The fall (pt 2 To The asylum)

Chapter 6

It only takes a few steps into Harper's house for me to know that something is wrong. 

First off, it's dead silent. An entrancing, loud silence. There's no rustling in the kitchen. There's no tv on in the living room. The place seems empty.  

But I know the house isn't empty. 

Julie's car wasn't in the driveway, but I assume she's just at work, like any other normal adult on a Monday. But Harper wouldn't go with her, would he? 

Tentatively, I make my way into the living room, seeing that it's empty, and then towards the stairs. When I reach the top, it isn't silent anymore. 

I don't realize what the muffled sounds are at first, they're pretty far away, coming from Harper's room at the end of the hall. The door is closed, but whatever's going on behind it is so loud you can hear it from the top of the stairs. 

I practically run towards the door, stopping outside of it to press my ear to the cool wood so that I don't just burst in on something I don't want to see. 

There's the loud sound of a Tv, but there's something else. 

Screaming. 

Without any further hesitation, I rip open the door and burst inside, but yes, this is something I don't want to see. 

Harper's is face down on the bed, head buried in a pillow, screaming, crying, hell, I can't tell. He looks to be having convulsions, writhing violently, veins in his arms popping out due to how hard he's gripping the pillow, biting down hard with it in his mouth.  

Then, the dread comes. 

That horribly familiar, cryptic, sinking dread. It washes over me, drying my throat and tightening my chest. I can already feel the rising horror. 

"HARPER!" I yell, rushing to the side of the bed, putting both my hands on his side and shoving him, trying to get him to turn over. He doesn't budge, only releases his hand from the pillow to shoot his arm up and grab my wrist, gripping it so tight that my skin starts to turn an impossibly whiter shade and begins to bruise.  

The seconds his fingers come in contact with my skin, the whole room, whole house, whole universe flips, and suddenly I'm I'm back in the Asylum. I first watch Carlisle kill Harper, helplessly unable to move or do anything, then flashes after flashes of screaming and blood and straight jackets and torture punch me in the stomach again and again until I'm falling backwards onto the floor, out of Harper's grip, all breath leaving my lungs and my whole body shaking as I scream through the horrible visions, hands in my hair, gripping strands in my fingers and yanking, wanting and begging desperately for nothing more than for the horrible things to just stop.  

Eventually they do, and I'm left gasping for breath, drained and horrified and enormously but sickly relieved that the madness is over. 

For now, at least. 

When I'm able to pull myself out of the dark corners of my mind, of myself, breathing slowing and heart rate calming considerably, I realize Harper isn't screaming anymore.  

He's curled up in a ball, back to me, rocking back and forth. He's shaking so violently that at first I think he's convulsing again, but he's shaking his head back and forth and mumbling something under his breath. There's red marks on the skin of his arms, shining against the pale skin, and I realize they're scratch marks. No.  

Those aren't only scratch marks. 

"H-Harper?" My voice is trembling, high and hoarse and weak from the screaming.