Hell on Earth (Boyxboy)

Chapter 7: The Afrit

                                                    7

Joseph woke up. He’d been in this room for god knows how long. The guards had moved him after Tunston left, taking Joseph to another room almost identical to the original save for it having a bed with straps instead of a chair. The whole place reeked of cleaning chemicals, and Joseph was gaining a slight headache due to it.

 Every now and again a nurse would come in and put something in his IV feed, causing Joseph's vision to jump and blur, leaving everything fuzzy and eventually black. He suspected (though it wasn't hard to deduce) that they'd been drugging him, though Joseph was never conscious enough to actually ask. 

The door at the end of the room opened. A nurse in a crisp, white uniform walking into the room carrying a tray of needles. The patient was a young man, no older than maybe 23. He was thin with paler skin and long black hair. His eyes were deep blue, quickly fading to grey, but the nurse rarely saw them because the man was usually unconscious. The nurse always wondered what such a harmless-looking man could've done to get put in the high security level of the compound, under constant sedation. 

She shrugged, and seeing that the patient was slowly rousing, walked briskly over to put more sedatives in his IV.

The man slowly turned his head, eyes not really focusing on anything specific, and began to mumble. First the nurse couldn't make out anything he was trying to say, but then heard, "....wait..."

The nurse paused in her movements, looking at the patient. He looked so innocent... His eyes, now almost fully open, told everything. She looked away, instead busying herself by measuring the proper dosage of Seconal. No matter his eyes, she had to do her job. It had taken her eight years to work up from a mere nurse in one of the outlaying general treatment bays to where she was now, the high security units, and she didn't really want to lose her job now.

"Wait... don... I don't want..." The man  paused, his speech slurred and mumbled, as though he were exhausted, "I don't want... To be drugged..." He probably was. He'd been living on IV feeds for the last month. The nurse inserted the needle into the feed, getting it over with already. 

The patient looked over at her as she depressed the stopper of the needle, deep blackish-blue circles evident under is hooded eyes. "No... nono... no please... I don't like it..." He began to plea, his eyes widening as he slowly registered the needle halfway empty in his IV.

The nurse looked away, feeling a bit guilty. None of the patients she serviced were good, most actually were crude, or in one case just plain creepy, staring all the time with brilliant gold eyes, yet the nurse didn't feel guilt for any of them.

Except for this guy.

And that made her feel much more uncomfortable than if he had been jeering at her or staring.

The nurse shook her head and packed up the medicines quickly, not daring another look at the pitiable excuse of a patient in the cot next to her. She left, feeling a flood of relief as she heard the metallic click of the security door automatically locking behind her. 

Nevertheless, for some reason the nurse could not shake the look in those eyes. 

No, she couldn't help but feel as though she had just done something terribly, horribly, wrong. 

                   *                      *                       *

Tunston sat in a room that had oak paneling for the walls. There was a wall-sized window that peered out into the large underground atrium of the giant complex, while the other walls were adorned with bookshelves, paintings and tastefully placed objets d'arts. There also was obviously a door. The room had a Persian rug on the floor, with two matching leather armchairs opposite a large mahogany desk, which held various wonderments, an upscale Mac and a plethora of charts, papers, readouts and sheets. Behind the whole mass of pulp was a comfortable chair unto sat Tunston.