The Mind of a Hero

Chapter Seven: White and Yellow Sheets

Davey and Jack sat back in their chairs, the legs scraping the floor with a hoot, as if elephants were in the room. Elmer had placed his head down onto his forearms, and soft breathing emitted from him steadily.

"Hey", Davey called, poking his arm carefully. "Mr. Kasprzak, you gotta wake up. We need to finish the study."

"I know", Elmer mumbled, sitting up slowly. His hair shifted from neatly on his head to scattered around his ears, and his face was adorned with sleep marks on his left side. "What is it?"

"Uh, your third victim", Davey counted, glancing at the list in his notepad. "Aleksander Kasprzak?"

"You don't want to know about number two?"

"Nina? No, we have all the information we need about her."

Elmer furrowed his brows. "How the hell did you manage to get that?"

"We found Albert's journals", Jack grunted, placing five notebooks onto the table, the covers worn and used. Elmer stared at them and blinked, unsure of what to say. "He only wrote about the girls. And you."

"Oh." He looked back at Davey, reading the words he could see from his side of the table. "Right."

He never knew about the journals. He'd never seen Albert write down more than a phone number. That pissed him off. "What about Aleksander?"

"Just everything."

"Well, you know what he did."

"Yes." Elmer bit his lip, tapping the table. Davey "Well?"

"I...I asked for Albert to kill him", Elmer admitted, watching Davey and Jack's unsurprised faces. "I had a nightmare one night."

Elmer sat up from his sweaty sleep, breathing heavily and grabbing at Albert's hand. He feared to open his eyes, and squeezed Albert's hands tightly, close to feeling his knuckles against his palms. "Ow- Ellie, what the fuck?!"

Elmer grasped for breaths of air, drowning in his own mind like a whale tied to the bottom of the ocean. He felt heavier than rock, brittle as limestone. Albert's hand remained crushed in his veins ready to pop out.

He could still feel the hands holding him down against his bed, and how easy it was to melt away. He wished someone would save him from Hell, but it seemed the world laughed at him as he was dragged by the devil's claws to join him behind the gates of damnation. He was stuck with that man forever, till death and suffering do them part.

"Elmer, let go!"

"Huh?" He shot his eyes open, looked down and saw empty sheets, just the way he'd left them. They were white and yellow, but empty. But Albert was there.

Elmer hit himself in the head with a fisted palm, undoubtedly bringing more tears to his eyes but erasing the pounding headache for mere seconds. What an idiot he was—no one would actually believe Albert was there. He went to bed alone, and he woke up that way. But he couldn't help to feel like a part of him was missing, like being alone was a test of himself and his other half.

The empty feeling left him lonely, and alone with the phantom fingers of his uncle—he felt naked, exposed. Like that night.

Elmer swallowed, blinking his eyes closed. He grabbed at his hair and tugged, giving him a solid reason to cry, and sat on his white and yellow sheets. He craved for another person, begged for someone to bring him to peace like a hungry child begs for bread, and picked up the phone beside him.

He punched in one of the only four numbers he bothered to remember, and listened to the damning rings that connected him to the receiver. He held onto the comforter covering his lap, squeezing it to death before hearing a click, and the sound of a groggy hello.