February 29

Chapter 30

The sweet smell and taste of peach still lingered around moments after I awoke. The room was dark, but not so pitch black that I couldn't make out where I was. I recognized the sinks, the cracked mirrors, the stalls, and realized that I had been harboring myself in a bathroom. Water pooled beneath one sink, with a faint drip drip emanating from the pipes leading into the wall. There were black smudge marks that looked suspiciously like blood lining each mirror, and I confirmed the thought by looking at my own clammy, pale fingers and analyzing the split and bloody nails.

I crawled on all floors in search of an exit, but instead found a mountain of peach cores near one of the bathroom stalls. I felt my gaze root to the sight in front of me, mesmerized, and before I knew it I was tearing the mountain apart, crumbling it down piece by piece. Hunger that lashed at my belly attacked in ruthless waves, and all I could think and want and feel was a burning desire for peaches. I caught purchase of a round, firm body in the pile and gave a cry of success. Without a thought I sank my teeth into the fruit, flaying the flesh savagely from the core.

I was finished far sooner than I'd hoped.

I got up immediately in search of another. I had to have more, now, or I felt that I would die. I'd never felt a craving so intense. I quickly spotted the bathroom exit and left the place, letting the door slam shut and echo in the dark empty hospital halls.

I dashed down a corridor and glanced fervently in each cubicle and finally found a splash of gold, red, and brown in the fourth. Saliva dammed in my mouth and I rushed in. My fingers clawed around the soft exterior and I dug my teeth into its flesh, tearing it membranes and eating like a man who hadn't seen food in weeks.

I felt it as the fresh peach juice trickled down my parched throat. Like a dog who'd caught a scent, the Aura shifted and perked up at the presence.

Someone's here....

"Shut up," I snarled, throwing the peach from me.

I bet it's those..those two come to try to save you....Oh no. Oh no no NO NO.

"Shut up," I hissed, gripping my hair and beating my head against the bed frame. The rattling of the metallic corpse brought me back to life. Pain ruptured across my foreheads, earthquakes spurting fresh rivolts of lava. Groaning, I sank against the floor.

Those IDIOTS. Those babbling, IMPUDENT IDIOTS. This is YOUR FAULT. YOUR FAULT you you YOU YOU IDIOT.

I began to drag myself from the room, intent on escaping the voices in my head. Though on the brink of sanity, I registered what they were saying: those two...it could only be Mark and Stacy, the fools coming to try and fight something they had no chance against. Just those two, those two, those two, those two who could have been those three but...but...

"My fault," I whispered, staring at the cope linoleum floor as tears cascaded from my eyes. My hands flew to my hair and began to tear. My fault my fault, all my goddamned fault for everything that happened. The Aura raged in the background but I couldn't decipher its code, not while the world's weight settled like a nesting bird on my shoulders, cancer multiplying its wings tenfold, plummeting, plummeting...nowhere.

Warn them.

I looked up and expected to feel another crash of pain on my head. Nothing happened. Who?

Warn. Them.

Stood to my feet. Wiped my face clean.

Warn them!

That wasn't the Aura.

That was me.

I began to run from the room, towards, towards somewhere. I could feel them, feel their energies brimming against the forest of darkness they approached. One more step and they'd be in the fire. I had to stop them, stop me, stop everything before they sparked the inferno that only I could abate. I staggered to the wall and blinked, and suddenly I was in another room, this one closer.

What are you doing?

Ah yes. This was the Aura.

Ethan. What. Are. You. DOING?

I gripped my head and pressed on. A computer set blocked my exit. Instinctively, my hand extended, my palms exposed. The set disappeared.

What do you THINK you're DOING ETHAN?

It laughed, sending spikes with every inhale.

GOD do you HONESTLY want to DANCE THIS DANCE AGAIN? I will CRUSH you to nothing. Heel. Spare yourself the humiliation. Stop. Stop. STOP!

I ground to a halt and screamed. The pain. It was too much, too much to bear. Earthquakes of fire reverberated to and from my entire body, sending fiery hot signals of pain from my nerve fibers to my brain and back, right out of my gaping mouth in the form of my screams. The Aura laughed and pushed further, ecstatic to hear my song. I sunk to my knees and let it do what it wanted with me. Power rose and resonated around my body, pulsating, flowing like invisible dark energy in a destructive ring. Objects around the room flew towards my levitating form, as if of developed some magnetic field, disappeared into oblivion right after. Knives, scalpels, bullets, the computer set. This was wrong, all wrong, all out of order. I had to stop it. I had to grab the ribbon and make it stop, before I blew the whole place to smithereens.

There it was. Like a smoky, almost nonexistent tendril the very recesses of my mind, almost invisible, maybe my imagination. It struck me that I was no longer in reality, but in me, in the black, infected vortex that had become my mind. And there it was, beckoning, my body flailing forward towards it as if my very essence depended on my grasping it. And maybe it did, maybe it was that serious. I had no idea what it meant. But I had to do it. I could feel my fingers wrapping around it, gripping the cold, air-like tail.

And then I pulled with everything I had in me.