Silence

Chapter 6

"Silence? Are you still in there?"

A clawed hand moved in front of my face. I snapped out of my small moment of unpleasant nostalgia. What did he want?

"Oh good, you aren't dead," he said, not sounding all that glad. "She's going to kill me if I don't bring you back soon, so I have to take you to the other side of the asylum."

He mentioned that "she" again. "She" is obviously the same person I've been hearing for the past few months, but I didn't know of her identity, and it was obvious that he did.

We walked down the hall in the same silence as when we entered. Until Blackened decided to break it.

He chuckled. "She can't reach you on this side of the asylum, that's why she didn't want you to come over here," he explained once we were halfway down the hall. "I, on the other hand, believe it's your choice on which side you'd rather be on." He waited for me to respond, facing me and making a disappointed grunt when I didn't respond.

"Your silence does get a little tiring, Silence."

I smiled at that, his constant need to speak was getting tiring. He made an irritated sound when he saw my reaction. I kept walking, occasionally pulling on my hair, when suddenly I was screamed at.

"Oh thank goodness. I thought he had done something to you." It was the soft voice. Sound was what she was, that's what I'll have to call her.

"You really don't trust me, do you?" Blackened says words full of accusation and edge.

"No, I don't. Who knows what you could have done while she was out of my reach?" Sound asked.

He just shook his head and kept his pace. I wondered why the two of them refused to get along. What happened to the two of them?

"You know, you are a bit different from the other humans. I like you, you're a little better than the beasts I have to deal with." He chuckled at his backhanded compliment.

We were approaching the other side of the hall, as vines became more apparent, and eventually overpowering the back tar on the walls. Once we got to the familiar hall I was in before I decided to follow him, he stopped, watching me for a moment. Thinking, it seemed.

I walked forward, but his nonexistent eyes seemed to follow me. He soon realized what he was doing, and made a sound like he cleared his throat. "I don't need anything on this side of the asylum, so I won't be following you any farther," he explained.

With that, he turned to leave the room. Halting briefly to tell me one last thing. "You're welcome to visit this side of the asylum any time. I know it gets lonely being on your own, so..." he trailed off, turning his head back to the direction he was headed, and disappeared down the hall.

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It rained while I was with Blackened. The vines were dripping with water, and I pulled a few leaves from them, chewing them to get the water from inside.

I sat in one of my cells that night thinking about what I saw on the third floor. The creatures I had seen there were so unfamiliar. Maybe he had some sort of control over that half of the asylum, but if that was the case, who controlled this half?

"I hope you aren't thinking of him again," Sound's voice rang clearly in my head.

I stayed quiet and started to pick at the wall in front of me. My hair sprawled out on the pillow. I never knew that the Blackened, or any creature for that matter, was capable of being that delicate. I was ready to have to deal with scratches to tend to on my scalp.