Stained Credence. Book One: The Wretched

SIX

Grady woke to a miserably stiff body. He felt heavy as well, as though he had been formed from lead and beaten into shape. Even the sheet and blanket covering his aching body felt like restraints. He focused on his breathing, giving his body time to wake up and his mind to find clarity. Slight panic swelled through him when the weight of his chest caused his breathing to suddenly be labored.

With a surge of hysteria-induced adrenaline, he pushed the bedding away and kicked it until it fell to the floor. Panting, he lay sprawled out for a moment before forcing himself to a sitting position. As his feet touched the floor and his head rose, a nauseating headache pounded its way from the base of his neck and seized his brain.

The memory of throwing up on the floor flashed back to him. He squinted in protest to the dim, yet still painful, light at the floor, but saw no regurgitated evidence. No. He thought. No, this isn't right.

He forced his eyes to open fully, regardless of their aversion to the light, and still saw no proof of having vomited. Not even a dark area where someone may have cleaned it. Disgust and disappointment squirmed through his pained head. He wished there were a camera in his room that would have recorded his constant movements; but was afraid that, upon replay, would only verify that his memory was nothing more than a taunting failure. That he was, in fact, losing his grip on reality.

Frustrated, he gently shuffled his way to the bathroom, moving with all the poise and grace of a zombie. He poured a BC powder into his mouth, grimacing at the bitterness, and started a hot shower. He pulled his grey boxers off and remembered standing outside the angel's room doing the same. Unlike the memory of vomiting, he chose to shake that distant objectionable event away instead of trying to find any authenticity to it.

The hot water stung initially, but soon began to alleviate his aching body, softening the tension in his muscles. His mind wandered until it stumbled across an uneasy, broken path of time and memories. Horrid lust, scandal, utter lack of control. An utter deviant

The distant sound of crying.

The taste of them on his tongue like a distant ocean.

An image of a door knob turning fruitlessly.

Smoke.

These tangled and uninterpretable visions transcended into him writhing on the floor in torturous pain. He was gaining no ground this way and needed to write any distinguishable memories down. He shut the water off, wrapped a towel around his waist and hurried to his briefcase.

Holding it in his hands, he only stared at it. His eyes alternating between the two clasps and each of their three-digit, numerical tumbler locks. After closing the case, he always rolled the numbers to read 027 and 485. An act as habitual as blinking. The numbers currently read 841 and 736. Someone had tried, possibly successfully, breaking into his briefcase.

"Grady." Her voice slithered from the other side of the door and chilled him. He did not answer. The handle twisted back and forth. "Grady." His name had never sounded so sinister.

x

Dawn stood by the side of one of the patients, checking his bizarre vitals again and expecting no change. There were none. Her characteristically optimistic attitude had taken a pit-fall and she was dismal in spirit. She still had no answers for the four men, but what mostly had her down-heartened was Harper's continued avoidance of her. His reaction to pushing her was only damaging the situation further, but he refused to speak with her regardless of her attempts.

The staff had no real identification for the four men since they were to remain anonymous, so they had decided to name them John Smith, Smithy, Smithereens and Mr. Smith. She currently stood next to Mr. Smith. The female nurses, and one male, had appropriated him with that title due to his notably handsome, dark features. It was remarkable that his good looks were still evident in his condition, but his beauty was evident regardless of his sickening state.

She frowned as she watched his eyes jolting chaotically beneath his eyelids, the skin of them grossly semi-opaque and the thin veins showing through like purple creeks. This was not typical behavior for anyone comatose, dreaming, or otherwise. Granted, nothing was typical about the four men, but this was particularly unsettling to her.

She bent closer to him to get a better look at this phenomenon. She gently spread apart a pair of eyelids, mindful of the ease his skin could split open, and was startled to see no color to his eye. A deep, black disk. His pupil was completely dilated, leaving no trace of the colored iris. A black hole affixed in a blood-shot rim. She pulled her penlight from her pocket and shined it briefly at his eye, with no response from the pupil. She shined it again for a few seconds, still without contraction.

With viper-like quickness his hand gripped her wrist and the light fell from her fingers, clattering to the floor. Too shocked to scream, she clenched her teeth and braced herself against the bed. His eyes opened grotesquely wide, bulging from his face and she desperately tried pulling away from him, but his grip was fierce and desperate. He sat up in bed, pulling her toward him, toward those macabre eyes. Her face, now so close to him, was dampened by his foul breath.

"Where is the light?" His voice was dry and coarse, his breath rancid.

She looked at his hands on her and saw that the skin on each of his knuckles had split open, exposing the white, strained bone. Panic seized her as tightly as his grip and she let out a puny scream, as insignificant as a premature kitten.

"You know where it is – take me – the light – to the light."

His fingers tightened brutally and she howled with pain, tears streaming from her face. Her bones could not possibly take any more pressure without splintering.

Another nurse ran in, saw her face to face with the once comatose Mr. Smith and yelled back down the hall for help. Dawn looked at her wrist and saw slick blood sliding from between his straining fingers. Her own fingers purple and limp.

The nurse ran to her side and tried prying his clenched fingers from Dawn, but her fingers only slipped, wet with blood. Two male nurses ran through the door and the first nurse moved out of the way so they could help. Their efforts were nearly as useless.

Finally, Mr. Smith released Dawn from his merciless grip and collapsed back to his bed. Dawn cradled her injured arm, blood dripping from it and spattering on the floor. His fingertips had pressed so hard, they had torn through her skin

She looked at her sleeping assailant. His eyes darted as feverishly as before beneath closed lids and his bloody hand rested on his chest. His lips moved with quick whispers.

"What's he saying?" Dawn asked shakily.

One of the men watched from a safe distance, but unable to make out the words, moved closer.

"Matt, don't," another nurse said warily.

Ignoring the warning, he bent and turned his ear so it hovered just above Mr. Smith's frantically moving lips and held that position while the others held their breaths. He rose, stepping out of reach of the man, with a look of confusion. "I'm pretty sure he's saying 'I'm scared of the dark' over and over."