First Gate (part 4)

She was getting worse. Rubbing the bruise that had formed into a peculiar rounded spot – it branched out in rays like a warped sun – Yamamoto sat behind his desk with a pursed look. During the past two weeks it seemed that Isabelle had steadily declined. The violent outbursts becoming more and more common.

At this rate she’d have to be sedated constantly for her own good. It was as if none of her medications were working anymore. Yamamoto worried his lower lip on his teeth. His eyes, tired after hours of endless reading, were once more skimming over Isabelle’s file. He had pushed off some of the other patients onto his other doctors, onto ones he knew would be able to handle the additional work, while he tried to get their most infamous woman under control.

It was so quiet that he was sorry he wasn’t able to spend more time in his office. Sedate and sleepy, he often found himself just wanting to put his head down and let the stress of running a psych ward flow away. White floated by the window as the latest snow fall came through Connecticut. The only sound that pilfered the quiet of the moment was the papers he kept insisting on rustling.

The tea that he had asked his assistant to make sat cold. Even the mug was frigid. He couldn’t remember if he had even taken a sip of it or not. Rubbing the back of his neck, he sighed heavily.

List upon list of long, scientific sounding names rambled down the sheet in front of him. Descriptions of disorders and their ‘cures’ had been assaulting him for hours now. Every now and then he would stop, stretch and stare listlessly out at the yard before once more going to work. He wasn’t sure of what he was looking for anymore. He had this entire file memorized. The only thing he didn’t know was the patient’s past before entering the hospital, and what her last name was. The two most important things.

If there was a God, he certainly hated Charles.

Leaning back in his chair, he swiveled away from the desk and looked up at the tower of books that lined the office shelves. They were impressive, thick tomes, with gold laced bindings and fancy-boring-sounding names. Many of them were written by famous names in his field; many by his predecessor…

Was it too much to ask that the man leave detailed notes on what he had managed to do to get Isabelle into a coherent, non-aggressive state? What was he doing wrong?

It was hot. And bright. Isabelle blinked her eyes open with a grunt; the sun became too much for her lids to shelter. Bright rays creaked through in mean spirited shafts, causing some nerve behind her orbs to protest with a steady ache. The sun gloated downward at her, white hot and impetuous. She struggled up to her hands and knees. Grass was springy and dry underneath her, the blades tickling against her bare legs. The air smelled of pond water and moss, a pleasant bygone scent that made her chest hurt. Pecan trees yawned overhead with great clumps of steel blue Spanish moss waving in the parched breeze. Azure, untouched by a single intruding cloud, rolled from horizon to horizon.

It was humid… it was home.

Staggering into a standing position, Isabelle opened her arms with a wide smile. Taking a deep breath, she reveled in the stickiness. The sensation of the smell lodged in her stomach, and her eyes drifted closed. Out in the distance stood the old white plantation home, just beyond the edge of the marsh that stretched until the Wilson’s farm. Its brave weather-worn face was strong with squared windows and deep green ivy creeping up its sides.

Cicadas thrummed happily. The whole area was alive with activity even in the sleepy, sluggish Southern afternoon.

Isabelle started walking towards the house, one unsteady step at a time. Mud stuck to the insides of her toes, and the pads of her feet were pricked by sharpened pebbles. She touched the tops of the swaying dry wheat grass, but never took her eyes off of the house in the distance.

Old music, like that of an ancient organ, began to lift into the air and melted into the warmth of the land. Building, building, until it rang into the sky, and then softly back downwards to where it vibrated the grass and land, organ cords that reminded her of her past childhood. She saw herself standing under the stairs in her best summer dress, much like the pure white one with little eyelets she was wearing now, listening to her mother play and her father sing. She mouthed the words to the song, to the holiness, and her eyes swayed but remained closed.

She started twirling in the grass as the organ once more lifted higher. Her mother’s fingers were skilled, so powerful and dexterous; they ran over the ivory keys like they were nothing but water. So smooth. Isabelle had always wanted to play like her mother.

“Casting down their golden crowns,” she hummed, her hair whipping around.

The organ suddenly stopped. It clanged and sounded as if a hammer had been taken to the pipes. Isabelle stopped her spinning abruptly and turned, bewildered. The bugs stopped singing, the water ceased its pleasant scent, and all at once the world seemed to stop altogether. Blades of grass that had been dancing in long, lean lines were now sagging and bowed as if afraid. Her amber eyes swept over the marsh, the house, the trees, and was dismayed to see the leaves beginning to drift and fall down like an impressive snowstorm.

“No,” she whispered. As she watched the leaves plummet, twisting and twirling ever downward, she felt her stomach drop. She licked her lips and spun back about, her eyes searching out her old home where the organ was waiting for her feeble attempts at playing.

