Orange Roses - REVAMPED

Chapter Five: Dragon Sedated by Nurse Ratchet

Drake grabbed me and hoisted me up over his shoulder. He broke out into a run. My head bounced up and down as I looked up to see the fat nurse twisting her body out of the elevator. She held what looked like a knife and a smile where she showed off all of her teeth. Looking through my right eye, I saw... nothing. Just glowing purple eyes burning into mine. Nightmares can't crawl out of my head, right?

Shit. I thought about the dagger in the back pocket.

"Let me get my dagger!"

"No time!" Drake said as he ripped open the emergency exit. He jumped down steps until he made it onto a platform. He bit into his thumb before touching the blood to the wall and into the railing. The silver thread glimmered in the low yellow light. "Run, run out of this building. I'm going to cut this woman into a million pieces."

I grabbed his elbow. "Drake, no, come with me."

Drake ripped his arm away. "We don't have time for this! Now go! Call the walking corpse when you get out of here."

I tried grabbing him , but Drake shoved me hard until my back hit against the wall.

"Now!" The look on his face scared me. I wanted to grab him and pull him into me. 

I nodded as the door flew down the stairs. The nurse stood there. Did she really just rip the door off the hinges? I ran down the stairs, deciding this wasn't the time to wonder about that. Legs ached as I took large swallows of air through my mouth. I stole a glance over my shoulder.

"GET OUT OF THE WAY DRAGON." The voice vibrated in my head and I gripped onto the railing as I continued to run. Dragon. Drake. Drake, come on Drake, catch up with me. My hands slick with sweat could barely keep a grip as I reached for the exit door at the first floor. 

Thump. Something fell next to me. 

Looking over my shoulder, a mangled corpse sat next to me. A part of me wanted to scream, but instead I looked up to see if Drake was running down to meet me. Nothing.

"MATTY! RUN!"

The nurse lifted her mashed head with the same smile, showing off her broken teeth. I opened the door and slammed it behind me. I held it as the door rattled and pressed all of my weight to it.

"ARGH! DRAWON! THE GIRWL ISSSS OUWWWWSSSSSS!" I imagined the door flying for a second as a loud crunch sound ended the screaming. The door stopped rattling and I hunched over as the panting turned to gagging.

The nurse's face came back into my mind as I fell to my knees, vomiting. A howling noise escaped from my mouth after puking, but I quickly put a hand over my mouth to keep it in. No one could find this. No one. No one could hear me. I shut my eyes. 

Shut up! Go away! Go away! Go away! It's okay, that thing is dead. That thing isn't coming back and it's dead. There was no way that thing could even open the door. It's okay. The nightmare is over. This wasn't even something I could come up with. See? The nightmare is over. Over and that's good. It' just needs to stay up. The end.

Wasn't that thing human?

A hand touched me. I jumped to my feet and was ready to throw a punch when another hand caught my scarred one before I could land it in a face.

"Matty, it's me," a voice said. I focused on the face for a second to see Oracle. When I relaxed, he patted my back a few times. "It's okay, tell me what's wrong." He frowned. "Breathe through your nose." That seemed like a horrible idea since a chunk of dinner was logged in my right nostril, giving my throat a horrible after taste of fried rice.