The Darkroom ✔️

6

Dane lifted the broken frame. The photograph slipped out, along with the manila envelope behind it. The picture itself was punctured by hundreds of tiny flecks of glass.

Dane wiped blood from his face. He didn't have to look into a mirror to know that the cuts on the black and white print would be reflected on his own flesh. He had known it the moment he fell and the tiny waves of pain rippled through his system.

Picture in hand, he tried to lift himself to his feet, but with only one working arm and a broken rib, he found the task too difficult. He could feel bone grating against bone as the rib shifted. This time he screamed and he didn't hold back the tears.

'Fine. Watch me cry. But I won't die your way.'

He had a plan. He was going to rid himself of this cancer.

Inch by inch he pulled himself across the wood flooring and towards his makeshift darkroom, tiny trails of blood streaking across the floor behind him. 'That's going to leave a mess,' he thought. Again he laughed on that edge of sanity. The mess was only beginning.

Still half pulling himself, half crawling, Dane entered the darkroom. He pulled on the red safety light (it was the closest switch), and dragged himself towards the main sink. There he pulled out a scrubbing sponge and a gallon jug of stop bath chemicals from the storage rack underneath. He glanced at the jug. The stop bath was concentrated not yet diluted in water. Still, this wasn't strong enough. He set it down and reached way back. His rib slipped again as he reached, but he bit down on his lip and stifled the scream. Even as the blood began to well up in his now split lip, he kept that scream held down.

At last, he pulled out the jug he was looking. He dabbed the chemical on the sponge and it sizzled, now soaked in a strong acidic solution. He kept this jug for special occasions.

Ellen watched him curiously from the photograph. Now right side up, she seemed less threatening; yet the wind still blew whipping her hair and blouse and the Christmas lights were now flickering. Dane had many such power spikes in his time at that hotel. Somehow it seemed fitting.

Ellen cocked her head to her side, as if to ask 'What are you doing?' Dane grinned, and this time it was not the half-grin of his photo, but the full on grin of madness.

"I'm erasing the cancer,' he replied and then pressed the acid laden sponge onto the surface of the print, directly over the blackened arm. As he pushed down, he could feel the pressure on his own arm. He began scrubbing at the picture.

Stars burst before his eyes as the pain surged up and exploded at his shoulder. For a moment he was certain that he would pass out. But there was no stopping. He continued scrubbing. In the image, he could see the print of his arm shifting, turning yellow, then bubbling away as the black melted.

On his own arm, his physical arm, the skin rubbed raw. Tumors withdrew and rose up in new locations as the black of the photo shifted. The skin squirmed as if some animal were shifting and burrowing just beneath the surface of the flesh. At last the pain was more than Dane could bear. He dropped the sponge and leaned against the wall, tears flowing freely.

In the red light of the darkroom, he could barely make out his arm, but he could tell it was ruined. Nothing was left, but an amorphous mass of flesh and bone and muscle, twisted with tumors and raw as the acid ate away the top layers of dermal tissue.

He breathed heavily gasping for air. Dane knew these breaths would be his last. In her photo, Ellen smiled as she watched his misery.

Dane had only succeeded in spreading the cancer and his death would still be her victory.

"I'm not done," he started, then stopped in a fit of coughing. Each racking spasm sent pain from his rib, his back and his bleeding lip. There was gurgling now as well, and Dane suspected the rib had punctured a lung, but what did he know. He wasn't a doctor.

"...yet," he continued. "I have a little... juice left in me."

Ellen still smiled in her photographic prison. Her hair whipped wildly now and color was returning, red rushing into those locks. Beside her, the photo of Dane was a burnt and faded mess.

Dane reached into his pocket and pulled out a zippo. Then he looked up to the sink with a deep dread. He needed to stand one final time.

Quickly he gathered up the photo, and reached up dropping both photo and the zippo into the sink. Then, he grasped the porcelain lip of the basin, and pulled. Every ounce of him was burning, but this one last thing he would do. Halfway up, the breeze – no, the tempest, for the breeze had risen far beyond such a simple description – threatened to knock him back down. Dane braced his legs and clutched tight with his good hand and after a moment his balance steadied out. At last he was on his feet.

He sighed, and he cried, until finally he had his composure again. His breathing returning to normal, with the exception of the increasing gurgle as his left lung slowly filled, he grabbed the zippo.

He knew it was a bad idea - his hand wavered as he held out the lighter – but there was no other way. Only fire could cleanse the darkness she had cast over him. Only fire could burn out the cancer that now riddled his internal organs. Only fire.