Page 29 of Desecrated Saints
You never learn, Patient Eight.
Your mind belongs to me. It always will.
“Leave me alone. You’re dead!”
Squeezing my eyes shut, I will him to go away. A cold breeze on the back of my neck answers my plea for mercy, sending more suffering instead. I’m too scared to look, but force myself to anyway. The swarming shadows twist through the air and give way to another skeletal figure.
“Not you,” I whimper uselessly.
Logan isn’t here to protect me from her anymore. Beautiful face burned from the air bags that did nothing to save her life, Mum’s tumbling blonde hair is drenched in blood. Her smile is still the same beneath her soft exterior, predatory and ice cold.
Come home, Brooke.
Back to Blackwood.
You were born for the program, and you’ll die for it.
Staring into the empty eyes of my hallucination, I’m trapped. Frozen by fear that I was stupid to think I could outrun. I’ve held them at bay since escaping, stuffing the voices deeper and deeper into oblivion. Despite everything, I knew I couldn’t run forever.
Someone wraps their arms around me, attempting to shake me from my stupor. I think someone else is shouting, but it’s no use. I still can’t breathe. Can’t think. Can’t exist on this hellish plane, where ghosts walk in the skin of the living and haunt me even when I’m not asleep. I should’ve died in that basement.
“Brooklyn—”
“Get out of the way. She needs me.”
“Fuck off.”
“I’m the only one that can pull her back!”
Their voices sneak through the constraints of my fading lucidity. My traumatised brain recognises the gruff, pained tenor of my lone saviour. He’s whispered to me many times in my darkest moments.
A rough hand cups my jaw and I stare into a pair of molten eyes, burning like wildfire. Matching horror and suffering stares right back at me.
“Breathe, Eight. Just breathe for me.”
Seven grips my face until it hurts, demanding my brain to follow orders. Even with his best intentions, it’s no use. I can still see her over his shoulder. She crooks her index finger at me. Mum won’t go back to her shallow grave, content to continue ruining my life.
Devil child.
Couldn’t even protect your brother from me.
You should have died a long time ago.
“You killed him, not me,” I yell at her.
Seven looks over his shoulder to follow my gaze. I take the opportunity to punch him in the face. If I can get into the woods, maybe the hallucinations will leave me alone. Attempting to run, my feet are quickly swept out from underneath me. I end up with a face full of dirt as Seven pins me down.
“Jesus, princess. You’re making me look sane!”
“Fuck you,” I spit. “Let me go, Augustus!”
“It’s me! He can’t hurt you. Come back.”
“Please… l-let me go. Mum’s after me.”
“She isn’t real,” Seven shouts. “Look into my eyes, Eight. Nowhere else.”
He strikes me so hard, my lip splits in the process. I hear someone raging in the distance, but nothing exists beyond my line of sight. Only Seven’s wide, burnished eyes, coaxing me back to reality. I taste the hot, metallic flow of blood slipping between my lips. It helps to latch on to the pain.