Chapter 7 :The white Noise
383 Words
The hospital was too white. It was a sterile, stinging contrast to the dark, rotting wood of the house, but Chloe still didn't feel safe. Every time she walked past a window or a polished floor, she looked away. She didn't want to see what was waiting on the other side of the glass.
She sat by her mother’s bed in Room 402. The only sound was the rhythmic hiss-click of the ventilator and the steady, artificial beep of the heart monitor. Her mother looked smaller than Chloe remembered. Her skin was the color of old parchment, and her hands were curled into tight, defensive fists even in her sleep
The doctors called it a "fugue state" caused by extreme trauma. They talked about shock, adrenaline, and memory loss. They didn't talk about debts or entities made of broken glass.
"I saved us, Mom," Chloe whispered, reaching out to touch her mother’s hand. "I broke the mirrors. I fired the gun. It’s gone."
But as her fingers brushed her mother's skin, the heart monitor began to spike. Beep-beep-beep-beep.
The green line on the screen jagged upward, forming sharp, triangular peaks. Chloe froze. She looked at the monitor, and her breath caught in her throat. The line wasn't just measuring a heartbeat anymore. The spikes were forming letters.
N-O-T O-V-E-R.
Chloe backed away, her chair scraping loudly against the linoleum. She looked at her mother’s face. Her mother’s eyes were still closed, but a single tear of black, oily liquid leaked from the corner of her left eye.
The television in the corner of the room flickered to life, filling the small space with loud, crashing static. Through the gray noise, a face began to form—the melting, wax-like face of the Original.
"The house is a memory, Chloe," the television hissed through the static. "And memories don't need walls to live. They live in the blood. They live in the reflection."
Chloe looked at the stainless steel water pitcher on the bedside table. In its curved, reflective surface, she didn't see the hospital room. She saw the hallway of the house. She saw herself standing at the top of the stairs, holding a candle, her eyes completely black.
The debt hadn't been settled. It had just been moved to a new account.
- Writer
