Scene 8
"Who... are you? Actually, what are you?"
The words, so full of a desperate fury just moments before, now felt hollow in the oppressive silence. Matthew stood before the boy, the single spot of light casting a soft glow on his pale, dripping form. The boy didn't move. He didn't blink. He just stood there, his vacant eyes fixed on Matthew.
"Hel...lo?" Matthew waved a hand in front of the boy's face. The boy's eyes flickered, looking up at his hand, but he remained silent, an impassive statue in the void.
Matthew's voice grew more frantic. "Say something, damnit!" His words disappeared into the vast, empty darkness, not even a whisper of an echo to reassure him that he wasn't completely alone. He spun around, yelling into the blackness. "No. This... this... Hello! Is anyone there?! Anyone?! Anthony?!" His voice was hoarse, a raw, ragged sound that was swallowed by the void. He turned back to the boy, his hands balled into fists. "Tell me what's going on! Where the hell are we?!"
The boy remained silent.
Hours passed. Or maybe it was days. Or weeks. Time lost all meaning in the endless darkness. Matthew's initial confusion morphed into a desperate, howling rage. He screamed every question he could think of, his voice raw and broken. When he wasn't screaming, he was slapping himself, the sting of his palm against his cheek a desperate attempt to snap himself out of this dark world. His hair was now a chaotic mess, his face pale and drawn. Dark circles, like bruises, appeared under his eyes, a testament to the sleepless torment.
His lips were dry and cracked, the skin of his face stretched tight with dehydration. He was lying on the cold, hard floor, his mind a jumble of scattered thoughts. "Wait..." His brows furrowed in confusion. "... the light." he whispered, his voice a dry rasp. "There's light." He looked up, his head slowly tilting back, searching for a source. The light didn't come from anywhere. It just was. A bitter, hysterical laugh escaped his lips, a sound that cracked in the silence. "How... HOW DOES THAT EVEN MAKE ANY SENSE?!" he screamed, his voice raw with a fresh wave of agony.
A new thought, a flicker of something close to hope, took hold. Maybe... maybe there's an end. He got to his feet, a renewed determination in his eyes. He started running into the darkness, not knowing where he was going but propelled by the faint promise of a way out. He ran for what felt like an eternity, the silence and darkness pressing in on him, until he saw it. A light. A single, brilliant beacon in the distance. He smiled, a genuine, relieved smile, and ran towards it. "Oh you gotta be kidding me..." When he reached it, his hope was replaced by a familiar, soul-crushing despair.
Standing within the light was the boy, silent and vacant, his form a static figure in the void.
His shirt was gone, discarded on the ground next to the boy in his frantic, looping run. He was on his knees now, his hands clenched into fists, the rage building in him with a silent, furious intensity. He screamed, a guttural roar of pure, unadulterated anger. "FUUUCK!" The scream had no echo in the vast, empty space. He was back where he started.
After another long walk through the looping dark, he walked up to the boy, his movements slow and deliberate, and grabbed him by the arms. He shook the boy, hard, the small body rattling in his grip. "Tell me?! What do you want from me?!" The boy remained silent, his gaze unwavering. Matthew shook him again, his voice a desperate, pleading whisper as tears slid down his cheeks. "Please... just say something. Anything."
He let go of the boy and began to pace back and forth, muttering to himself, his voice a low, frantic drone. "It's not real. It's not real. It's all in my head. An hallucination. Just like she said. It's all in my head." The words, repeated over and over, were a fragile shield against the terrifying reality.
Finally, after all of it, the screaming, the running, the desperate pleas, he sat on the ground. He pulled his legs to his chest, his arms wrapped around them, and rested his head on his forearms. He had his back turned to the boy, a final act of surrender. The questions, the anger, the fear, all of it was gone, replaced by a profound, desolate silence. The boy was still there, a single, silent figure in the light, but Matthew no longer cared. He had nothing left to give.
"Teral."
Matthew's breath hitched. He had been so lost in his self-imposed darkness that the words were like a physical blow. He froze, his body rigid with disbelief. He hadn't imagined it. He was sure of it. The whisper was too clear, too close. He slowly, deliberately, turned his head, his eyes fixed on the boy's pale face. The boy was no longer vacant. He was looking at Matthew with an unblinking, expectant gaze.
"What?" Matthew's voice was a dry, raw croak. "What did you say?"
A small smile, one that didn't quite reach the boy's eyes, spread across his lips. A soft, high-pitched giggle, the sound of a child in a sunlit field, echoed in the suffocating black. It was a sound so profoundly out of place that it was more terrifying than a scream. The boy's head tilted slightly to the side, his smile widening as he repeated the word.
