Reina massaged her wrists and lay down on the bed, glancing out the balcony. The evening was dark, the starless sky reflecting her mood as she indulged in memories of the previous day.
After her bizarre outburst, the doctor had untied her and, without adding a word to what she'd revealed, had asked her to return to her room. Surprised, she'd stared at him for a long moment, but he'd remained silent, so she'd climbed off the stretcher and walked toward her only refuge in that gloomy building.
She couldn't tell if this attitude was due to his skepticism about ghosts or if he was considering a more severe treatment. Since she'd candidly admitted she saw ghosts, it wasn't a pleasant situation.
She sighed, berating herself for how naive she'd been.
"I'll never leave this place again, and it'll be all your fault!" She muttered.
"I didn't mean to hurt you. I thought she'd understand…" Luca apologized, looking contrite.
"He's an authority figure, and you have a weakness for white coats. Maybe in your era, that would have been understandable, but for people like me, I'm the enemy."
She glared at her friend and immediately felt guilty. Luca just wanted to help her, but he didn't know the pitfalls of her world; he was a simple soul.
"And yet he let you go."
"And that worries me. I fear he's thinking of locking me up somewhere in Block D, practically hell for those who live here."
She stood up and walked over to her desk, took a thick notebook with a combination lock from a drawer, and clutched it to her chest, thoughtfully. If only they'd read it...
She'd started keeping that sort of diary when her nightmares became more vivid, and writing down what she saw and heard made her doubt her sanity less.
The first signs of it had come when they'd moved from Cincinnati to Louisville, following her mother's marriage to that idiot Dean. Leaving the city, her grandmother, and her friends had been very trying, but they were all convinced that, being a sociable girl, it would help her settle in.
One afternoon, her new classmates had invited her to visit the Witches' Tree on Sixth Street, as per local tradition, and urged her to leave something of hers to receive the witches' blessing. She had taken off a bracelet with little bells from her grandmother and tied it to a branch, but she felt an unpleasant chill at the touch. She hadn't said anything to the others, but had pulled her jacket tighter and walked away. At that moment, even though there was no wind, the bells had begun to tinkle, and she had stopped in surprise. Ashley, however, had begun to skip around, saying it was a rare event and that the witches had bestowed their blessing on them, thanks to that small gift. She had pretended to believe her, a strange lump tightening in her throat. Back home, before she could even go inside, her mother had run out, crying. She had held her tightly, telling her that her grandmother was dead. As if a chasm had opened beneath her feet, she had felt faint with pain. She remembered the bells ringing again, and, tearing herself from her mother's arms, she had run to the tree to retrieve the bracelet. But she had been unable to retrieve it, despite her efforts, until the string snapped and the bells fell to the lawn, emitting a hollow sound, like something breaking forever. If the universe had exploded, it wouldn't have had that impact, as heart-rending screams had poured into her head, overwhelming her with pain and making her faint.
She woke up in the hospital, with her pale mother at her bedside, clutching her hand tightly. She had told her that passersby had found her unconscious in the street and had taken her to Kindred Hospital in an ambulance. Remembering what had happened to her and her grandmother's death, she had burst into tears, knowing it was her fault, because parting with her gift was as if she had given the life of the dearest person in the world to the witches and that hallucinatory tree.
She hadn't said anything to her mother, keeping that dramatic event in her heart and withdrawing into a profound silence. Upon returning home, she had begun to see the first shadows. They were pale presences that she could only make out in the periphery of her vision, but they disappeared when she turned around. But she knew they were still there, she felt it from their cold touches on her shoulders or legs, which wrung screams from her and caused moments of genuine terror.
When, exhausted, she finally confessed to her family doctor, she was diagnosed with a mirror neuron disorder, which caused her visions. They described a phenomenon that led to sleep paralysis, causing a person to remain alert even when asleep. When awake, her dreams seemed vivid and transformed into hypnotic hallucinations that led her to believe there were presences in the room. It was likely due to the emotional trauma that had struck her, so they prescribed her various medications. But the presences didn't disappear; on the contrary, it seemed the substances she was taking made her nightmares more intense and bold. Her screams increased, and every time they tried to grab her, their energy caused her pain and made her faint. They had admitted her to the psychiatric ward, keeping her sedated for most of the time, but in the few moments of lucidity, she found herself staring at muffled shadows, with human faces, but with empty eye sockets and her mouth wide open in a heart-rending scream.
It had been a terrible time, and after six months, she had been diagnosed with schizophrenia or degenerative dementia. The facility was no longer able to allow her a longer stay, so she was taken to the sanatorium and left in the care of Dr. Arkham. He had seemed like a very helpful doctor, who had been very patient with her, but by now confessing to seeing ghosts, he no longer placed her in a favorable position.
She sat on the edge of the bed, glancing at Luca, who seemed hypnotized by the glass of the balcony.
"And who is that?" he asked curiously.
"Where?" she asked, perplexed, turning in the direction indicated.
Crouched against the glass, a boy was watching her, even more astonished than she was. Their eyes locked, and Reina cried out.
"What the hell...?"
She jumped up, hiding the book under the mattress, as the young man quickly got up and began climbing over the balcony to escape.
"He was looking at me... He saw me!" the ghost muttered in astonishment.
"What?" she asked, shocked, turning to him. "How can he see you?"
"I don't know, but his eyes were on me."
Without hesitation, the young woman opened the French window and looked out. She watched him quickly descend, using the scaffolding attached to the nearby tower. She assessed his movements and then climbed over the railing, remaining balanced in the void. She gripped the handrail tightly, swayed slightly to reach the scaffolding, and dropped onto a wooden plank. She stood up too quickly and slipped, falling onto the lower plank and hitting her shoulder. A cry of pain escaped her and she clutched her arm, trying to get up.
