Created

Chapter Nine

　

I returned to the hospital that night take care of a little 'unfinished business'. It was eight o'clock and just starting to get dark, thanks to the summer sun's strange schedule of setting late. The sunset threw a eerie orange glow around my world as I backed the car out of the driveway and began on my way. My excuse was that I would like to ask for more hours as a nurse because of my assignment. Although that wasn't a lie, I was more eager to drop by Adam and see how he was doing. I figured I'd found a friend in him and wanted to say hello and see how he was doing. I knew they had moved him to a bigger room, now on the second floor of the Main Building. Most of the second floor rooms were much bigger and had large windows. I thought Adam would like a bigger window so he could look at the sky out of more than just a small square.

I parked my car close to the door and walked in the Check-In Building. Casually, I chatted with the receptionist before asking where Nurse Weedman was. I was told that she was busy-emergency surgery in the Skeletal Ward.

"Will you tell Nurse Weedman when she's finished that I'm here?" I asked.

"Of course," the receptionist responded. "It might be a while, though."

"Then may I visit Adam? He's my assignment on the second floor of the Main Building." I received a smile and a nod and I was on my way.

Room 153, Main Building. I walked to the center building, watching the sun fall the rest of the way and the gardens around the path being lit now by only the bright full moon. The scene seemed to jump right out of a movie, but I wasn't sure if the movie was romantic or horror. Maybe it was leaning more towards horror, a genre I'd always despised. Shivering, I began to walk faster to the building. A twig snapped behind me and I whirled around, tense. There was nothing. Trying to calm my jumping heart and return my breathing to normal, I turned and continued on my way, forcing myself to walk at a normal pace. Until I heard the footsteps following me. I squealed in fear and turned around again, my mind racing with the possiblities. What could it be?! The sensible part of my brain tried to tell me it was probably my imagination running away with me, but my fear screamed 'danger!'. I was already breathing hard. I turned in circles, not wanting to find my follower, but looking anyway. It was silent. All I could see was the darkness envelop me as clouds covered the moon. My scream burst from my chest and turned and ran blindly. The footsteps followed me. I looked behind me as I ran to find five huge creatures leaching from the shadows. They were human-shaped, but at least three times as big and three times as broad. All I could make out were silouettes. And they were following me.

Fear clutched at my heart and pure adrenaline pumped through my veins. Suddenly, the short distance between buildings seemed miles, but I made it. I burst through the glass doors, the sudden bright light stinging my eyes as I screamed frantically, racing for the stairs. All the people in the room looked up, alarmed, but I hardly noticed them. I did notice their gasps and screams and the creatures made it to the door and broke through the glass. I didn't turn to see them in the light. Based on the screams behind me, I didn't want to.

I knew the people behind me were safe. Those things weren't chasing them. They were after me!! I made it to the stairs and, clutching the railing as an extra boost, I shot upwards. Lucky for me, Room 153 wasn't too far down the hallway and Adam's door wasn't locked. I found the right door and pounded it open with my fists in a frantic effort to get to him. I saw a shocked Adam look up from sitting on the bed. The large window I'd known he would enjoy was propped open to reveal part of the roof and the black night sky. Could it be an escape option?

"Claire?" Adam stood and I nearly plowed into him, hiding my face in his chest and sobbing. Adam put his arms around me, trying to stop my tears. "What's wrong?" he asked, alarmed. I only cried harder. He looked up and gasped. I opened my eyes and followed his wide-eyed gape towards the door to see the five creatures. They stood, blocking the door menacingly. I could see them clearly now, too. They were human shaped, but made completely of shiny silver metal nailed together in clean squares like giant dolls or robots. I clutched Adam closer in fear and he reacted instantly, swinging me behind him protectively.

"Assassins," he whispered and I understood who he was running from now. Another peice to the puzzle, but this wasn't the time or place for thinking. It was time to act. Adam seemed to know that as well and, without taking his gaze off the Assassins, he began backing us both up towards the window, now our only escape. Fearlessly, the Assassins followed us into the room, splitting the doorframe open with their broad shoulders and stepping in. I watched, shocked, as the wood didn't even slow them down. They plowed right through the wall without a second thought. How did Adam make an enemy of these things?

"Claire Brummer, registered. Adam, registered," the lead Assassin droned in a computer voice. I couldn't help but notice he had no mouth. The sound came anyway and bounced loudly through the room. They were like something out of a bad sci-fi movie!!! "Arta is ready for you both."

"Both?! Claire as well, now?" Adam cried. He looked back at me and I stared up at him through red-rimmed eyes. "You know so much...," he realized. "They consider you a threat!" Thats when the Assassins made their move towards us. Lucky us, we were right next to the window anyway. "Go through the window, through the window!!!" Adam screamed and pushed me out the open window and onto the roof.

"Aaaaaah!!!!" I cried as I landed on the shingles and began to slide down. Screaming, I scraped the roof for something to hold onto, but the metal shingles were slick and my Converse didn't help stop my decent. "Adam!!!"

I watched Adam fling himself feet-first out of the window, leaving the Assassins behind in the hospital room. Now next to me, Adam grabbed my hands as we approached the end of the roof.

"Bend your knees, try to land flat on your feet!" Adam commanded me and I followed his instructions instictively. Then the roof ended and there was nothing under us but air. Soon enough, though, we met with the ground and were back up in an instant, running. I heard the shattering of glass as the Assassins smashed the window and leaped on the roof.

Adam and I raced through the hospital grounds, but our head start wasn't much. The Assassins were on our trail again.

"We have to get out of the hospital grounds," Adam said. "We have to get somewhere else!!" I obediently followed.

"Where will we go?!" I cried.

"Away!!" he replied. "Somewhere far, far away!!!!" As we broke the boundaries of the hospital, I turned to see Adam already breathing hard. Beads of sweat broke out on his forehead and he kept trying to swallow, but I guessed his mouth was dry.

"Are you okay?!" I asked.

"Ye-yeah..." he huffed. "We gotta keep going. We ca-can't stop." Although I agreed with him, I was also worried. Like I didn't have enough to worry about. He was already out of breath?

I didn't recognise a thing after we left the hospital. All the turns Adam led me down I'd never taken before. With the Assassins on our tail, we took as many twisting turns as we could. It was very dark now and the downtown area we ran through was alseep. So we kept running until Adam, now totally out of breath and unable to speak, pulled us into a small gap between two buildings as we turned a corner. We wedged ourselves in and held completely silent as the Assassins rounded the corner and kept running past us. A few painful moments past and we kept silent until the footsteps were long gone.

Squeezing out of the gap proved harder than getting in, but we made it. Adam hunched over, breathing painfully, sucking in as much air as he could. Afraid, I knelt down to Adam. We hadn't run enough to be so out of breath! It was true we had run a while, but even I had already gotten my breath back!

"Adam, are you okay?!" I asked stupidly. Well duh, he wasn't okay. And, as expected, Adam shook his head 'no'.

"I-I can't run ve-very long," he panted. "So-sorry."

"Are you just out of shape?" I asked. He shook his head. "Sick?" He nodded. I swallowed and tried to help him stand.

"Can-Can you walk?" A nod. "Alright, let's go, uh..." I looked around. Nothing was familiar and nothing was open. "What do I do?" But Adam couldn't answer because he had began a bad bout of coughing. Anxiously, I looked around one more time. There was nowhere at all to go. What were we going to do?!