"Teral." He gestured to himself with a small, graceful hand.
Matthew took a shaky step, then another, until he was on his knees, crawling eagerly through the darkness toward the boy. The despair, the rage, the profound exhaustion, all of it had vanished, replaced by a desperate, frantic hope.
"Teral," Matthew said, the name a question, a plea, a lifeline. "Is... is that your name?"
Suddenly, a piercing scream, high and shrill, ripped through the darkness.
"Ahhhhhhh!"
Suddenly, a deafening emergency alarm blared, its piercing shriek an assault on his ears. Matthew's eyes snapped open, a blinding, white light searing his retinas. He instinctively squeezed them shut, a groan of agony escaping his lips. The sudden, chaotic cacophony, the blaring alarm, the panicked screams, the clatter of a hundred things falling at once, was a brutal return to reality. The cold, hard floor of the void was gone, replaced by the unforgiving hardness of sterile tile. He was on his knees, a cold, metallic taste in his mouth. The light, so brilliant and blinding, was from the emergency strobes, flashing red and white in a nauseating rhythm.
He slowly, reluctantly, opened his eyes. The first thing he saw were hands. His hands. Gripping something, a neck, pale and cold beneath his trembling fingers. He looked down to see a face he knew. A face he knew so well.
"No..."
Anthony's eyes were wide, vacant, and completely lifeless. His mouth was open in a silent scream, his face a grotesque mask of shock and terror. His neck was bruised, a deep, ugly purple beneath Matthew's hands.
A horrified gasp tore from Matthew's throat. He scrambled back, crawling on the blood-slick floor, away from the corpse of his friend. The alarm shrieked, a relentless siren that hammered at his skull. The cafeteria was a scene of utter carnage. Tables were overturned, trays and food lay scattered on the floor, and blood, so much blood, was everywhere. It was on the walls, on the floor, splattered across the blank faces of a dozen corpses. Patients laying in a tangled mess of broken bodies and shattered bones.
A wave of nauseous disbelief swept over him.
"Did... did I do this?" he whispered, the question a raw, disbelieving cry.
His eyes, wide with shock, scanned the scene again. The smashed tables, the blood, the terrified faces of the other patients still alive, it all painted a terrifying picture. A picture that he, in his pill-induced daze, couldn't remember creating.
"Matthew!"
His head snapped up, his gaze following the sound. Standing in a gaping hole in the cafeteria's far wall, a jagged tear in the once-seamless surface, was a young woman. Her face was smudged with dirt, and a smear of blood stained her forehead, but her green eyes, wide with fear, were fixed on him. Her dark blonde, short-cropped hair was a wild mess, framing a face freckled with dirt and soot. She was wearing a slim-fitting, long-sleeved dark grey shirt, tucked into a pair of matching pants. A man, who looked eerily similar to her, was pulling her back, his face a mask of frantic desperation.
"Gwen! We can't save him! Not this time!" the man yelled, his voice strained.
"No, he's right there! We can get him this time!" the woman screamed back, her arms flailing, reaching for him.
Matthew's mind reeled. Gwen? Who are you two? The question burned in his mind, but his lips couldn't form the words. He took a shaky step towards them, a fragile hope blooming in his chest. But the man, looking at Matthew with a mix of fear and sadness, shook his head slowly. "Gwen, we have to go," he said, his voice dropping to a somber whisper. "We'll try again."
Suddenly, the wall next to the doorway began to groan and crack, the sterile white plaster crumbling like a dry biscuit. The hole the two figures were in collapsed in on itself with a deafening crash, a cloud of dust billowing into the air. When the debris settled, there was nothing but a solid, unbroken wall.
Matthew's hope, so brief and bright, was extinguished in a blink. He was alone again, left with the carnage, the blood, and the terrifying questions of his own mind. He stumbled back, a bewildered "What?" escaping his lips. But his confusion was short-lived.
Suddenly, the cafeteria doors burst open. A group of soldiers, clad in full black armor and carrying assault rifles, stormed in. They moved with a chilling efficiency, their eyes scanning the chaos before locking onto Matthew.
"Target identified," one of them said, his voice flat and robotic. He raised his rifle, and the others followed suit, their weapons all aimed at Matthew's chest.
"Wait! Wait!" Matthew screamed, his hands raised in a desperate plea. "It wasn't me! I swear! I don't... I don't remember! I didn't do this!"
The soldiers didn't answer. Their fingers were already on the triggers.
"FIRE!"
A chorus of gunshots, sharp and final, echoed in the chaotic silence of the cafeteria.