A movement and she found him in front of her, staring at her curiously.
"So you're not a real angel," she stated, smiling.
"Excuse me?" she rebuked him, livid.
"James says you're a superdimensional being, that you speak to other worlds, and you're a captive angel." He laughed, offering her a hand to help her.
She considered his gesture, but brushed it aside and stood up alone, in pain.
"What drugs does your friend take?" she replied angrily.
"Former heroin addict, but he's clean," she laughed.
"Oh, that explains the delirium. What about you?"
"No drugs. I have visions from beyond the grave," she admitted, shrugging.
Reina raised an eyebrow.
"Really?" she teased him.
"How else would I have seen your friend?" he commented.
She ran a hand across her forehead, and her shoulder stung. She muttered a curse word angrily.
"Come on, we need to put some ice on that bruise. I'll help you up," he offered, approaching, but she pushed him away.
"Don't you dare come to my room again!" she threatened.
"Or your ghost will jump on me?"
He started laughing, and she couldn't help but get annoyed.
How was it possible that that strange guy was seeing Luca?
"I've never betrayed your secret, and until today you hadn't even noticed me," he confided, changing his tone and lowering his voice. "But now, if we don't want to find all the security guards in the building on us, we'd better go up."
Having nothing to say, she continued climbing the scaffolding, supported at the most difficult points by the young man. When they reached the balcony, they heard voices and took refuge in the room, closing the shutters. There was a commotion on the lawn, several voices, which then faded away.
"Who the hell are you?" Reina snapped, pointing a finger at him.
"Ah sorry, that's right! I'm Alan, but everyone calls me Pardo," he replied, holding out a hand. "Nice to meet you. Really."
"Pardo, huh? The one who stole the photosensitive additive from the radiology unit and lit up the lawn to create a lunar landscape?" she teased him amusedly, shaking his hand.
"I'm shocked. How do you know it was me?"
"The community is small, people gossip," she teased.
"Trusting drug addicts and crazy people, what bad people!" he laughed amusedly, shrugging his shoulders.
"I am..."
"Reina, the queen of angels, according to James. But I think I'll have to shatter his dreams," he interrupted.
"Why does he think I'm an angel?" she asked curiously, frowning.
"You arrived tied up on a stretcher, dressed in white, with your hair blowing in the wind, and you were screaming for release, that the dead wanted you and that you had to go back to someone up there, but we didn't figure out who it was. James said you were beautiful and that you'd definitely fallen from the sky."
She smiled amusedly.
"If he can see all these beautiful things, I guess I should have done heroin too."
"And what do they give you instead? Antipsychotics like Aripiprazole, Asenapine, Clozapine, Lurasidone?"
"You're an expert, I see, but I don't take anything. Since I arrived, I've spit out everything they gave me," she confessed proudly.
"But aren't you in therapy?" she asked, perplexed.
"How long have you been here?" she teased him.
Pardo grimaced before confessing.
"Eight years."
"How many people have you seen cured in these eight years? Those who left the facility, I mean."
"No one," he breathed resignedly.
"There, you've got the answer," she admitted with satisfaction.
She got up and went to the bathroom, grabbed a wet towel, and draped it over her shoulder.
"How long have you been spying on me?" she asked.
"Since the drama session."
Reina frowned and tried to remember. They'd put on a role-playing play several months earlier, but she hadn't actively participated and didn't remember him.
"I was the one in the tree," she admitted nonchalantly.
The girl started laughing.
"But you know, I've been wondering for weeks whether there was someone in that tree or was it just me seeing it moving?"
"I confirm, you're not crazy," she laughed, flopping onto the sofa.
"No, I only see ghosts... and apparently you too."
"Not all of them, only those with great psychic energy, like him," she replied, pointing to Luca, who was standing against the wall, spying on them furtively. "I'd never seen him before."
"Luca's been with me for almost a year," she remembered.
"So you brought him with you?"
"No, he's one of the guys from the institute."
Pardo nodded thoughtfully. "Really? How did his energy increase to make him visible?"
"I don't understand."
"If he's a native, I should have sensed it the moment I came in. I see many of the others, but he was unknown to me, which is why I thought he was yours, a relative, a lost friend. But if that's not the case, it means his psychic energy has increased, and he owes it to you."
Reina searched for Luca.
"How would I have done it?"
"I don't know, unless... Did you touch him?"
"Y-yes, why?" she stammered, surprised.
"You sensitized him, and that allows me to see him. But this way, he's in danger; the other spirits can attack him to steal the energy that makes him visible to humans."
"I didn't know," he defended himself.
"You gave him an imprint that makes him different from the others. You must have some special power..." he murmured thoughtfully, scrutinizing her.
"I have nothing! In fact, I have a curse that forces me to see shadows and hear their horrid moans," she blurted out, exasperated.
"Do you hear voices? And what do they say?" she was surprised.
"They just scream. They make my head explode! I don't understand a single word they say, and it all makes me sick."
"I only see shadows floating like pale, jagged sheets. I don't see their faces, their features, but I feel their presence. Do you think anyone understands their language?" he confided to her.
"If you understand their language, you're dead," Luca sighed, stepping forward.
"What does that mean?" the girl asked.
"Not all ghosts are like me. I speak your language because I'm forgotten, but the shadows you see are those of the damned who want to go towards the light and instead are forced to stay here."
Reina repeated the words to the boy, who fell silent.