The boy – roughly eighteen years of age, with blonde hair and a grease-stained face – approached the counter, striding across the whitewashed floor. He shivered. The hospital stank of disinfectant and death. Neither were particularly nice smells.
The woman at the counter beamed at him. ‘Hello, dear, how may I help?’ Her voice was soft and kind.
‘Hi, I’m George Marsh.’ The boy’s voice was somewhat high-pitched, with a certain tremor to it. ‘My sister, Lilly Marsh, is in the hospital. I wanted to know what ward she’s in.’
The woman’s smile did not falter. ‘I’m going to need ID before I can tell you that.’
He smiled and obliged her request, handing over his ID.
The woman muttered to herself, scrolling on her computer. After a few seconds, she returned his ID to him, smiled, and said, ‘Everything looks to be in order. She’s in Ward Thirteen, just up the stairs.’
George thanked her, and just as he was about to go, the doors behind him whirred open. A hover-bed, accompanied by what looked to be flying, metal cubes, hurtled inside. On closer inspection, the cubes had screens on one of their sides, displaying a digital face. The cubes also had thin metal arms, which they used to pull the hover-bed after them.
The woman at the counter did not flinch at them as they approached. ‘Ward Two.’ Her voice was suddenly much harder now, much firmer. As she glanced at the person on the hover-bed, she paled. George followed her gaze, and in turn, his skin blanched as well.
The person on the bed could hardly have been called a person. Their arms and legs had each been torn off, leaving only bloody stumps and a torso. Half their head was missing; it looked as though the remaining part had been chewed.
Void Beasts, George thought, grimacing. He felt as though he was about to throw up, but forced himself not to.
As the hover-bed rushed past him and disappeared down the adjacent corridor, George sighed. He thanked the woman again and left, headed for Ward Thirteen. After walking up the steps to the first floor, he found Ward Thirteen a few moments later.
When he strode inside, door sliding shut behind him with a thunk, he found Lilly, lying on a bed beside a cluster of machinery and tended to by a pair of doctors. She looked weak, pale, and emaciated, a far cry from the strong, vigorous woman George had known in his youth. Her eyes were heavy and bagged, and her hair had been shaved off in favour of a glinting, bald head.
George’s eyes widened and he raced to her side, pushing past the two doctors, who exclaimed irritably. ‘Sorry I haven’t been here for so long – things cropped up at work – we had a baron’s spacer come–’
‘It’s fine.’ Her voice was weak, frail, though a hidden strength still remained to it.
George turned over his shoulder to the man who looked like the head doctor. ‘Please can you leave? I – I’d like to speak alone.’
The man nodded and exchanged a few brisk words with the other doctor in the room, who was seated on a repulsor-chair, before they left. As the door slid shut behind them, George sighed.
‘So, you had the surgery, then?’ he asked, nodding at her bald head. The last time he had been here, she’d still had her hair, her long, auburn locks. It would take some time to get used to her without hair, but he didn’t stare, for her sake. So long as it worked, he was happy. So long as it worked.
‘I…Yes, I had the surgery…’ Her voice seemed weaker than it had been before, developing now a certain raspiness to it.
George’s brows furrowed. ‘And…did it work?’
Her face darkened. She shook her head.
He bowed his head and cursed. ‘All this technology, and they still can’t get rid of tumours. If they invested more in medical technology rather than trying to make fast spacers…’ His voice trailed off as she rested a hand on his shoulder; it felt cold to the touch, like ice.
He looked up at her, into her deep, brown eyes, filled with intelligence. ‘You cannot blame anyone,’ she said. ‘It was God’s doing.’
He wiped tears from his eyes. ‘Then God is evil.’
She smiled slightly. ‘Maybe so. Or maybe humanity is evil and this is our reckoning.’
‘But you’re not evil–’ He gasped sharply and the words were lost to him. He gulped, fighting the tears that threatened to spill from his wells. ‘But you’re not evil,’ he croaked. ‘You looked after me, after…’ His voice trailed off.
