Chapter 11: She's Watching You

I awoke the next morning with a damp wash towel resting on my forehead, my body tucked beneath a white linen sheet. The darkness of my unconscious state broke as shards of light pierced my poor, unreadied eyes. When I first opened my eyes I thought I was back in my bedroom, watching the familiar white fins of a ceiling fan chase one another in an endless cycle. But that belief was quickly dispelled when I heard the groan of a nearby person, followed by the retching of one's stomach and the repugnant smell of vomit. Sliding my eyes to the side, I watched with no particular fascination as a young women in a white dressing gown bowed her head into a bucket presented in front of her. A nurse sat on a stool between our beds, holding the pail in hand.

I couldn't recall if it was the scent of the spit-up or the blinding white light which prompted my own gag reflex, but seconds later there was a puddle of brown mush on the floor. The nurse glanced at me and then at the floor. She didn't look disgusted or even angered rather she just looked exhausted by the whole ordeal. She was a year or two older than Christine, her pale skin unmarked by age and her dark were tresses pulled back into a white nursing cap but unlike the more senior nurses, she wore a dirtied apron and a pair of latex gloves. The same sort of gloves my mother used when cleaning the toilets.

There was a small slot in the wall beside our beds. In one flippant movement the nurse opened the door and threw the brown slush down the chute. The cots were similar to hospital beds, meaning they were hooked up to an IV and possessed a small remote with a series of unmarked buttons. She pushed a red button and two similarly dressed nurses ran over with a bucket of water and mop in hand.

"Look at me," the nurse slid her stool towards my cot and and flashed a small light at my pupils.

I cringed away but she held my chin in a firm grip, keeping me secured in place. She procured a long wooden stick from a pocket in her smock and forced it between my lips. She squeezed my jaw tightly, a silent sign for me to open up.

"A concussion," She diagnosed after checking my vitals. One of the nurses who had cleaned my vomit now stood behind her with a tablet in hand, recording every word she said.

She didn't say much. In fact, nobody said anything in the infirmary. A part from the tapping on the tablets and the occasional cough- the room remained deadly silent. Even the patient beside me fell quiet after trying to hack up her lung.

After the nurses left my side, I tried to get comfortable.

Flipping onto my stomach, I grabbed the wad of blankets behind my head, folded the fabric into a makeshift pillow and covered my ears. It didn't work. If anything it generated adverse effects as I managed to cut off my air supply. Groaning, I threw the blankets behind my head once more.

I didn't know exactly who was in charge here as the nurses all shared the same uniforms and blank stares. No one really stood out in this monochromatic wonderland. All personality and uniqueness faded to the color of the smog-filled sky. Even the other patients had this dull coloring to them as if Garrenbuck was slowly sucking the life from all of us. Which I'm sure that wasn't far from the truth.

"Ophelia..." said the girl, who lay beside me.

My head whipped to the side, perhaps a little too fast for my stomach's liking as it twisted in warning. In the cot beside mine was a ghastly representation of a once beautiful girl. Her skin was a grayish-translucent color, stretched across her bony figure with a light sheen of sweat covering her forehead. Her lips were chapped and raw and currently being worried between her front two teeth. It was her eyes, however, I found myself staring at in horror. They were cloudy, a milky white color, with no iris or pupil to be seen.

"Ophelia...." Her head moved from side to side as her hands fisted the white sheets wrapped around her body.

It was quite apparent to me that I did not know this girl and therefore she should not have known my name. And yet, she continued to call out for me in a broken cry, her voice hoarse as if she were choking back tears. There was nothing I wanted more than to jump out of the cot and run far, far away from the infirmary and the creepy blind girl. I had seen enough horror movies to know that when a random stranger begins to call out the main character's name, they have less than five seconds before they're killed. And despite everything that had happened in my life thus far, I did not want to die.

It was hard not to take notice to the lilac bracelet sliding down the length of her arm, clearly marking the stranger as a witch.

My knowledge of witches was scarce but I did know they possessed abilities that far extended human comprehension. They could see things that had yet to happen and move things with a simple thought in their mind. They possessed the strange phenomenon known as magic or as the government liked to call it- a demonic force of anti-nature.

"Y-yes?" My knuckles whitened as I grabbed the sheet draped across my body.

The girl gasped, her mouth opened wide as if someone had dropped an invisible weight on her stomach, "You're here. You're Ophelia."

"You know my name," I whispered. I stared at the closed door at the end of the hall, begging for a nurse to suddenly burst into the room.

"I keep seeing you... seeing her. She's watching you, waiting for you."

"What did you just say?" My eyes bulged from my head as I stared at the psychopath beside me.

She raised her hands to her head, her bony fingers digging into her temples. It was as if she was trying to claw her brain out of her skull. The door to the nurses' quarter finally burst open as two young women in pale, white caps and sodden aprons ran over to the witch. One of the women grabbed the black, leather stool from beneath the witch's cot. She pried her hands from her skull and after a slight struggle, managed to lock her wrists onto the bed with a pair of metal cuffs. The other nurse pulled a syringe from the pocket in her apron and without a second thought, plunged the six inch needle into the whimpering witch's chest.

"Ss-he will find you," The witch whispered so quietly I might not have heard if it weren't for the fact that I was now hyperaware of everything. The hair on the back of my neck was standing at full attention and goosebumps began to sprout along the length of my arms.

"Sit back," the nurse ordered me. It was only then did I realize that I had half risen from my bed, the sheets spilling on the ground near my swinging feet. I obeyed but only because I could feel the blood begin to rush from my head.

"You will be released tomorrow morning," The nurse informed me.

Before they left I looked over at the now sleeping witch. Even submerged deep beneath the waters of unconsciousness she still managed to look pained and scared.

"A fever," the nurse explained, "Don't listen to her, it's all nonsense."

That sounded like a perfectly reasonable explanation and at the moment, my sanity was more willing to believe that than work out the alternative. So, I nodded and sunk back into the hospital bed, keeping my stare trained on the tiled ceiling. Closing my eyes, I tried to quiet my thoughts and drift into some state of unconsciousness. That attempt was in vain but I remained like that for the rest of the night, with my eyes closed, arms by my side and mind wiped clean like a dry-erase board. My ears remained perked just in case the witch aroused from her drug induced haze but she remained quiet.

I was left to replay her words all alone in the dark.

She's watching you....waiting for you.

Even though I was convinced it was all just the blubbering of a deranged witch, I couldn't help but wonder who?

**So I am finally back my from my vacation and I thought I would give you guys this chapter early as a gift! I am really appreciating all the comments on the story, I am so happy that there are so many people engaged in the plot and intrigued by the characters. This has been a bit of a passion project for me and seeing this book reach over 5K reads in less than four weeks is crazy to me, and this book has trended pretty high on the hot list for Demons, Magic, and Witches. So thank you all for reading and waiting patiently for my updates!

XOXO,

Ro.**