Stars

Chapter 9: The demons

He stared off into space. They were somewhere higher up, or his light headedness had come back. The ground was rocky and the trees swayed with the chilling wind. Eddie shook his head and looked around, getting a good look at his surroundings. His gaze fell on the forest behind them. He thought he saw a shadow move between the trees. He squinted and looked again, nothing moved this time. He shook his head and looked down at Spectrum. Trying to dismiss it as something in his head, he studied Spectrums reaction closely. 'I wouldn't be so worried if he didn't look so agitated...'

They walked along the path following a stream down the mountain. Eddie had gotten off spectrum to stretch his legs, and he looked at the creature beside him. Not for the first time, he pondered how strange it was that he was walking with something that shouldn't exist. He looked behind him again. Spectrum snorted and walked slightly faster as if he sensed something. Suddenly some boulders behing them starting rolling, spooking the Unicorn and he galloped down the rocky hill quickly getting to the bottom. "H-hey! Wait up I can't-" A hand shot out from the shadows and grabbed Eddie by the arm. Eddie cried out and tried to free himself and shake off whatever was holding him when something was stabbed into his neck. He stumbled, suddenly dizzy, and fell to the ground. He could faintly hear Spectrum trying to get to him, whinnying at whoever was there. But Eddie couldn't move. His whole body felt heavy, and he was slowly dragged away as he fell into a deep sleep.

He opened his eyes and sat up in a white bed with clean sheets. His whole body felt stiff and achy, and the migraine pulsed through his skull. He touched his neck and felt the bandaid, 'probably put on after the needle dosed me up... where am I?' He thought. He looked around; the wall clock, the useless motivational posters, the medical equipment. Nothing unusual for a doctors office, but then he looked at the desk and saw the name plaque. Dr. Richard Shole. Eddies eyes widened as the doctor walked into the room, the doctor he had killed weeks before. In the office in the hospital that had burned down weeks before. "You were making quite the ruckus today, Ed. What's going on?" Eddie jumped out of the bed and stared at him. "You're...you're dead! This can't be happening! You're dead!" He pinched himself trying to stop this, but to no avail. "Now Ed, I think we need to talk about what you think is real or not. Do we need to add to your medicine again?" Eddie paced around the room trying to find something, anything that would prove this wasn't real. "Let's talk about the dreams you've been having. Sit down, please." "Where is Spectrum?!" "That is one of the things I wanted to ask about, I'm glad you brought it up. Now sit down." Slowly Eddie sat on the strangely normal plain bed in this dizzily white room. "Good. Now, who is this Spectrum? The nurses say you've been calling out that name the past few nights..." Dr.Shole picked up his notes clipboard and a pen and looked at the shocked boy in front of him. "Well...this is gonna sound weird..but i dont think this place is real anyway so it's weird either way... I have a friend, who's a Unicorn, and his name is Spectrum." "Interesting... why do you think his name is Spectrum?" The doctor wrote something down as he talked. "How should I know? Something about stars and space or something..." the doctor wrote something else down. "So what you're saying is you have an imaginary martian friend who is a Unicorn named Spectrum." "No! It's like the spectrum of light? Or heaven or something. Dr.Shole suddenly looked very interested. "Heaven you say?" "Um...yes...? It doesn't mean anything though..." "Mhm...and in these dreams, what do you and the unicorn do?" "Well...we went to see my old town and my house and my families' graves...and I was all right with it but I felt bad." "It could be that in your sub conscious you want to redeem yourself for what you did. You are a murderer after all..." 'Eddie! Eddie wake up! You have to get out of here!' "What did you say..?" Eddie stared at the doctor and became horrified as Dr.Sholes skin began to look burned beyond repair. "You said it yourself..I'm dead. You killed me...and I wasn't the first..." The creatures fake skin dripped off it as it advanced toward Eddie. Its voice was now a deep rumbling. "Where is the star?!" Eddie screamed, bolting up in bed. "Eddie...are you okay?" Staring across the room at him was a little girl. "L-lily?"