1906 [h.s.]

twenty-three

All of sudden, we weren't next to each other anymore. Doctors and nurses had come out of the doors on each side of the corridor and had grasped the both of us, separating us.

Don't resist, I told myself as I remembered what Harry had told me, comply and nothing bad will happen to you. I stopped moving all of sudden, surprising myself and the nurses, that subconsciously loosened their grip on my arms and waist. My eyes went to look at the clock that by then I knew was in the corridor. We only had thirty minutes. I looked back at the scene that was taking place around me.

Differently from what he had told me, Harry hadn't surrendered to them, but was trashing around, trying to free himself from their grip. Maybe he knew that our time was running out? He screamed as one of the doctors pressed him against the wall trying to limit his movements, and one of the nurses that was holding me still went to help her coworkers with taming the man.

A doctor, tired of his behaviour, kicked him in the ribs, and Harry fell to the ground, completely breathless for a few seconds. They took it as their opportunity to kick him some other times, making sure he would've stayed down.

"Harry!" I shouted at the top of my lungs, trying to reach out to him to see if he was okay as I saw his pained expression right before he shielded his face from getting hit with his arm, but there was no use, as I felt their grip tighten on me once again as they halfway dragged me into the room to get me further away from the man curled up on the floor.

He looked up, and in the second he realised what was happening, he stood up with all the strength he had left, and attempted to reach out to me. Our fingers barely touched before he was violently pushed against the stone wall, so hard that I feared his ribs would've cracked. He shouted my name, trying to push the nurses away from his body.

All of sudden, I saw something happen in the corner of my vision. A nurse had pulled a syringe out, and she was filling it with a substance that I couldn't recognise.

"You fucking don't!" I shouted just as she walked to Harry and injected it into his neck, before walking away just as fast.

The scene calmed down almost instantly as the substance had its effect on him. The roles were inverted, I was the one screaming and thrashing around as his actions slowed down and then, in just a few seconds, he fell loudly to the floor, none of the doctors around him stopping his fall.

"What the fuck have you done to him!" I shouted watching his unmoving body on the ground, trying desperately to free myself from their grasp to run to his side. "You had no fucking right! You had no fucking right!"

"Stop moving or you'll end up just like him" one of the doctors said into my ear.

I turned around and I looked at him straight in the eyes. "Fuck you" I spat.

He raised his hand as if to slap me, but he never got to do it.

A loud shout echoed from somewhere else in the asylum, and the people that were holding me down rushed in the direction it came from, probably expecting the nurses around Harry to take care of me as well.

I looked behind, not moving, spying what they were doing. As I saw that they were completely engrossed in trying to lift Harry to take him away I slid against the wall and made it around the corner, discovering a large and desert hallway.

I heard the sound of steps coming closer and I rushed into the first room that didn't look like a holding cell, closing the door behind myself. I leant against it, looking around. The room was huge, and it didn't take me long to realise that I had already seen that place.

On the opposite wall there was a huge window, from which I could see the night sky outside. In the middle of the room there was a desk, with many files and a lit candle on it. On each side of the room there were bookshelves, full of what looked like books, papers and binders.

The Main Office.

I heard the sound of steps outside coming closer, and I scrambled to hide behind the desk in case someone had come inside. When the steps faded away I rushed in a standing position in the middle of the room, trying to figure out the next move. I glanced at the orange-yellowish light of the candle on the desk, that trembled slightly as I stepped closer.

I hit my leg against something and hissed in surprise at the touch. I looked down, realising that what I had hit was an open drawer. I kneeled and widened my eyes as I recognised the paper inside.

Even though the paper wasn't yellowish and ruined, I could see it was the same one from the black letters right on top of it.

Project Black Widow.

I slowly took it out, putting it on the desk. When I had seen that folder, over a century in the future, it had been empty. I wondered if that one was too.

I opened it, and discovered it was anything but empty.

The first paper had "Eastmount Psychiatric Hospital" written at the top of the page in all caps, as every paper I had found in the building usually did. Right under, the name of the project was listed again. Under, there was a long list of names, followed by the date of birth of the patient, the date of admission, the date of disappearance and the eventual additional information.

Not seeing Harry's name anywhere, I checked the other sheets. There were four sheets full of names, and every paper had around ten names. In total, forty patients seemed to belong to the project. Surprisingly enough, the names weren't listed in alphabetical order, or in any order at all, for the matter.

It took a couple minutes to find Harry's name, on the third page. I read through the information fast, since I had already seen it in Harry's file before, but stopped as I realised that there were no additional information about him. I shrugged it away and went ahead to read the papers. I frowned as I realised that there was no description of what the project consisted in. It should've been reported.

When I turned the page I suddenly realised that the Project Black Widow had little to do with medicine. On the final two papers there was the same list of names, this time in alphabetical order, each one followed by a single date and a time. I wondered what the date next to each one. Was it the date of discharge of the patient? I couldn't remember seeing something like that in the previous list. Curiously, I read the first name and the date, and went to see if it matched something on the first list.

It took a while to find the name, but when I did, a cold shiver ran down my spine. I went back to the second list and read another name, before checking it in the first list, discovering the exact same thing. I checked some more, feeling my heartbeat fasten up as the realisation downed on me.

They all matched the time of disappearance.

Maybe the second is a list of people who disappeared? I asked myself. I counted the names on the first page of the second list, they were twenty. The second page seemed to have about the same number. The second list had all the names of the first list, none was missing.

The realisation that I was looking at something bigger than I thought starting to slide into my mind, I checked all the dates on the first page. Some dates were before the day I currently was in, but others were after. Nobody could predict the date of disappearance of everyone with such a precision. I widened my eyes when I suddenly remembered the graveyard. The numbers matched. What I was looking at was a hit list.

I looked at the bottom of the second page searching for Harry's name and when I found it my blood ran cold. The date and time next to his name spoke clear.

6th October 1906, 00:05.

I looked at the clock ticking on the side of the room. It was twenty minutes to midnight. I had to find Harry.

And then, all the lights turned off.