right off the bat that the doors were different than those down the previous hallway: gone. In fact, all that was left was the hinges where doors would have been and nothing more.