‘There is sin in every human heart,’ she replied. ‘And it must be scourged.’ She sighed. ‘You cannot save me, Georgie. I am going to die soon, and that’s just a fact of it.’
He gritted his teeth. ‘I will save you. I will save you!’ His words came out as a growl.
Lilly shook her head. ‘No. You cannot. You–’ She suddenly let out a feeble gasp and sank deeper into her pillow. She closed her eyes.
George’s eyes widened to globes. He shook her. ‘Lilly? Lilly? Lilly?!’
There was no answer but the wail of the heart monitor as it flatlined.
He gasped. An invisible hand wrapped around his throat, squeezing with force enough to crush a mountain. He became dimly aware of a torrent of white-garbed doctors rushing in from outside, jostling him out the way. The sea of noise descended into a sea of roaring silence.
He left the room, pushing through the sea of white gowns and haggard expressions, slumping against the wall of the outside corridor. Every agonising breath sent a shudder rattling through him. He blinked tears from his eyes and sighed.
Lilly…Lilly… The very thought of her made his head spin. His mind hurt as though driven through by a thousand needles. Lilly…please…Lilly…no…
He spied up ahead, down the corridor, a silhouette. There was a man, stood at the end of the corridor, in front of the lift, back facing him. He looked very strange, just stood there, eyes fixed on the floor. Very little of the man’s features were visible from this angle, besides his leather jacket and brown hair, which was tinged with grey. The man looked altogether very normal – but he was something for George to concentrate on, to anchor himself with.
As he concentrated on the man, George’s heartbeat slowed and his breathing grew more even. But as he became more aware of this, he was reminded of his sister, lying dead in the next room. He stifled a sob and bent his head to look down at the floor.
Then he felt it: a stabbing pain in his temples. Soon, the pain had swallowed his mind; he felt as though his brain was alight. With a pained gasp, he turned to the man in the leather jacket and shouted, ‘Help! Please! Help!’
Then his mouth stopped working, and his entire body froze, refusing his commands. He fell to the floor, hitting the white tiles with a sickening thud which resounded through his entire body. His vision blurred and his mind reeled.
He heard an exclamation and footsteps, running towards him. There was a man’s voice – gruff, with a steely hardiness to it that could rival titanium – though George could not discern the words.
He felt heat along his back, felt his clothes gradually fade away as the heat intensified. Though his face did not show it, his mind was engulfed in alarm.
‘I’m trying to break the tether,’ came the gruff voice. ‘Taking a bit of time, as I’m trying to keep the lad alive.’
Mind afoot now with both alarm and confusion, George almost didn’t notice as the mysterious paralysis that had suddenly seeped into his muscles began to fade, until it was gone entirely. With a gasp, he got to his feet, tearing off his half-burnt T-shirt and casting it on the floor. He turned to see the man in the leather jacket stood in front of him. He was gaunt, with a slim face adorned with wrinkles, and a grim demeanour. The man seemed to look through George as if he wasn’t there; his eyes fixed on something behind him.
George’s face was scrawled with confusion. ‘What’s going on?’ He pointed at his half-burnt T-shirt, which lay dejected on the floor. ‘Why is my T-shirt half-burnt?’ His voice suddenly turned accusatory. ‘Did you set me on fire?’
If the man noticed him at all, he didn’t show it. His gaze remained fixed on something behind George. ‘I’ve found a Third Rank, Cleo, a vendig, bit more powerful than the last guy,’ George heard him murmur. ‘I only hope the nest is a small one.’
George’s frown deepened. ‘Nest? Nest of what? Hey – answer me!’
The older man cursed. ‘Go away,’ he snapped. ‘Get out of here!’ His gaze, once again, remained fixed on something behind George.
At last, George’s curiosity could take no more. He wheeled round and gasped as his eyes fixed on a creature the size of a small hippo stood in the middle of the corridor. He pointed at it, shaking. ‘What – what is that?’