Smoke, acrid and destructive, caught her nose before it did her sight. It wrinkled her nostrils and made her heart hammer in her brain. Beyond the sea of grass and now muddied swamp, the house was engulfed in crimson fire. Its flames licked ever higher, reaching up and up, while the inky fingers of smoke were grasping at the once azure heavens. Embers were falling after floating high and were landing in the dried land.

The house was burning. Her home, her land – everything was ablaze. The sky was soon overrun by black, no longer that white-hot blue, and the sun was a bloody red through the haze of smog. Her fingers began to rub together, her eyes wide and her mouth opening and closing in shock. What was going on? This was wrong, something was terribly wrong!

“Nice place,” she heard, and froze on the spot.

All of her movements stilled. Her hairs began to stand on end, and if it were possible, it felt like her very soul had been pinned into place. She
felt him staring at her. With those eyes, those horrible, detestable eyes that were pure gold. Like a cat.

He was like a panther.

Turning her head with a whimper, she felt her entire body start to shake. Her tongue was swollen to the top of her mouth, pressing into the roof and against the ridges, while her chest began to heave with terror. He stood there, with his hands behind his back, staring down into the marsh. His back was facing her, but Isabelle could tell he was grinning from ear to ear. The way he was standing told her that he was amused with the situation.

“Wha… what…” Isabelle swallowed hard. She felt the bile building in the back of her throat. Clearing her throat, she gripped the front of a now ash-smeared dress like a child. He was so huge. Towering. His body was gigantic and corded with muscle. His hair was jet black, and untouched by even the tainted sun, it shifted around in the heat breeze.

Frowning, she said, “What’re you… doing here?”

His head lifted. The ground began to slither, the mud forming hard packed clay. The grass was smoldering and the world was alight. Her world had changed to match him.

His chuckle was dry and gravely. “I was curious where you went off to,” Isabelle jumped when he turned around. His face was handsome if you could get passed the fact that his entire face was covered in dark black veins that ran beneath the ivory surface of his skin. His eyes were a pure jet black, devoid and blank, no white to be seen. His smile made her back crawl.

Isabelle winced and crossed her arms under her chest. He took a stride forward and the rain started. It burned and seared; her skin bubbled from the attacking acid.

She took a step back when he was just a foot before her, his hand stretching out like a great clawed talon. He grinned again and it stretched impossibly wide, his eyes glinting with the same patronizing gaze as always.

“I’ve been looking all over for you, girl,” his tone, though light, was edged and sharp. Isabelle shrugged away from him when his cold fingers touched her twitching flesh.

Yamamoto started awake. Jolting up, he glanced around his darkened office, his brows furrowed. He had fallen asleep on his desk, with the files under his arms and a few books lining the edges of the space. Lines from the arm of his coat streaked his face, and there was a small, dried puddle of drool staining the wood underneath.

Scrubbing his hand to the bottom half of his face, he tried to banish memories of the odd dreams that had been plaguing him and his fitful, though welcome, nap. Rolling his shoulders and relishing in the loud cracks and pops that met his ears, he stood and got ready to leave. Gathering his briefcase as well as his schedule for the next day – it was filled with sessions and a meeting with his best doctors in the Ward – he made for the door. If he was lucky, he could get back to his home with relatively good time and get maybe three hours of sleep before having to come back. The ticking of the clock blared into the darkness around him.

Was it really 3 A.M.?

He had just locked the door to his office and was making his way down the long hallway when something caught his attention. It was a faint humming noise. It reverberated deep within the walls and made the doctor pause. Glancing around in confusion he placed a hand on the smooth, white washed surfaces, only to feel them vibrating ever so slightly. Right down to the floor…

“How strange,” he observed. Writing it off as the sound of an overworked heater in the frigid Connecticut winter, Yamamoto continued on his way. Shifting and adjusting his leather jacket, he turned the corner and proceeded down the stairs into the recreation area. Metal clanged underfoot, ringing deep into the quietude of the sleeping hospital.

There was something serene about the place in the wee hours of the morning. He had first noticed it when transferred here – how it became so quiet that you could hear a single breath from a wandering patient. The moon peered through the large windows near by, smiling with silvery rays. Though he enjoyed the unusual peace that greeted him for the first time in months, Yamamoto couldn’t stop. He was feeling the fatigue of the day catching up to him as he strode through the room. He had no time to waste, and the doctor’s break room didn’t have comfortable enough couches to tempt him to stay.

A flash of white to his right made Yamamoto stop dead in his tracks. There, standing under a large window that stretched from the floor to the high ceiling above, stood a patient. The moonlight glared from the white of the hospital robe in a disarming halo effect, while the long, pale gold of her hair became a deep silvery hue.

