Her heel-covered feet loudly clip-clopped down the hall as they carried her closer to her destination.
This was a bad idea.
The worst.
And yet, she kept walking, closer and closer with no control over her body.
Her eyes focused on a closed door, and she stood there a moment, lifting a hand, then hesitating. Licking her lips and trying again, she shut her eyes tightly as she put her knuckle to the cool wood and knocked.
The door flew open immediately, into an endless darkness and deep groaning of souls lost. She staggered backward but not fast enough, a hand came out from the darkness and drew her in immediately. She screamed and kicked back, but all the efforts were futile. She was dragged into the darkness of sorrow.
¶
"She's coming around!"
Her body trembled as she slowly regained consciousness. Her eyelids were as heavy as lead, and her throat grew thicker and thicker. It felt as though she'd swallowed a considerable amount of sand.
Then there was the pain in her abdomen, it made her scream in agony. The tremors came on stronger too, and her eyes began to roll backward.
"Put her back to sleep!" an elderly man yelled. "Now!"
"Let me in!!!" there was a banging on the door. "What are you doing to her? I'll break down this fucking door! I swear it."
"Who's that?" the man asked.
"The young man who brought her, I suppose." his assistant replied.
"Go! Calm him down before he truly takes the door off its hinges! He can't be here!"
¶
Her eyes focused on another closed door, and again she stood there a moment, lifting a hand, then hesitating. Licking her lips and trying again, she shut her eyes tightly as she put her knuckle to the cool wood and knocked.
The door flew open, and she gasped. Her grandfather's house was on fire. She ran through it, into the flames that destroyed wood and plastic together. Then He screamed. She could hear her grandfather's scream. He was calling out for her. She ran up the stairs, stopping occasionally to evade burning objects that fell from the roof but moved forward nonetheless. He was somewhere inside. She could hear him cry.
She pushed open a door. He wasn't behind it. More doors opened, she searched and then found him in a room on fire. He stretched out his arm, desperately begging to be pulled out from the wrath of the flames, but she couldn't move. Her legs felt like lead. She looked down at them and saw chains. She'd been chained to the spot.
"What's going on?" she asked. "Just a second ago, I was--"
"Kyla!!!!!!!!!" she looked back at her grandfather. His skin melted by the second. She struggled to be free from those chains. Struggled until her legs got sore. Then the fire exploded, turning his precious face into ashes before her very eyes.
¶
When she said, "No hospital," Albert knew he shouldn't have listened. The Glasgow Creek government-owned Hospital was just around the corner from his house, but she'd insisted he drove down here. Down to a three-story building on the other side of town--the house of a glorified local healer.
"He'll help me. He'll help me. No hospital."
He shut his eyes as her last words before losing consciousness filled his ears for the umpteenth time that evening. He'd been parked right out of the hospital at that time. All he had to do was pick her up, and she'll be receiving the best medical care the small town could offer by now.
He glanced at the person who pushed him away from the door and brought him down to the patio. The young man was dressed in regular clothes. As a matter of fact, everyone up there was dressed in regular clothes. They weren't doctors, neither were they health care professionals.
"What the fuck was I thinking?" he shut his eyes and cursed again.
"She'll be fine." the other man assured him.
"She better be," Albert warned sternly. "I'm sending tearing down this place if anything happens to her."
"But you brought her to us." the man held back a smile.
"And you should have kicked us the fuck out! Send us on our merry way. Not accepting us like you knew how to handle the situation."
"Rest easy, detective. She's in good hands."
His phone comes to life where it sits on the brown rocker he'd just vacated. The screen cast its blue-white glow on his face as he bent to pick it up. The glass is shattered, a spiderweb of cracks held together by the protective film. It fell to the ground somewhere in between lifting Kyla from the back seat of his rental car and rushing to get her in here.
"Special Agent Albert Torino," he says automatically.
"Good evening Agent. I'm detective Fowler. We can't find you anywhere on the crime scene, sir. The people from the coroner's office are waiting to remove the body."
"I'm sorry but--"
"She's awake."
Albert turned around quickly to see the elderly man who'd been in charge of fixing Kyla. He had a warm smile on his face that comforted Albert. Clearly, whatever he'd done, must have worked perfectly.
"Just a second, Detective," he said, then placed the call on hold.
"She's asking to see you, Agent." the man said.
"Of course," Albert replied before returning to the call. "I'll be there shortly, Detective. Nobody moves the body until I arrive."
"Alright, Agent."
He took the spiral steps that led up to the room Kyla was being treated, two at a time. The door was opened by the time he arrived, and the others--two assistants--were just leaving the room. He shuffled past them and mini-ran inside.
Kyla looked at him, her gaze full of an unreadable emotion. Maybe despair? He paused to read the message in her eyes, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't decipher the language in which the communication was written.
"Why? W-what's wrong?"
Her lips trembled. "My grandfather, Albert. Not my grandfather." she broke into uncontrollable sobs as he ran towards her, engulfing her in a very tight embrace.
So, this thing about her grandfather bothered him. She wasn't making much sense, but at least she was okay. She'd been as stubborn as a mule even at the brink of death, asking to come here. At least it paid off.
She was fine.
¶