Son of Lazarus

Chapter 6: Nightmare's First Warning

October 29th, 2038
3:00 p.m.

   A week had passed since my arrival here. They keep telling me that they don't know the cause of my nightmares, so it's begun to look like I might never go home. But that's okay, I guess. After all, I had come to trust at least one of the doctors here.   Richard Stanford was his name and so far, he seemed to be the one overseeing my treatment. I even got to meet the girl in Room Six just over a week ago. Her name is as beautiful as the rest of her had been: Lily.   The warning she had given me that first day rang in my head, of how things would only get worse the longer I stayed.

***

   "Hi." The sudden female voice startled him. He sat up against the wall he'd been leaning against, his head lowering so that he was staring across the empty white room. In the center stood Lily, her hourglass figure hugged by the tight white tanktop she wore and the skinny jeans that hugged her ankles.
   A smile soon graced his face and he found himself shifting slightly against the bed, allowing a leg to dangle off its edge.
   "Hey," he said. Tristan was glad that she had decided to visit him again. Like him, her face was smeared with dirt and her black hair looked much too shiny to be clean, as though the oils had built up over time.
   With graceful movements, Lily crossed the floor and took a seat just opposite him on the white sheets of his bed, her head turning to look at him.
   "How are things going?"
   "Horrible," he answered her question with a puff of air escaping his lungs. "They're still claiming that there's no probable cause for my nightmares."
   "Have you ever considered that there might not be anything wrong with you physically?" Tristan turned his head to look at her, his eyebrows dipping low over his eyes quizzically.
   "What do you mean?"

   "Think about it," Lily offered in return, turning her gaze to the ceiling for a moment. "You've had nightmares since you were a kid. Perhaps that's a sign that you're a Variant."
   Tristan had heard the term before when he'd accidentally overheard the doctors talking about the other patients that were housed here. He gave a small shake of his head and allowed a small, disbelieving smile to cross his face while he twisted on the bed, allowing his legs to dangle over the edge.
   "I'm not one," he said, an insistent tone edging his voice. "I'm just a regular high school student with something wrong with me."
   "Not at all," Lily said, her voice also housing an insistent tone. She fixed Tristan with a hard, sapphire blue stare and he remained silent to let her speak. "These nightmares are part of who you are, Tristan. Stop trying to fight them and embrace them!"
   Her mouth hung open like she wanted to say more, but a noise coming from beyond the room stopped her. Tristan turned his head to the door to listen as well. He recognized the sound of boots striking against the floor.
   From the sound of it, they were coming up from the back of the facility. He felt the bed move and turned to see Lily rising from her spot. He continued to watch as she walked toward the wall that divided their rooms. When she reached the wall, she turned and looked at him.
   "Thresher may appear to be a good guy," she said quickly, a note of warning in her voice. "But he's a monster, just like the rest of them. Be wary, Tristan. And be careful."

   "You too," he found himself saying in response, watching as Lily phased through the wall's structure and disappeared. Tristan was still having a hard time believing that it was simply something she could do and yet it was this very quirk that made it worth seeing her as often as he could.   The boots had entered their hallway now, pausing outside of the door. Tristan tensed, waiting for his door to spiral open, but it never did. A voice floated through the door, muffled.   "Come on, Subject Six," it said. Tristan's heart leaped into his throat and his stomach twisted into a tight knot, making him feel sick. They were taking her.   Unable to do anything about it, Tristan leaned back against the wall, drawing his legs away from the bed's edge, and raised his eyes to the ceiling, listening as two sets of footsteps left their corridor.