The Dark Ones

     She woke up with a wild scream and she knew it has happened again. Sweat streamed down her neck like water leaking from a cracked pot. Her breath was laboured and her heart drummed endlessly in her chest. Rue sat up on her hospital bed. There was a stark silence to the entire building which was not uncommon for a recovery ward at twilight. A familiar emotion was swelling within her again and this time it felt no different than the last. It felt like some part of her has been ripped away. There was no doubt in her heart that it has come out again, this time to hunt, and she had to find it before it hurts someone. She pulled the needle from a drip stuck in her arm and stepped down from the bed. Her bare feet pressed upon the cold floor as she made an exit from the ward. She was welcomed into a long hallway by flickering lights from long fluorescent bulbs lined along the roof. The floor was littered with fallen chairs, papers, garbage bins, and broken glasses. There were no chatters from waiting patients or hums of mechanical devices, just dead silence. All around, the walls screamed at her, voiceless, yet hinting to a darkness that had emptied the hallway. This was not the first time it had escaped her. She had named it The Dark Passenger, an embodiment of her darker side who was a secret only known to her and her parents. It had incubated in her for sixteen years and the first time it came out, her brother, Ray, was left a brainless vegetable drooling on a wheelchair. Rue edged past the debris on the floor and made her way down to the reception hall. She stopped suddenly. Her gaze lashed to something up the wall. It seemed like a nurse hanging inverted with her arms spread out. Her vision blurred in the partial darkness, so Rue moved further and concentrated. The nurse was dead. Dark smoke escaped from the corpse. Her skin was stuck to her bones, her eyes burned out, leaving nothing but hollow sockets. It seemed as if she had aged to a century within minutes and died. It begged the question, what could have done this? But Rue knew the answer. The corpse dropped from the wall and landed on the floor. Rue jerked backwards. A chill went down her spine. It has never killed before, only maimed its victims, and for the first time she felt true fear. She continued down the hall, walking carefully, and observing. A shrill cry tore through the hall. It was coming from a room at the end. She followed quickly with little concern to the debris scattered on the floor. Broken glasses pricked her feet as she ran. Her mind sank back to the last few hours, how she had lost control and let it escape her again. It could only be free when she found herself in a deep sleep, but Rue has been careful, very careful since the last time. Powerful hospital anaesthetic could be blamed this time, if only she knew how she got to be on a hospital bed at first. The scream tore down the hall again, sounding much louder and closer. She reached the door at the end and forced it open with her shoulder. Rue froze. A gaunt figure held a woman in its skinny arms. It was difficult to see its face as thick black vapors escaped its body like smoke from a burning wood. It didn't turn to look at her but instead latched tightly to the woman's skin. A stream of white fluid light escaped from the woman and as more left her body she grew paler. Rue knew the woman was dying. The creature didn't seem anything like the one that escapes her body when she lost control. This was different, darker, and far more ruthless. Perhaps, it was the same one, for she knew little about her dark passenger. The woman's breath was growing weaker, her screams waning. Her tender skin faded quickly and shrunk like she has aged within minutes. It was like her life-force was been sucked out of her in streams of bright white jelly. Rue bent and picked the half shard of a broken mug. She threw it at the gaunt shadow. The fiend raised its head and turned at her--- much faster than she could blink her eyes. There was no recognition on its hollow face. The woman's body escaped its withered arms and dropped to the floor with a bang. It charged towards Rue, feet barley touching the floor. She turned to run. Her foot slipped off spilled water on the tile and she fell. In half a heartbeat, a shadowy darkness crept upon her. Within it was a face she could not make out. Wispy dark tentacles latched on to her flesh and then her chest jerked upwards. A part of her was being separated from her body. She felt it, her soul fleeing in a painful extraction. Her mind was being erased of all her memories both happy and sad. She was bombarded by flushes of different emotions, each one leaving her and never returning. The faster her heartbeat in anxiety, the weaker she became. Then the fiend stopped suddenly. It pulled its head farther from her like it had tasted something bitter while it fed. "Get away from her!" a voice screamed. Its grip loosened on Rue's body and she fell on the floor. She turned her head weakly and caught a boy in her blurry sight, standing by the doorway. The fiend moved its gaunt figure over her body and reached towards the boy. A beam of light flooded into the room and the fiend halted in its track. It shrieked so loud, shattering all the windows in the room. Pieces of broken glasses danced on the floor beside her. An acrid stench wafted past her nose. The light was hurting the fiend, burning out the smoky veil that cloaked its figure in darkness. Its screams ascended, louder and louder, vibrating the furniture and felling whatever was on it. Rue managed to cover her ears with her fingers. The smell of burnt flesh thickened in the air. As the light burnt away the trailing darkness that cloaked the fiend, for a moment, Rue eyes caught a human face. The fiend turned away from the light and ran towards a window. It broke through the shards of glasses stuck to the frame and escaped into the night. A bad ache hammered in Rue's head and her sight blurred deeper. She heard the stranger's footfalls as he approached her. His voice echoed, but all were like a jumble of jargons hitting her ears. She tried hard to see, but all she managed was the figure of a boy leaving through the door. Wailing sirens of Serpent's Creek sheriff cars sounded in the distance. Rue fell back on the floor and her mind escaped into darkness.