American Horror Story: Hospice

Goodnight

Delilah Jensen saw blackness the night she was murdered by Kindle Worth. The gunshot had blinded her for fifteen seconds, but hadn't killed her for another five. She lay across the floor, her hand on River's severed head, flinching in the pool of blood beneath her.

Nobody said a word, until he came. Static noises echoed around the office, and Angela, Maria, Zach, and Joan filed out the door in front of Taina. "Oh no, no, no, dearies. Not today." Gunshots blasted. A scream. Zach was on the floor, crawling to catch up to the girls. Angela turned around briefly to see a figure appear above him; a slender man with no face.

She heard myths of a creature that looked like this, but she never believed them. Slenderman. But ever since they came here, she had the right to believe whatever she needed to. You weren't supposed to look the man in the face, or he'd take your soul and destroy your body. His presence could also inject illusions in the mind. "Don't look, Zach!" Angela shrieked.

Zach shivered as Slenderman prepared to reach down and traced a finger across his spine. She stared at her soon-to-be-husbands face. Joan grabbed her arm, "Come on, baby. Your mother's at the front door with the keys to the car."

That was when he looked. Straight into the white, fabricy face of the murderous myth. He twisted his fingers into the man's chest and ripped out a red swirl, flowing it through it's fingertips like water. Tentacles spread out from his back and he began to devour Zach's already mangled corpse.

"No...Zachary!" Angela bawled. Joan grabbed her arm and drug her out to the front door, with Taina in quick pursuit.

*

Maria reached the front door of Glennside Hospital and put her hand on the activation button. Once the sliding doors on both ends of the carousel doors opened, a man appeared on the other side, right as she got in. "Hello Maria."

"Harold?" She remembered seeing him before, previously or subsequent to when he died. "You're dead, now stay dead." But he ignored her, pressed the doors closed, and appeared inside, in another interval of glass. The roundabout doors began moving, faster and faster, and pulled out a kitchen knife, stabbing at the unbreakable glass.

"Baby, we were born to run," he said as the doors go faster, teleporting to all of the other intervals besides her own. "Again and again. Faster and faster."

"Leave her alone, Harold," Joan said, standing confidently in front of the front desk with Angela. "Take me instead."

He grinned wildly. "Yes ma'am." He snapped his fingers and Maria shot through the glass doors and flew against the wall behind the desk. Then, he appeared there, pressing a button underneath the wood, a staircase to the basement leading down. He snapped again, and Maria stumbled down, in a coughing fit. "Why don't you join her?"

Again, he shot Joan down the stairwell after Maria. Angela found him chuckling wildly on the floor behind the desk, and she pulled out a pen she kept in her pocket purse. Hurriedly, she stabbed him in the chest, but it went right through him.

"You can't kill those already dead, Angie," he laughed maniacally. "But I can kill you." Flames erupted from his hands and engulfed the girl. The building began to crumble. Everything they knew was turning around.
*
That was when Maria woke up. She awoke to find her children, Rooney and Angela, staring down at her with worried expressions. It was all a dream, an illusion. Zachary and Kindle stayed behind, with Dr. Jensen holding his hand beside him while Angela wasn't looking. An undercover affair was what Maria confirmed.

She erupted into a fit of coughs and spat blood onto the hospital blanket. "But, you're all dead. I saw this building crumble."

"You were knocked out, Miss Bennett. You must have dreamed it all."

She stuttered and sat up, her chest feeling as though it'd been stabbed multiple times. "The murders-"

"River's dead Ma!" Rooney shouted. "It's all okay now. You can let go."

"Let go?! Why should I-?" It then hit her like a bat to the skull. Illusions. Brought to people only in the presence of the myth of the Slenderman. He was there. He caused her to have this dream. "I'm dying, I've been dying this entire time." She looked at the faces of her children, her lovely children. She points to Zachary. "Angie, dump that man whore. He's good for nothing and he's fucking the doctor!"

Zach's eyes light up and Delilah steps forward. "You little bitch."

"Dr. Jensen! You're the one who likes to fuck and kill those poor, innocent men. You're going to go to jail, and I'm not going to die in vein. So think twice before your next words," Maria snapped. "Rooney, Kindle's a beautiful girl and you're lucky to have her. Hang on to her for as long as you can. Oh my, where's my Joan?"

"Why do you want to see her?" Rooney asks. Angela was too busy glaring down Zachary and Delilah.

"She's been my only friend since I've come here, so I want to say goodbye!" Maria was cheerful about it. She accepted her death as a sign that her children and loved ones could move on with a beautiful life, and she definitely didn't need to see a marriage to an unfaithful man.

"Joan sadly passed away this morning," Dr. Jensen explained coldly. "Now hurry up and die so we can get you out of our hair."

"Shut the fuck-" Angela began, but Maria placed her palm on the girls shoulder. She could feel her life force seeping out of her now.

"My dear, it's okay. I couldn't care less about what that bitch thinks," she brushed it off, and sank into her pillow. "All I care is that you do me one favor; live. Live to your hearts desire and don't waste life on changing people, because we're all a little sick inside."

With the loss of Joan so recent, Maria closed her eyes as her two children whispered 'I love you.' She sank into the deep darkness of death like it was a cushion in an extravagant palace. She could see the figure of Joan reaching out to her.

"You can sleep now, Maria. Death welcomes you."

With a smile, Maria whispers. "And I welcome it. Goodnight, Joan."

And then, nothingness.