Room 93 (FIRST DRAFT)

Present

My arms ache and my stomach churns. I stick my hand into my pocket and dig around for my pen and note pad. I haven't even got them out since I have begun interviewing Elizabeth. It's almost been 48 hours and my eyes are begging me to close. They're begging me for rest, every part of me is begging. It hurts.

Elizabeth sets down her mug of ice cold tea and stares at me. I feel an unwelcome itch overcome me and I stare back at Elizabeth. She sits still and silent staring, staring. I turn to Eric, he's lost in his own thoughts, oblivious to Elizabeths behaviour. My hand drifts out of my pocket and I release the harsh edge of the note pad feeling the empty void it leaves deep within me. Elizabeth is shaking, terror cast over her face. I stand slowly and step to the side. The chair squeals and hisses as I push it back but Elizabeth pays no attention. I walk far away from the chair and stare at her. She hasn't moved her gaze from the place where I was sitting. Then it dawns on me, she wasn't staring at me, she was staring at something behind me.

I turn around slowly and carefully, trying not to disturb Eric who remains oblivious. The doorway lays behind my chair. Delilah stands in the door way her hair lank and her expression blank. But it isn't her I am looking at. It's the person behind her.

When we were at Elizabeths house we had seen the ghost. The ringleted light brown hair and piercing blue eyes remind me of someone but I can't think who. Her sterile gown glows passively in the dim light of the room. Her hair is still soaked through with blood and her wrists are still an angry red. As I examine her I notice something. Her gown is soaked in browning blood. It has spread everywhere. She grins at me and giggles, her cold unyielding hands clutching the dirty dog teddy with its lopsided ear.

The misty surrounding flood up around me and throttle me, washing the energy out of me. I fight for consciousness but everything is dragging me down. I can't tell whether it's the sleep deprivation or some other force pulling me away but I can feel it soaking through me. The little girl giggles and stares at me. Eric has noticed her too but he hasn't moved. He - like Elizabeth - is frozen at the sight of the ringleted girl and her dirty, scruffy teddy. I want to call out to Eric. I want his help but it won't let me. It has itself caught round me and refuses to let me go no matter how much I struggle and panic. Finally I give into it and let it pull me into the empty void.

The darkness caves in falling away silently, crumbling slowly. I watch the flecks of black peel away and float gently down onto the dark floor. I see her again, the little girl. She has her teddy clutched fiercely in both hands. Her knuckles are white from squeezing it so tight. She watches me and doesn't move. Her stare seems neither malevolent nor pitiful like the other ghost that Elizabeth had described. Her stare seems helpless, fragile and innocent. She's different, she's forgiving.

I sit up slowly and examine everything. The ceiling and floor have stayed black but the walls haven't. We're standing in a hospital, empty gurneys are left hidden by curtains and trolleys. The walls are white but the room is dark. I stand and turn around staring blindly out of the window. There is nothing there. It's dark, that's all. Then I pick out the smallest speck of light, then another and another. Stars. It's night. I'm next to a bathroom, the whole room looks familiar. I must have seen it before. The photos. This is one of the rooms in Eric's collection of photos.

'Where am I?' I ask the girl. She stares at the ground holding back tears.
'Montville City Hospital. The children's ward.' She sniffles and turns her back to me staring out the window.
'Why is it empty?' I look around bewildered, 'Am I awake?'
'You're asleep and awake. Conscious yet unconscious. It isn't empty because of you though. It's empty because that's how it was when I died.' She lets go of the Teddy and it drops heavily onto the floor. She grabs hold of the window sill and holds it tightly.
'You died her here!?' I exclaim. The girl nods. 'How?' She slowly turns around and stares at me. Blood on her gown grows and grows. It begins spreading, a blooming flower. Her face contorts and crumples. Fresh tears trickle down her face.
'I feel it still. I can feel it every second of my life. I feel the loss, the pain and the heart break. I have relived every tear I have shed and every drop of blood that I spilt. It hurts so much.' She sniffles and unknots her face. With her eyes closed she looks peaceful almost innocent but not quite. She isn't peaceful one bit.
'Sorry, I shouldn't have asked.' I force myself to look at anything but the girl and her red dress. Anything but.
'The others. Do...do they see you like I do?' I focus in on the girls face trying to distract myself from her blood soaked body. She cocks her head sideways innocently. Her eyes have lightened up a little and she seems a little happier.
'No. They see me how they remember me, or how they wish to see me. People see me in different ways.'
'I haven't seen you before.' I mutter unsure of how I fit into either of those categories,
'No. I don't suppose you have. I was born a good few years before you. I died before you were born so you couldn't have met me. You have heard about her though.' She mutters gently her voice softening.
'Who is her?' I furrow my brow and stare down at the five year old girl.
'I can't say. I'm not allowed to.' She grins enigmatically, gloating at my ignorance.
'How have I heard about her?' She bites her lip.
'Elizabeth told you of her. You met her too, but I don't think you noticed her. She's my age. Her hair is crimson.' The Crimson girl. The one that Elizabeth spoke of. She said she saw her in the room.
'What does she have to do with it?' The curiosity is creeping in. I am trying to stop it so it doesn't consume me and make me do something I'll regret but I can't.
'Everything. She's the reason I'm here. The reason your here to, the reason we're all here.' She sighs.
'What do you mean?'
'I can't tell you that. That would be giving it all away.'
'How do the others see you then?'
'Eric. He sees me dressed in blue with my hair tied up. I'm younger to him than how you see me. I'm only three when he sees me. Two years before...well before everything happened.' Before she died, 'and Elizabeth sees me thin, dying. The first time I was dying. Not the time I actually died. She sees me weak and useless. Pathetic and worthless. A burden. That is who I am to her.' The girl walks away sniffling to herself.
'Goodbye Harry Newman. I'm sorry it had to come to this.' A blast of pain springs through my abdomen. 'You asked for it...' Then the darkness envelopes me.

The light rushes back into my head. It's bright out, very bright. I stare up at the clock. 3:04. Crap! I slept for fifteen hours. I peer down at my abdomen where the little girl stabbed me. Nothing. I see nothing. No marks at all. Maybe it was all a dream. I stand up and look for the others. Elizabeth is slouched on the chair, her head resting on the table. Eric is layer beside the fridge and Delilah is collapsed in the doorway. My phone is locked in her iron grasp. I lean forwards and ease it out. Twenty four missed calls from Sandra (my wife) and another eight from her brother Peter. I am dialling the number when I see the foot prints on the floor. Watery steps child size. They're exactly where I had seen the little standing last night before I passed out. Maybe it wasn't all a dream after all.