"Oh the Devil's gonna make me a free man, yeah, the Devil's gonna set me free..."
Hans heard the shaky baritone of the patient next door first thing in the morning, like he did every morning. The man, Christopher as he was called, had some sort of severe panic disorder and was often found in the corner of his room, singing low tunes to himself in an exaggerated southern drawl that put Johnny Cash to shame. Like a lot of people who knew the truth, he hated that moment between dark and light in the mornings when the real horrors of the world pulled back in favour of dark acolytes doing their bidding in plain sight.
People who were afraid of the night were so easily fooled by the morning. Hans had learned that the hard way.
So he awoke at the break of dawn like he always did, and felt blessed that his noisy companion at the very least had a passable singing voice. Though the songs he sang were rarely of the positive variety, today it seemed particularly dark. He decided have to have a talk with him later that day.
"Ain't got no place to call our home, only chains and broken bones. Ain't got no place to call our own, so come on, Lord, what are you waiting for?"
As time crawled towards morning and breakfast-time, he finally heard signs of life outside as the nightwatch staff was exchanged for the tired and drawn faces of the early shift. Starting at the end of the hall, patients were ordered out of bed as their rooms were given a quick once-over. Then, in a line, they would march for the breakfast area. Then they would spend the day in the common room until dinner. Then, group therapy, then, supper, and bed. And the day would begin again.
And again, and a-fucking–gain.
He leaned against the frame of the door while his room was searched, his gaze fastened blankly ahead while the next nurse went to drag Christopher out of his foetal position on the floor. However, as the door was opened, the grown man paused momentarily and stared into the room. Hans only just had the time to turn toward him before the nurse let out a high-pitched, horrified scream and staggered backwards into the patient on the opposite side. The patient, in turn, thought they were playing a game and began matching his screaming– the echo of which were heard down the hall and started an immense choir that could deafen and unsettle the bravest of men.
Carefully, while the nurses were trying to calm their colleague and by extension, the entire fucking ward, Hans approached Christopher's door and looked in. There, in his foetal position as always, Christpher lay on the floor. His hands lay slack, bathed in a pool of his own blood, stretched out in front of him. The blood in question was still pumping from the wound where he'd scratched open his throat.
Hans immediately stepped aside and threw up in front of his own door.
* * *
"How are you feeling today?"
Hans continued staring at some random spot on the doctor's desk. His hands folded in his lap, still covered in some of Christopher's blood after he'd gone over to see if he was really dead. Things got a bit blurry from the point where he made contact with his wrist, and the angle of the corner of the room began to swim, forming shadows that seemed to reach across the room for him– or for Christopher.
"Do you remember what happened?" A nurse said. She'd been nearby when it happened, and provided the doctor with a verbal report.
"I might've screamed," he said.
"You said there were more of them," she said, checking her notes. "That they were here too."
"Mm," Hans said. Something had been in there with Christopher, that much was certain. Possibly the same thing that had, had– but he wasn't supposed to think about that. That hadn't really happened.
"Hans?"
Unless, of course, it had really happened, and this was some sort of, of extension. That when he'd left the house he taken something with him, that had killed Christopher, and would kill others, and was the room darker? He looked up, searching for the window to see if the sun was still out. It was definitely darker. He felt his heart beating faster, and got out of the chair. He had to get out. It was probably here with him. He sprang towards the door.