The creature looked like a huge blob of jelly, formed into a somewhat upside-down-teardrop shape. The white lights along the ceiling glinted sharply, reflecting in the creature’s translucent surface, and hanging down from the mid-section of the creature were tendrils of bright-pink, which trailed across the floor. George counted ten in all.
The only reason he was certain – as certain, at least, as one could be in such an uncertain situation – that the thing was a creature was by the mound of flesh that clustered at the base of the teardrop. Poking out from the flesh were four stalked eyes and a mouth, spread into a cheesy grin.
The other man sighed. ‘…Cleo, I’m sorry…The captain’s going to bloody kill me…’
George wheeled back to face the stranger. ‘What do you mean? Who are you talking to? The “captain”? “Cleo”? What’s going on?’
‘That’s a dream-eater, a magical being which feasts on your memories, if you really ought to know,’ the man muttered. ‘Now stop with the bloody questions.’ He gritted his teeth, watching as the creature suddenly began sliding down the corridor with a squelch. ‘Why’s it running away?!’ he mused to himself.
A “dream-eater”? George’s eyes widened. It feasts on my memories? He rifled through his mind, through the memories of his mother, his father, his friends…He conjured to mind more memories of his sister and was alarmed to see, despite having seen her alive and well but a few minutes ago, he could no longer recall what she looked like. Lilly – I can’t remember her! He fixed his eyes on the translucent blob of jelly as it slid down the corridor. I can’t…remember her…
He still felt the pain of her death, though that pain was gradually fading, almost as if his memories of her were gradually disappearing into the ether.
The man looked at him, concerned. He shook his head. ‘You lost memories to that, and I’m sorry, but they’re lost.’
George gritted his teeth, eyes fixed on the creature – “dream-eater”, had the man called it? – and shook his head. ‘Those were memories of my sister – I have to get them back!’ With a guttural roar, he sprinted after the dream-eater, which let out a shrill squeal as he chased after it. He heard footsteps and shouting coming from behind as the man chased after them.
The dream-eater suddenly stopped running and turned to face George. Once again, its face was adorned with a cheesy grin.
‘It was a feint…’ George didn’t register the words as they came out of the other man’s mouth. ‘No! Turn away!’
Filled with fury, George continued towards the dream-eater, teeth gritted, mouth twisted into a snarl. He bunched his fists. Admittedly, he hadn’t thought of a plan of what he would do once he caught up with the dream-eater. With no knowledge of how the dream-eater worked, he had no idea how to get back his lost memories – if doing so was even possible.
Maybe if I punch it hard enough…I can’t lose my memories of Lilly!
He had never been much of a fighter, but still he raced towards the dream-eater, readying his fist to strike. As he neared, he was suddenly aware of the dream-eater’s ten, pink tendrils lancing out towards him.
He barely heard the man’s warning. ‘Don’t let the psychic barbels touch you!’ However, he had little time to comprehend what the man meant.
He dropped to the floor as the tendrils swiped at him and rolled towards the creature. Teeth gritted, fists clenched, fire burning down his veins, he swung his fist at what he believed was the dream-eater’s face. As the blow struck flesh, George’s eyes widened as his fist suddenly heated up; a gold glow engulfed his hand, growing in size and intensity until it had engulfed George’s vision.
What – what’s happening?
Then the gold glow disappeared, and George collapsed to the floor, panting. He got back to his feet, nursing his pounding head. What – what happened? That man…the “dream-eater”…that glow… Every question was like a missile, exploding in his mind. His head ached with pain.
George squinted, eyeing nervously where the dream-eater had been. It was there no longer, simply disappeared. Vanished. He looked at his fist. It did not look any different to how it usually looked, and it no longer shone with a golden glow.
He frowned. What happened? Did I do something? Or was it the dream-eater?
Footsteps came from behind. He felt a hand rest on his shoulder.
‘I don’t believe it,’ said the man. ‘Cleo, we have an Ov’l…’
George turned to face the man, who wore a mixture of emotions on his face. His mouth was agape and his eyes were wide. But George also spied something else, something lurking behind the man’s eyes. A darkness. George shivered.
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