Guiding Light || OC x Draco Malfoy

Chapter 16:

The magic that had been uneasily shifting under my skin before was now ramming against my skin in ways that actually made my flesh visibly bend and contort. The feeling wasn't bad though. In fact, the burning pressure was empowering more than anything. It made me feel like I was still in control, and it reminded me that with a simple force of will, that feeling would become fact.

My senses shut off; I wanted to scream at them, and hit them, and hurt them. But my mouth stayed glued shut, and my body remained still. Hermione looked like she had just won the biggest lottery pot, and Dr. Lavania appeared as worried and anxious as he had been before the truth bomb got dropped in the little exam room. I saw their lips moving, but I heard no noise. It wasn't being drowned out by blood rushing to my head or my mind screaming at me or anything like that. My ears shut themselves off and my head was filled with the lovely sound of nothingness.

My eyes must have closed themselves as well, because eventually the image of them faded from me as well. The white noise coming in from my ears and the darkness from my sealed eyelids swirled together and made a perfect yin-yang in my head. Perfectly serene nothingness, and crushingly oppressive weight. Balance. Perfect balance that swarmed through my body, stirring everything that had been settled. Old memories, faces, and conversations, along with powers, spells, and training.

All of my senses returned at once, and my ears were filled with screams as my eyes landed on the dripping mass of blood and tissues that were now in Dr. Lavania's chair. Hermione, covered in his rich blood thanks to her close proximity, was shrieking bloody murder and staring at me in horror at what she just saw. The feeling to my skin came back slower than the others did, and I began to feel warmth running down my face when it did fully. Unfurling my tongue to reach one of the areas that I felt, the tangy metallic taste of Dr. Lavania's blood spread over the muscle. My pupils contracted as another flood of power surged through every one of my veins.

The guards that were waiting outside the door rushed in at the beacon of Hermione's shrieks, gasping and gagging at the sight in front of them. Carter and Alex moved to grab my arms, but the second they took a step, they collapsed to the floor like ragdolls, still breathing though. The same happened to Hermione and the other 3 backup guards that showed up, all falling to the floor like the bones had left their bodies spontaneously.

When I made to stand, I found that the several thick restraints holding me to the chair had dissolved off of me. I practically levitated out of the chair, my feet touching the floor to move me along, but my head so high in the clouds of power that things as menial as walking were the least of my worries. I maneuvered around the bodies, and stepped out into the hallway. Guards continued to rush at me, and every time they came near me, they bowed to my power, falling unconscious on the floor in my wake.

The path that led me here was easy to retrace. Up, down, over, over, here there, and around. My journey was smooth, and the occasional person that I came across was down before they could even get a good look at me. Now, I stood before my door. The room that I had been held prisoner in for over 6 months now. Where they had starved me, and tied me down, and treated me like I wasn't even a person anymore. My hand reached out to the outline of the panel and traced the length of it out of instinct. A faint green light emitted from the centimeter or so of space between the door and the wall. The smaller of the rectangles shifted inwards and moved to my right, disappearing from my sight.

I never moved from the doorway. The bed still had the impression of where I had laid not even an hour before. My blankets were still in a heap, and the four canvas straps of my restraints lay limp on the floor, just like the guards across the hospital and the discarded IV tube that still continued to drip onto the floor. I took one long, lasting look at my own personal prison, and then it went up in flames.

Turning away, I heard the crackling of the flame as it decimated the contents of the room as if it were made gasoline-soaked cotton. Everything was down to ashes in seconds, the way that magical fire often destroys. My personal prison was taken care of, but how much better was the whole hospital than just that room? Not very, at least in my opinion. The fire I started in there would definitely travel far, but it couldn't get the whole place on its own. I was more than prepared to help it along the way.

Now with no real plan on where to go, I began to wander around. Whatever psych ward I was in was very vast. In all the time I was wondering around, about 15 minutes if I had to wager a guess, I didn't come into contact with another soul. If I had half the mid to feel anything but numbingly raw power right now, I perhaps would have been creeped out. A little deja-vu from all of the horror films I watched growing up. Mind you, now I was in the perspective of the killer, and I was loving every second of it. Coming to a halt in front of a large set of metal doors, I finally turned around and looked back at the ever-expanding hallway that I had just walked down. I looked at all of the doors and lights and small details. Then the Linoleum tiles went up in flames and I was on the other side of the steel blocks in time to watch the entire space fill with flame.

Smiling at the soothing warmth of the metal my back was pressing against, I looked up and took in the new surroundings of my area. I was in a stairwell, one of the transition platforms, more specifically. Unlike the white and pristine finishing that all of the interior stairs had, the concrete steps were cracked, stained, raw, and chipped. To me, the most astounding part about this otherwise mundane setting was how it was presented to me. No harsh Lithium bulbs, or LEDs, or even fluorescents. Windows, honest-to-god windows, were cut into the walls, bringing in natural sunlight, something I hadn't truly seen in what felt like years.

Striding over to the mottled pane of glass, I looked out, seeing the rolling countryside of Northern France. I had to admit, it was a beautiful sight to behold. Towering green peaks that faded to white in the distance, fields of wildflowers and grasses, little dots of white, blue, and purple peppered the waves of flora. Blues skies blanketed with clouds softer than the sheets that were now torched to dust inside my room. The area was so serene that it seemed like it would be impossible for such total atrocities to take place inside it's rustic brick walls.

But they did happen, and there's nothing a calendar-worthy landscape job can do to change that. They held me prisoner, and erased all my memory of the one man that I had openly loved. They stole Anthony from my mind, and then took him out of this world to top it all off. I was never going to see him again, and there is nothing that can be done by anyone to change that. The doctors here can save lives if they teeter on the edge and mend a person with the wave of a stick, but there is nothing that can be done if the person is already gone.

Nothing.

I peeled myself away from the window and stood back on the center of the platform. Turning my head over my shoulder to peer out of the small window pane on the door, I could barely see the other side. The small space along the edges that weren't charred darker than my room last night were burning red like blood. Feeling my cheeks burn with the expansive width of my manic smile, I turned away and looked at the peeling paint of the banisters lining the stairs, deciding on the descending path and gliding down the steps in a matter of seconds. Once I got down a second and third set, I was met with another single door, made of the same painted metal as before.

I pushed in on the chrome bar and the resulting clicking noise confirmed that the door wasn't locked. Pushing the heavy door took a larger toll on my compromised muscles than I had first imagined, but I eventually pried it open and was slightly blown away by the sight that greeted me in the next room.