SATe [✔]

[2] whelve

"Nine minutes and forty-three seconds, but who's counting?" He smirks.

"Dickhead." I lightly shove him with the baton, placing it on the desk beside me. He sticks out his tongue and settles in against the wall behind him. It'd be quiet tonight as usual; eventually, we'll pull out a pack of cards when we're sure Chester is gone for the night and play until morning breaks and the first shift enters. At least that's what we always did.

It didn't go like that, though. Two hours into the shift, there was a call over Henry's radio that I regret ever listening to; a request for help and then a blood-curdling scream that was cut off in seconds. Somewhere in that call, I heard something that hit a nerve in me. There was something about the noises in that call that made a tear run down my cheek; it felt almost unprovoked in some way. I couldn't put my finger on it, but I knew it wasn't the scream.

"That was George, right? Two floors up?" Henry's voice was torn in anguish; he was already darting his head around and trying to figure out a plan to help the voice on the other end of his radio. That was the kind of guy Henry was. His initial reaction was to help, and mine was to run.

If only Henry hadn't recognised the voice. Maybe we could have played it off as a prank, but we found ourselves walking up to the eighteenth floor. The floor itself was quiet, but George was missing from his post. The only sign of movement was the shadow of a man near the back offices on the floor.

I had thought to ignore it, but Henry had gone running, clearly seeing more of the man than I had myself, "Hey, you can't be in here, sir!" He only looked back to yell at me as well, "Damn it, Bastian, help me out here! Are your legs made of stone?"

I wish they had been. I wish Henry's had been too because as we turned the corner, we came face to face with a figure I had long forgotten.

Forgotten. That was a bad word choice. A figure that had been erased; physically pulled from my skull and masked by something else.

But I remembered this. I felt a sensation akin to a wave crashing into me; a moment of clarity coupled with the realisation that I'd been in this exact situation before. It was the snarling that gave it away first; the same snarl I'd heard as a child was making me remember things, I didn't know I'd forgotten. I turned sharply and watched as the same metallic creature from my past slid its way towards Henry and me.

The drool dripping from its teeth was the last thing I remember seeing before the images started popping up; those moments that had been ripped from my mind were coming back quickly but hazily. The nightmares of the brown-haired lady gripping onto my arm tightly and pointing towards the door were now merging into the reality; my mother whispering in my ear, "Run away, baby."

I remember now; I didn't want to go. I was glued to the floor, terrified of the creature that was walking towards my father with intent to harm him, she'd held onto my arm and pointed to the door with the other hand, "Do what I say and run."

I still didn't listen to her. It was my father screaming at me without giving me a second glance, "Right now! Go and don't look back." That was what made me listen, that was what made me bolt for the door, barely being able to turn around and look at my mother being thrown to the ground as I slid on the waxed floors of the landing on the upper floor.

How could I forget such a thing? How did I bury the death of my parents so profoundly inside without a second thought?

It was only a moment. I was only lost in my own head for a moment, but a moment is all it took for it to tear his limbs into Henry's chest. It was an image I never thought I'd see again, but one that I don't think could ever be torn from my mind again.

I thought I had become strong enough to fight through something like this, but Henry releasing one of his final breaths and looking down at his torn open chest was enough to make me fall to the floor and stare up at the menacing figure above me. I hadn't gotten a good look at this thing at any moment prior to this; a grey metallic, almost glittering skin on a body that heaved with every step it took, four sharp and narrow eyes that seemed to look everywhere but directly at me, and a tail that was dragging on the floor. A tail which at this very moment was dragging over the body of my friend who had become nothing more than a lifeless corpse.