The Birdcage

The Hall of Doors

A florescent light flickered in the long, foreboding hallway; rapid flashes, like it was trying to communicate in Morse code. Turn back, turn back.
Numbered  metal doors with slide-open window shutters lined the hall, each closed and locked, sealing off what was inside.

Shadows danced in the dim light. Nyx shivered, unsettled. Her footsteps echoed eerily as she ventured forth into this hidden corner of the hospital, Jayson following behind her with measured steps. The place was deathly silent- not a sound to suggest any presence of life; just stark, sterile solitude.

There was no one in sight. Not one living soul.

Nyx looked at the doors ahead of them- rows of sealed rooms, presumably designed for the patients to live out their solitary confinement. And then on the left side, a set of large double doors, leading to a further part of the hidden hospital- to be completely honest, she almost didn't want to think about it. And there, at the end of the corridor... a red door.

Red door.

Pulling out her paper, she looked at the page. There they were, the words; Tulip, Pansy, Daisy, Rose, Red, Door... She'd written them down as to separate words, but they weren't. It wasn't Red, Door, it was Red door. They were directions.

"That's it." She said to Jayson, pointing at it down the hall. "That's where we need to go."

And then the silence was broken by the creak of hinges. Before them, one of the patients door, that should have been locked, slowly pushed open from the inside. A ghostly pale hand appeared around the edge of the door. And then she was there; the spectral woman in white.

Nyx screamed; leaping in fright and shamelessly clinging to Jayson's arm as she reflexively tried to hide behind him; Jayson himself taking a defensive stance.

Nyx's scream seemed to set off the woman, who tipped back her head and shrieked to the ceiling, before dissolving into laughter. Slowly, she raised her finger, to jab it at them accusingly. "Naughty children. You shouldn't be here. No, no, no," She shook her head. "You shouldn't be here." Suddenly she raised her hands in front of her and charged at them, yelling a war-cry, prepared to rip into them, to tear off their faces. Nyx stumbled back, dragging Jayson with her, trying to back away and escape down the hall. Eyes wide in panic, she clipped the wall, stunning herself against the metal at the woman swiped at her face-

And then a rich, velvety voice run out; filling the hall as if the voice of God from the heavens. "Blanche. That's enough."

And the woman stopped. Just stood there, holding Nyx's wide-eyed gaze, as if she'd lost what she was going to do. And then, she turned around; walking back up the hall and disappearing back into her cell, pulling the door shut behind her.

Wildly, Nyx looked around, looking for the source of the voice that had saved them- and then she saw what she'd fallen against. A door, upon which was a metal number one.

"Come closer." Said the voice from inside. "Open the window. Let me get a look at you."

"Nyx..." Jayson warned, as Nyx steadied herself, raising to meet the sliding window shutter.

As if hypnotised, Nyx reached for the shutter handle, and ever so carefully, slid it open.

The window opened into nothingness. And then, fingers, with long, savage claws of dark stone appeared at the opening. Then a face appeared there to look out; and Nyx's eyes met a familiar pair of gold irises. The woman from her vision smiled; her lips an unnatural shade of red, like blood against her sharp, white teeth. "I know that face- although you were not the one wearing it."

For anyone whose been reading Reflections of Angels alongside this, you've recently met this character. XD Here is the answer to the intrigue of where she came from.