The Gate Keeper: updates on hold until further notice

4. Silence & Fury

Instantly upon waking Luce thought, I'm dying. The intensity of a bright light burned her eyes, dry and itchy she rubbed at them with her fists till they pooled with stinging tears. Was this the light. Could any other light be as consuming? She was captured in its radiance, hovering in its all encompassing glare.

Screwing her eyes tight shut, vibrant colours, existing only behind closed eyes, danced vividly across her blacked out vision. Slowly she peered out at her surroundings once more, allowing her eyes to gradually adjust to the harshness of the room. Luce noticed the walls swaying softly, white curtains lopped in a U shape along the ceiling around her. She was neatly tucked under thin white sheets on a patients bed, the way a doting mother would tenderly put her child to bed. The back of her left hand itched something crazy. She felt a sharp pain as she scratched the torturing itch. Something hard and invasive was protruding from her skin. Turning her left hand palm down Luce stared incredulously at the drip tube buried like a parasite under her skin, snaking up to a clear liquid in an unmarked bag. Shivering as a cold sweat rippling over her body, nausea burned in the heart of her gut . What the hell were these people doping her with? And where were all her belongings? Her back pack, jacket, and....

Oh My god!

In disbelieve she gasped. To her utter horror she realised someone had undressed her. Her fingers pulling at the cotton sack hanging off her, it's short sleeves baring her jagged ribbons of wounded flesh. Winding tendrils of three scars wrapped around her left arm. She hoped this was all a terrible dream. She had never felt so mortified. What creep had the audacity to undress her?! She wondered if it was that snake, Luton; the way he'd wanted to play with her, to see her scared, he wanted to manipulate her mentally, did he also like to see girls naked? Urgh, Luce's entire body flushed with a chilling disgust that brought the nausea rising up her oesophagus. She could have burst in to flames with the heat of her fury. She tore the tube from her hand, refusing to be a fly caught in this twisted spiders web.

Her belongings had to be around here somewhere, where ever here was exactly she had no idea. Luce couldn't remember anything after she had fallen with limbs like jelly under the hypnotic melody of Joyce's voice and comforting hands. That voice which had lit a hopeful flame in the darkness of Luce's despair the first time they had met. Joyce had believed, with the utmost certainty beyond even Luce who had her own doubts about her innocence, The fires weren't Luce's fault. She never started them at least not physically and by no means intentionally. They just seemed to creep up on her, like a rolling fog over silent waves, she didn't know when, or how, and she had no idea why. Joyce did, she hadn't said as much back then, but if Luce was certain of anything in her disillusioned world it was that. Joyce had the answers.

Luce knew she was still in the academy, no doubt if an escaped convict roamed in to a local hospital police would swarm like flies. Maybe she was in the Basement behind the steel door, brown eyes could be lurking anywhere, waiting for the right time to attack.

Swinging her legs out of bed, her bare feet met cold hard tiles, the sharp sensation against her soles curled her toes uncomfortably. Peering under the bed she saw nothing more than an immaculately clean floor. The nightstand besides her bed was empty and spotless too. Exasperated, with no choice but to explore barefooted in a nightgown four sizes too big, Luce set out beyond the haloed curtain.

Two large observation Windows by the door overlooked a wide corridor with clean white walls. Two neat rows of five empty beds with their curtains wide open, all except Luce's cubicle, each with their own little night stands. A tall wooden shelf by the door stacked with those stiff cardboard bowls for catching vomit and bed pans, clean towels and night shirts. On the bottom row Luce found a pile of slippers that flip flopped against the vinyl floor as She walked, she slipped them back off choosing the cool silence of her soft padding footsteps over the echoing snaps of comfort.