Leaving Ramzi's base, a cemetery of what it once was with bodies scattered around like dead ants, Zayn led his friends down the stairs then sprinted out of the first floor broken door. The sunlight hit them all with a blinding light. After readjusting, Volkan still took an extra few seconds to shut the door of the building in place so no one could just randomly stroll inside. The longer until someone found out Ramzi and his gang members had died, the better.
Crowds and crowds of people filled the streets. Across was a small clothing store selling jeans, shirts, robes, and dresses. To the left was a park with wet November grass, blue swings, a dark green jungle gym and a water fountain which shot water from the ground for the kids to play on hot summer days. There was a preschool to the left of the park with its own cemented pathway and entrance. Zayn hailed down a white taxi sedan and hopped into the rear seat behind the front passenger. Volkan sat in the front seat, and Soraya sat in the rear. She showed Zayn the Google Maps estimation to the hospital, nine minutes.
Zayn nodded at her. "Please get to the emergency room in Hydra. Fast."
The drive through medium traffic was uneventful. Silence turned into paranoia which then led Zayn into questioning Omayra.
You killed them all, didn't you? Zayn asked in his head, assuming Omayra was listening.
"They were a delicious feast, the first in a long time."
How'd you do it? Zayn tapped his right hand on the car's plastic door. You were controlling that guy earlier? Like you . . . possessed him?
"That is my power. You asked how I would help you. Now you've seen. Your next choices, your plan, your future, are all in your hands."
Tell me this. That was you inside that gang member who showed up? The one with white eyes who jumped over the alley wall?
"Yes."
Why'd you take control of him and leave?
"Because I had a notion you would get yourself trapped with how easily your impulse controls you. And as predicted, your enemy placed you in checkmate."
Thank you . . . Omayra.
There was no response. Zayn saw himself in the car window's reflection as well a hamburger shop grilling meat outside and a shawarma shop slicing fresh, soft chicken off their chicken pole in the street they passed.
"You will soon understand what has happened to you with much more concern. Your tragedy begins. How it ends will be up to you. You now have the power to change your future." A whistle followed Omayra's last words. Perhaps a signal that she was done speaking. Perhaps an affect to her words. Regardless, she had an aura of death that Zayn would be forced to grow accustomed to.
"We're here," the taxi driver said, shifting into park right in front of the emergency entrance of the hospital. Zayn hadn't noticed and kept thinking about what Omayra had said. The taxi driver took the red bill from Volkan then handed him the change.
"Thanks," Zayn said.
"Don't mention it. Let's go." Volkan pushed himself out of the car.
Zayn sprinted towards the red emergency doors of the ospital with his friends. He introduced himself to the nurse behind the large glass reception counter. The hospital's first floor entrance had white walls with black tiles that glistened as if cleaned every night. The nurse verified their identifications and then said only three total people at a time may enter the room. She wore a white uniform, had her brown hair tied into a bun with a blue cover on top of her hair.
Hurry up, Zayn thought.
The nurse inputted Zayn's information as well as Volkan's and Soraya's into the hospital's system, printed three paper bracelets then handed them over. "Third floor, room 323," she said.
"Thanks." Zayn sprinted to the elevator with his friends. They rode it up, and what totaled a thirty second elevator ride felt like two minutes. Once the bell dinged, all three of them ran passed the sliding doors then took a right at the middle of the hallway, identifying room 323 on the left.
But the door was already open.
All of them stopped in their tracks. Volkan grabbed Zayn's right arm. So many thoughts filled Zayn's mind as he stared at the open door, seeing the white cabinet inside the room. Why wasn't there a security guard for a captain in the military who was attacked? Where were the police? Officer Samira? Her partner? Hospital staff? The entire floor emitted danger. Abnormal. A strangely similar, near exact feeling Zayn had when he had witnessed Omayra appear in the possessed body of that gang member.
Zayn shook Volkan's hand off his shoulder then sprinted up the white-walled hallway. When he grabbed the edge of the wall and twisted himself into his father's hospital room, he saw something he couldn't comprehend. His father, wearing a blue hospital gown, stood in front of the open window with the cloudy blue sky ahead of him, leaned forward with both hands pressed against the inner wall of the room, keeping him from falling by centimeters.
Captain Salem's body tilted forward with each second. His blue sock-covered feet rising, until he stood on his toes with half of his body out of the seventh floor hospital window.
Zayn then flashbacked and saw his mother standing on their old balcony's railing. At the age of nine, Zayn had stumbled upon his mother in the balcony, dressed in a black robe. Her long brown hair was tied in a ponytail, and her balance on the railing's bar was perfect on that hot summer day. When Zayn had opened his balcony's sliding door, his mother turned to give him one final, sorrow infested glance, emotionless in front of her young son. She whispered to Zayn, "They're watching," before jumping eight floors. She had died atop dry grass on a one hundred and three degree day.
Bring Zayn back to reality, Volkan pushed him forward and shouted to go grab his father. Panic surged through Zayn. He ran, yet the closer he got, the faster his father tilted forward, as if they were both a push and pull mechanism.
Captain Salem turned to looked behind him. He saw his son, he saw Zayn, and it forced a broken smile out of his emotionless face. "They're watching," Zayn's father said, a little more than a whisper's tone. But Zayn knew what he heard. The same as his mother's final words. Captain Salem jerked and flew out of the window, as if someone shoved him out.
Soraya shouted.
Volkan turned and covered his eyes.
Zayn chased his father and leaned out of the window to see the final moment before Captain Salem crashed into a hospital transportation vehicle's roof. The car's alarm rang. Screams from below echoed throughout the hospital, creating more screams, new sirens and more people yelling for help.
Most people would've turned away, would've ran, would've cried. Zayn continued staring at his father below, who had fallen back first into the car's top. Captain Salem's eyes were shut, expressionless, his arms covered in blood, his face cut all over with more blood, and his hospital gown torn and stained. Medical workers and then hospital security arrived at the scene to evaluate and check if Captain Salem lived.
But Zayn didn't have any hope. First his mother, then his father. Suicide? How? Why?
His eyes watered. Tears rolled down his cheeks. His hands gripped the edges of the window. The pain in his expression transforming to anger, pure rage, a desire so burning that he didn't even notice his bleeding nails from how tight his grip had become.
What was left? His mother was dead. His father gone in suicide. His aunt estranged. With his precious sister left and his two closest friends, suddenly, the world lost its light, and the feeling of living alone spiraled further into the abyss of Zayn's paranoia, the fear of losing his sister after his father spawned something else. Something . . . wicked.
I'm losing everyone I care about, he thought. It was the only thought Zayn repeated as he watched emergency personnel gather around his father's lifeless body. Some hospital staff pointing up at him as if he were a suspect. Everything bad happens to me.
It seemed Omayra had spoken truth as Zayn's tragedy formed.