Chapter 43 Calm Before the Storm
Niklaus
Son of a bitch…
I watch in shock as Sapphire’s toes barely touch the ground. Her body levitates as a charge or charcoal-coated electricity plummets into Apple May’s head. And she burns every strand of hair into nasty tufts of white and gray fuzz.
Apple May’s screams aren’t just heard throughout the asylum.
They are felt.
The cavernous, yearning, agonizing realization that the part of her body she favored the most, she spent hours a day on perfecting—is now nothing more than the head of a hag.
And her pain is visceral. It’s a mother mourning her dead baby.
It’s raw and shrill, hammering into every eardrum within a hundred yards of this room.
I want to laugh. My smile has my thoughts of amusement and glee written all over my face. But it’s also all so paralyzing to witness. I can hardly breathe as I see Sapphire morph into this ethereal being. Is she still herself? Is she an entity lost to a constellation of darkness?
The urge to break free of my restraints to hold her is gutting me.
“You… you…” Apple May sobs hysterically into her hand as she screams at the fuzz tickling her fingers. “You’ve maimed me!”
That bald hag is crawling backward, gawking at Sapphire like she’s just come face-to-face with the devil and must pay for her sins.
Sapphire goes completely still before clutching her stomach, then chest, and stumbling back. She falls into my lap, and I wrap my arms around her shivering body. Her skin is stone and a perfect sculpture of ice.
Hypothermia.
Just like her mother.
“Stay with me,” I whisper, squeezing her tighter. “I’ll keep you warm.”
The seizures come hard and fast, curling into her spine and shaking her from the inside out. It all happens as the orderlies storm my room. They coddle Apple May as she cries and covers her head in the corner of the room. They rip Sapphire from my arms as she continues seizing.
“Wait!” I roar, reaching for them to bring her back to me. “Let her get through the seizure first. Please, God, don’t move her!”
The orderlies are not gentle as they drag Sapphire from my room, leaving me alone in the dark. Leaving me with nothing but my thoughts and the memories of tonight cycling through me until they drive me insane.
Sapphire
Hours of lying in a blizzard without clothes. Without a blanket. Without any warmth at all.
It takes hours for heat to return to my limbs.
For the trembling, chattering, violent jolting to finally stop.
My memory stutters, stops, and restarts again.
I fall in and out of sleep, accompanied by nightmares about never escaping a cage.
I daydream about seeing Krimson again. About hugging my mother.
About sitting next to my father’s bed and telling him that it was me…
I’m the one he met in that forest. I finally saw him with his eyes open.
I can’t be sure, but I think everyone forgot about me in this room. Either that or I’m being punished. How long has it been since I did what I did to Apple May? Can I even be sure that actually happened and wasn’t a fever dream?
They haven’t brought me any food or water, so the brief periods I feel strong enough, I crawl to my washroom and drink from the faucet, cupping the running water with my hand and slurping it down.
After two or three days, I start to lose hope that I’m sane anymore.
What if this is all in my head?
What if I’ve been locked away for actually being mad?
What if these are all delusions of grandeur, and I’ve been placed in isolation?
“Krimson,” I cry to myself in the corner. “Krimson, I’m so scared. I don’t know what’s real anymore. This place is so dark and cold. And I—I can’t remember anything.”
I ball my hands up and tap my knuckles against my forehead in frustration.
“Please, get Mom. You have to find me. Help me return home.”
I use my patient gown to wipe my tears as I rock back and forth in the corner of the room.
And the screams and racket outside my door are proof I’ve lost my mind completely.
It’s unlike the screeches I’m used to hearing through these thick walls.
The noise is scattered down the Intricate Section.
And the yelps are short-lived, as if someone cuts off their air supply before they’ve had a chance to sound an alarm.
There are frantic footsteps and doors slamming so hard, I can feel the prolonged vibrations against my back.
Whispers.
Strangled breaths.
Gurgling.
A female voice screams, crying, begging.
More just like that to follow after each voice fades.
And one set of footsteps that is unhurried, unlike the rest that pass my door.
My room is abruptly so soundless, I can tell the feet are bare.
They frequently pause midstride, and within their hesitation, a drip drip drip fills the empty space.
The doors open.