Silence Falls

Jack was back within the Asylum. He couldn’t fathom why his footsteps took him there that day, it’s not like he truly wanted to go and revisit that Hermanni again. Yet here he was like a coaxed servant returning to his master who sent him on a mission. And that’s exactly what he had been sent to do by Hermanni, to fulfill a mission. Shaking his head to himself, Jack stewed on everything he had been shown by this patient that was titled ‘The Devil’ as he made his way down the damp shadowy frigid corridors. Images came flooding back into the front line of his mind, servicing him in reliving why he was abetting these people into breaking out of their prisons. Those memories refueled his aspiration again to go on until he was face to face with the great metal door coated in new and old rosaries alike upon bible pages.

It took Matt a lot of strength to breach the door the first time Jack came down here, but as he stepped forward to do it himself he found it opened silently with ease. Pausing to speculate this unforeseen and bizarre change in the door, Jack opted to overlook it to fixate on more imperative matters. When Jack passed through the door and into Hermanni’s cell, he faltered in his steps when he noticed the young man in his cage smiling at him as if he already knew something Jack didn’t know yet. Narrowing his eyes suspiciously, he asked. “Uh, why are you smiling at me like that?”

“Nothing, I am just glad to see you again. You look well. I trust my family fare just as well as you under your vigilant watch?” Hermanni’s smooth voice inquired, faintly ringing against the stone walls of his watery chamber as he sat dangled in his cage over a pool of inky black water. He hadn’t been dropped below in its icy clutches for days. It would seem the last trial he put the holy men into had taken its toll and scattered them for the time being. However, Hermanni was stupid enough to believe they’d wouldn’t come back, believing to be stronger than ever to exorcise him with another failed attempt. Religion made mankind kinda stubborn when it came to refusing to enlist in their cult.

“As well as anyone can be living in a place like that, I guess.” Jack informed him, finally reaching Hermanni’s evaporated cage near the edge of the concrete slab. All along the floor were shredded bits of Bible paper and round beads from broken rosaries. They hadn’t been there the last time Jack had visited Hermanni which meant the patient had guests while he’d been away. Feeling a bit jittery despite no traces of fresh blood, Jack fumbled to ask. “So…um, h-how are you doing in there? You okay?”

“I am doing comfortably well. Thank you for taking the time to inquire.” Hermanni answered, giving Jack his routine warm smile that always made the Orderly feel so jaunty whenever he was unsettled around him. It took an uncomfortable lad and loosened him into a liberated young man serene with his surroundings and the people around him. One passing by would almost think they were friends.

Jack examined Hermanni’s cage with ambivalence, not believing that his confinement could ever be believed to be comfortable. It was a medieval cage forged from impervious ancient metal! “Are you sure? It has to be hell to be locked up in that cage all day and night. Do you want me to find a way to unlock it? I don’t mind letting you out since I guess I trust you now.”

Hermanni shook his head pensively though his smile stretched further. “I know you trust me, Jack, and I am relieved that you finally do. But I do not mind my confinement. Rather it is the visitors around me that I mind the most. Ah, there now, enough about boring old me. Tell me what it is you came here to say.”

Jack observed Hermanni shifted closer to the side of the cage where he stood closest. He found himself once again taken aback by the being before him and just how far his knowledge reached beyond human comprehension. “I still have a hard time getting over the fact that you know about things you don’t have to be a witness to know.”

“It will take a little time before you get used to it.” Hermanni replied with a small shrug.

Jack shook his head, not believing that would ever happen. After everything he’d witnessed since they’ve met, he still had so many questions of his own to ask that went outside of this escape plan and Hermanni’s family. “Can you explain how I got over Matt’s death so easily like he meant nothing to me in the meantime then, or maybe how I can stand here in front of you and chat like I never witnessed anything supernatural take place in your presence before?”

Hermanni shrugged again, finding it complicated to put into words what Jack needed to know now that they were to work side by side to save his family. The Orderly didn’t deserve mendacity after sticking his neck out for him and the others. He deserved the truth. “I have this…uncontrollable gift where I can mitigate certain people. It comes and goes on its own, I cannot always call it forth for my benefit. It does, however, come in handy in treacherous situations.”

“Wait, so you've been using this power of yours on me since we met!?” Jack exclaimed incredulously. He hadn’t expected to hear this, that he had been manipulated by some invisible force since entering his chambers. I mean, yeah, he blasted Matt’s head off with his power, but…Jack hadn’t recalled feeling anything out of the ordinary within himself to back up Hermanni’s statement.

Hermanni nodded in confirmation. “Yes, I have been using this power on you that I cannot fully control. Had I been able to willingly, I would have used it on you without regrets to get the same results I got then.”

Jack opened and closed his mouth a few times like a fish before he was finally able to muster up a single reply back to him. “W-Why!?”

“Because you needed that extra push in order for you to be impartial to what I was about to tell and show you. You stubbornly would have never given me a moment of your time had it not transpired and affected you when it did.” Hermanni explained before changing the subject to the reason Jack was there in the first place. “Now, tell me what I must know about your discussion with Bert.”

Jack couldn’t figure out whether he should be outraged by Hermanni’s control over his emotions at that time, and probably this moment in time too for all he knew. But something inside him told him to banish it for now. This was a confab that could be hashed out in the future when everyone was free and long gone from this town. Only he couldn’t let it go so easily. Going against that command in his head, Jack spurred on. “But how did you-”

Hermanni raised one of his immaculate brows at Jack’s incomplete query. He knew what the Orderly was going to ask, and frankly he didn’t want to spend his afternoon explaining how he can do the impossible abilities that he can do. It was a long story that even Hermanni wasn’t so sure he could understand himself if he were to recite it to this young confounded man.

Clearing his throat, Jack didn’t bother anymore with finishing his partial question. Hermanni wasn’t going to allow him to speak his mind at present, and since he held all the cards to the deck here he wasn’t going to get anywhere today with him. Summoning the memory of the very conversation with Bert Hermanni wanted to hear from him, Jack told him everything. “It all started when I had caught Bert almost getting himself killed back at the Hospital! And I mean, literally! If it wasn’t for me he’d probably be tortured to death if not dead already!”

“But he is not.” Hermanni reminded him with pride. “He is alive and well thanks to your quick thinking.”

Jack shook his head in disagreement, scoffing at Hermanni’s positive faith in him and his actions. “No, no thanks to me! I condemned an innocent man to death, Hermanni, and over what, a fucking CRAYON! A single stupid insignificant fucking CRAYON!”

“I can see that you are still having a difficult time expelling your speedy actions. Jack, I want you to listen to me carefully, and believe what I tell you to be true. I would not lie to you, especially in your current state and after what you have done for me and mine.” Hermanni said, beckoning Jack closer to his cage.

Jack shuffled over, his frame looking a little hunched from carrying around the weight he felt for sending an innocent man to his death in order to save the one he was destined to save.