“Isabelle?” Yamamoto questioned, blinking a few times in confusion. He shot a look over to where her cell was. The door was ajar. So much for locks.

She didn’t look at him. She didn’t move or make a noise. All she did was to continue to rock up and down on the balls of her feet. Clearing his throat, he placed his brief case down and decided he would have to have a serious discussion with the security detail. They were supposed to go around and make sure all the doors were locked at night. The last thing they needed was a patient like Isabelle wandering the halls. Lord knew what kind of misdeeds she could get up to.

With the squeak of his leather-soled loafers, Charles approached warily. Her eyes were distant and hollow; her mouth ticked up in a gentle smile. He idly noted how her fingers were dancing in front of her as if she were playing a piano, stroking the keys over and over again.

“Isabelle,” his tone was more firm this time. Something in his stomach knotted at the sight before him. He had never seen her do this before – was this a new symptom of some kind? Was she having a break? Or maybe even a breakthrough?

This time her shoulder kinked forward, throwing off whatever tune was playing within her own little world. Her eyebrows come together in a pained expression, and her teeth flashed in a momentary show of dissatisfaction. Her amber eyes flicked towards him in recognition. He chose to ignore the way that her hands balled into tight, bony fists, before coming down to her sides.

“What are you doing out of your room?” he chose his words carefully. If she was awake at this time of night, chances were high that her medication had worn off. It might be the reason why she was up and about.

She frowned before she returned to staring at the moon. A loud exhale escaped her small body, and Yamamoto was forced to yet again realize that every single bone in her body was showing. Her back was a mountain range of spikes.

“Nothing,” she said.

Charles had been looking around the room to make sure that no other people were out of their rooms when he heard her speak. He opened his mouth a few times before snapping back to her. She sounded lucid. Raising an eyebrow and trying to convince himself that he was hearing things, he ran a hand through his hair. Stopping to massage an increasing knot at the back of his neck he asked:

“How did you get out of your room?”

“I opened the door,” she said. Her lips turned upward in a grin that made her look distinctly like a cat that had just killed a mouse.

Something was amiss. The way she was speaking lacked the usual stickiness and jittered words. Her posture was upright and the way that she was moving without jerky explosions of activity were… perfect. She was acting normal. Yamamoto frowned before putting his hands on her small shoulders, his eyebrows knitting in confusion. Air around them had a sudden oppressive feeling and he felt his stomach knot. When she didn’t return his stare and kept looking outside, he commanded:

“Isabelle, look at me.”

That got her attention. He fished out his pen flashlight that he kept for emergencies. Holding her eyelids apart and admonishing her with a curt “don’t blink”, he gauged her pupils. Sweeping the light from one eye to the next, he noted her pupils dilated perfectly. Stepping back, he held out his index finger and ordered her to follow his finger judiciously. She never wavered or stopped following; her eyes never skittered in their trek, but that made his stomach roll even more.

There didn’t seem to be anything physically wrong.

“How are you feeling?” he questioned before putting his hands on his hips. He examined her from head to toe, trying to find anything that seemed out of place. But the only thing that he could see was that she was… different.

Isabelle cocked her head to the side. Her mouth pursed, wrinkling the savage scar across the right side of her mouth and face, before shrugging. “Fine,” she said.

“Did you take your medicine before bed like you’re supposed to?”

Her gaze burned. Her entire body seemed to seize up for a moment and there was a flicker somewhere-deep in her features-that twisted. It lasted only a second before she snorted.

“No.”

Yamamoto panicked a little bit. To see someone as far gone as the woman standing before him with her hands twined up behind her was disheartening. Licking his lips he leaned back on his hips and regarded her.

“Why not?” he asked. He was starting to think that this was just a bad dream. He was still in his office, asleep, and that all of this would be void when he woke up.

A cloud drifted over the moon and cast an eerie shadow on the two. Isabelle shook her head with an agonized expression, as if she were suffering an abrupt headache, before her face settled into the previous mask of calm. He found he didn’t like the new look. He couldn’t read it – he didn’t know what was going on inside of her head anymore, and that was a dangerous position to be in. Her teeth flashed again in a fanged grin, and her eyes nearly closed in the width of its stretch.

“I feel better, sir.”

Yamamoto was taken aback. She had never called him that, not in the past two years he had worked with her.

“You should go to your room. I’ll get the night staff to bring your medications to you,” Charles hissed under his breath before he took her wrist in his grasp. He didn’t want to think about how easily she was letting him pull her along. The real her, the Isabelle he was used to, would be kicking and clawing, spitting and screaming at just being touched.

Isabelle, meanwhile, chuckled at the back of his head. She could feel the clammy sweat streaking the inside of his palm. His neck was burning a glorious red under the pressure and once more she turned to look at the outside world.

“When can I go outside?”