The Maple Leaf

Six: Above, Below

The light dragged across the roof as he moved it from above the bed, to behind him above the desk. The first difference from his room became quite clear: the ceiling was much lower. He then noticed many sharp nails sticking down through the ceiling. Four sets of them. William studied the nails and realized that one of the patterns was missing a nail. William walked forward and stood up straighter to get a better look, almost not believing it.

"How did he get it loose?" he thought.

His mind wandered into a strange vision of the flying red, soaring into the nail until it went through to the other side. His mind was an active one. His imaginings were sometimes hard to distinguish from reality. He also felt that hunger and thirst had some kind of role in the matter. So too, his many years of solitary thinking.

He knew, by where the foot was on the bed, that this person was no giant - likely shorter than him. He observed no hammer or plank of wood to hit the nail free. He lowered the lantern to his waist and walked to the door. He'd spent enough time in small rooms. He froze at the entry. The disturbing image of a person lying beneath those sheets bore heavy on him.

It felt to him a great disrespect to simply walk away. The person who had helped him escape was laying only feet away. Could he leave him there with not so much as a passing glance to his face? Reluctantly, he moved toward the bed and the lantern revealed the rest of what he had feared. He knelt by the bed and quit all breathing through his nose, trying to block the stench. It was powerful, however, and he knew that no rational attempt could mask the smell besides getting as far away as possible.

He reached down and gripped the covers by the person's head and pulled back. William looked upon it with anguish as his face scrunched and his eyes watered. Long, dark hair flowed like a river under the head, over the planks, and onto the floor. The cheeks were as thin as his were but seemed more shapely and pointed. The chin was narrow and the lips were thick and had the shape of a heart. Directly above them was a small and buttoned nose. He could tell with certainty that this was no man; it was a girl. What truly frightened William was the pure darkness where her eyes should be. He brought the lantern closer and leaned in to see them.

He fell back onto the floor with horror and crawled quickly back towards the doorway. The sheet pulled back with his foot and one of the bed planks came off with it. He turned around as he stood up, running into the hall and shutting the door behind him. As he leaned back against the door, he tried to calm himself and remove the image from his mind. He couldn't. All he could do was peer forward into the dark hallway, where he had no choice but to continue.

Any part of William that had not changed from the out-of-body experience had no doubt been changed after that.

"Her eyes. What... where were they?" He thought, trying his best to breathe.

He started into the hallway, lantern held outward and eyes darting every which way, expecting a confrontation at any moment. Hugging close to the wall, he walked forward while listening to each of his footsteps, hoping the next one would be quieter than the last. The hallway was narrow and the smell was that of wet brick and copper. Pipes protruded here and there across the ceiling, a good indicator of being somewhere underground. It almost seemed constructed and managed by an amateur who only knew the bare minimum of architecture.

William happened upon what looked to be a small storage room to his left, with no door and enough room to fit small household supplies. He looked inside and found a bucket, two unwashed hand towels, and a cheap, green broom with a dustpan attached to its handle. William almost laughed to himself, thinking about how long it would take to even clean that place up and how surprising it was to see cleaning supplies. He leaned out of the small space and started again down the hall.