The Pale Cage

Chapter 10

When Roangy returned Raeburn was leaning back with his eyes shut tight. He focused on his breathing, his shoulder hurt like hell.

“Montmore, are you okay?”

“I'm alright, I'm always alright.” Raeburn tried to hide how out of breath he really was.

Roangy set a tray of food down and came next to his bed. “What happened?” She asked him.

Raeburn nodded to the telly, “A spaceship is coming here.”

Roangy looked at the news feed. “Um yeah, its quite far off though, it won't be here until Sunday and if it poses a threat then they'll blast it out of the sky. I'm not too worried about it...”

“What's today?”

“Thursday the 9th of February 2367.”

“So of course it is.

Roangy was still looking over Raeburn's body. “Montmore...is your shoulder alright?”

“I'm fine.”

“You're a rotten liar, its bleeding through the patch...You didn't try to get up did you?”

“There is a bloody spaceship heading to Earth on a crash course...what did you expect me to do?”

“And you call us the idiots.” Roangy moved about picking up a case and scooting a chair over to Raeburn's left side. Raeburn pulled back when Roangy leaned towards him. “What?”

“No thank you, I'll manage.”

Roangy rolled her eyes. “This is the same kind of block that's been taken from you from thirteen different places. I know how to clean it and re-bandage it.”

“You don't know, do you...Of course, that's why they were all so interested. They didn't know about it.”

“What are you going on about?”

“They cut pieces...of the nerve cluster that's under this patch.”

Roangy's eyes widened. “They would have taken the samples while you were still conscious...The pain of that alone could have killed you!”

“I know...but-” Raeburn thought of the green-eyed girl. “Someone gave me anesthetics.”

Roangy shook her head. “They don't do that. They think it interferes with the test results.”

“No...I saw a girl...But no one else seemed to notice her...There is a high possibility that I dreamed her up to block out the pain...But she gave me something to ease the pain.”

Roangy's expression changed quickly to horror. “You saw a girl...?”

“Yeah.”

“Did she look about fifteen years old...ish, black hair, green eyes?” Raeburn watched Roangy carefully and then he nodded. “Dion. If we're talking about the same girl, it was Dion.”

“I'm quivering with anticipation, who is she?”

“A ghost.” Roangy looked at Raeburn and when he didn't laugh at her, she continued. “Supposedly she was tortured to death in the 1500s. And for the past eight hundred years she has been latching onto facilities like ours and Melissa's Labs and various others. We think she draws energy from those who are consumed with fear and agony. But she's not known for helping others...There are horror stories of our scientists finding their patients with their limbs pulled apart, or impaled...or...trapped in some ancient torture device. I have no clue to why she would help you.”

Raeburn's mind processed this information quickly. The possibility of ghosts were not all that far fetched. Psychic residue in houses were responsible for many hauntings. Another possibility was that this Dion was stuck in between dimensions. Or maybe she was out of phase with time, how she managed to survive for 800 years like that was another thing. Raeburn decided to push her out of his mind, for now, he had other things to worry about, other than ghosts. Roangy peeled away the plaster that had covered his shoulder. He shut his eyes tightly. But hearing her small gasp, he forced them open again. The wound deep and bloody. The air sizzled the damaged nerves. The skin around the gaping hole was such a dark red it looked purple.