The Waiting Room

Chapter 3- Spirits of the Dead

I started thinking that I had been here maybe three days. Well, it eased my mind to have some time frame. Nothing special had happened. Well is it even possible here to have any happen? I didn’t mean to sound like I actually expected anything to happen.  James was cheery as always, and we took long walks a lot. He made sure I visit almost everyone in this dreaded room. Alright, I was exaggerating. It seemed that I saw about a hundred people in these ‘three’ days. Many thoughts plagued my mind. I wished I could say that it was more worrying about my family, but in reality I was more freaked out about being here for centuries. I could already see it in my head: other people in three centuries from now telling me about the technology. What if I'm in a coma forever or if I die? So today, I decided to be dragged away from my horrendous thoughts by James to meet his old friend Marley.

"Hey, is that him?" I asked, pointing vaguely to where I saw a man with greyish brown hair and brown eyes hunched over in deep concentration. I was beginning to think all of James's friends were crazy. There was one lady who looked at me and screamed. She screamed for a long time before James got the idea that she didn’t like me, and we left soon after that.

"Yep, that's good, old Marley. Come on," James called as he ran ahead towards his buddy. I rolled my eyes at his enthusiasm, but followed him. I then realized that Marley was struggling to walk. I immediately put my arm around shoulders to support him.

"Thank you," he croaked and made an attempt to smile. I smiled back hesitantly, "You see I'm not very use to walking. I've been in my wheelchair for well over 30 years, and now it seems The Waiting Room made it disappear," Marley chuckled lightly. He looked about 80 years old.

"Even if I feel like I can run, I don't remember how," he said sadly, looking down. He then looked at me curiously,

"What's your name, darling? James here hasn't been here in a while so I thought that he had..." He furrowed his eyebrows in sadness. To quickly change the subject, I answered his question,

"Phaedra. My name is Phaedra. Pleasure to meet you sir," I extended my hand but as he reached out to shake it, he fell.

I gasped, and helped him up again.

"So sorry," I said, as I helped him stand straight. I felt a little ashamed that I made an elderly fall.

"No, no it’s okay.....Phaedra. It happens to me all the time, luckily in this dimension I won't ever hurt myself," Marley chuckled halfheartedly, his dark brown eyes finding mine. I smiled lightly, and pondered over the fact that this could very well be a dimension. I hadn’t really thought of The Waiting Room as that.

"Well anyway, we must be going, come on Phaedra," James said tersely. I sensed something was wrong by the way James looked around and his brown eyes were wide. I was about to agree when Marley spoke up,

"For what? What could you possibly do?" he asked in a lonely voice with a hint of bitterness to it. Sympathy washed over me; here he was so alone in this place. Though, I couldn’t disagree with James when he had such a worried face on.

"Well yes but-" I was interrupted by a loud sound erupting the silence of the Waiting Room. I looked around the endless room but saw nothing except the bright white of it, and the endless scatter of people here and there. Suddenly spirits entered the room, floating around. They seemed like translucent humans that glided through the air effortless. I watched in awe at them. I looked at James for an answer but he just looked like he had seen a ghost. His face was ghastly pale, and his brown eyes seemed to grow darker. Well that scared me the most. I glanced back at the spirits, and I wondered why I hadn’t seen them throughout the Waiting Room before. There must’ve been tons of people who decease every day.

“Hey, James, why haven’t we-” I started to ask, but when I turned around, James wasn’t there. I hyperventilated. I felt claustrophobic, as the white walls seemed to shrink into me. Cold sweat spread. Lights flickered. None was here. I was. Alone. The room was shaking. A trail of high pitched screams. All mine. The last thing I remembered, James. I lost consciousness.

                ***

My eyes fluttered open to a grand light. My heart started beating rapidly, is this it? Was there no more left? No more waiting? I looked around and found that I has handcuffed to the floor. The room where I was painted black but had light flickering on and off in the room like it was a broken light bulb. It was then that I realized that we weren’t in the Waiting Room. Around me I could hear a whirring noise- like a buzzing. Then everything flooded back in my mind. Why wasn’t I in the Waiting Room? What happened? I looked around wildly. Then I saw James. He was a few yards away from me, and was chained to a wooden chair.

 "James!" I gasped loudly. I tried to wiggle my way out of the silver handcuffs, but to no avail. I couldn't hear anything but the constant buzz of electricity. James himself didn’t’ look awake, he was silent. Suddenly, the buzzing stopped. All I could hear was my racing heart. I called his name, so that he could hear it. He didn’t respond. Did he even know that we weren’t in the Waiting Room anymore?

I pushed the thought aside. The handcuffs around my arms and legs unlocked and I stood up rapidly and ran towards James. My vision had large black spots in it. I felt dizzy.  My hands started gathering cold sweat, and my eyesight blurred- I waited for my body to be accustomed to the vertical position before I ran towards him. The ropes around him had disappeared. I pulled him out of the chair, but his weight caused us to both drop like dead weight to the floor. I groaned as I tried to shift positions from under him. He slowly seemed to gain consciousness, and he rolled off me.

“James?” I asked hesitantly. He slowly opened his eyes. As soon as he caught sight of the room we were in, his eyes narrowed.