Total pages in book: 48
Estimated words: 44459 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 222(@200wpm)___ 178(@250wpm)___ 148(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 44459 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 222(@200wpm)___ 178(@250wpm)___ 148(@300wpm)
There was a body on the table. The man’s chest cavity was wide open, and it was so convincing, I questioned for a moment if it was real.
Earlier, I might have scoffed at the scene, thinking this was more standard haunted-house fare, but now I knew better. Void loved to set up expectations only to tear them down and bring on the real scare.
It made me doubt my reality more with every scene I experienced.
The nurse abandoned me at the edge of the partition and helped the doctor lift his last “patient” off the table. They callously dumped him in the corner with a heavy thud before their attention swung back to me.
“Get on the table,” the doctor ordered.
The constant surges of adrenaline had taken a toll, and I wavered. My fight-or-flight instinct wanted to kick in, and it took every ounce of strength not to bolt for the door on the other side of the operating area.
It’s not real.
I repeated it as a mantra while I trudged to the table and climbed on, grimacing at how it was sticky with blood.
“Lie back,” the doctor ordered.
His eyebrows were dark and bushy, and I focused on them rather than the way my chest rose and fell with my shallow breaths. While he began his visual examination, the nurse tugged at the laces of my shoes, undoing them. Off my borrowed boots came, followed by my socks, and being barefoot was a horrifying new kind of vulnerable.
Running would be harder, slowing my escape, if I chose that option.
My thoughts scattered when the doctor put his hands on me, checking the lymph nodes in my neck and then tilting my chin up.
What the fuck?
I gagged when he shoved two of his gloved fingers in my mouth, all the way to the last knuckle. Having a stranger put their fingers in me was a violation that turned my stomach, and the gloves had a coppery taste just like real blood would.
The way I recoiled irritated him. One of the doctor’s thick eyebrows arched as he drew his fingers away. “Keep still.”
He turned to the cart beside him, fished a cotton ball out of a jar, and then used a dropper from an amber glass bottle to douse it with a few drops of clear liquid. The smell of alcohol was strong, and I flinched when the doctor smeared it over my bicep.
The needle he picked up off the cart was fake, but it looked very real and sharp.
When it was plunged into my arm, it probably didn’t pierce the skin, but my brain made it feel that way. My vision blurred from the stress, and I had to blink rapidly to refocus on the doctor, who was backlit by the glaring light overhead.
“I’ll need to cut the evil out,” he remarked, either to me or the nurse—I couldn’t tell.
My eyes slammed shut. If I could hold on and make it through this, I’d see Chelsea again, and I wouldn’t waste any more time. I’d ask her out or at least ask for her number. I focused on that, on how I’d do it—
A saw whirred to life, and my eyes snapped open, but I only caught a glimpse of the handheld device because the doctor grabbed the hem of my shirt and stretched it up over my head, covering my face. Blood roared in my ears, and my heart pounded as the vibrating saw drew closer to my bare, exposed chest.
When it touched me, I jerked away, nearly falling off the table. Its blade hadn’t cut me, but like the needle, my mind had made it real. Too real. I could still feel the spot on my chest where it had touch me, all warm and tingling.
My shirt was jerked back down, and I stared wide-eyed up at the doctor, whose expression was furious.
“I can’t help you.” His attention lifted to the nurse at the end of the table. “He’ll need to go downstairs and be cleansed with the others.”
“Yes, Doctor,” she said, jumping into action.
I was wobbly when she pulled me off the table, and it was almost embarrassing the way I hung on her until we were through the door. I had to fight to get my legs under me; I was in overload, and my systems were shutting down one by one.
“Go down the hall”—the nurse’s tone was gruff—“and take the elevator to the second floor.” She didn’t wait to see if I understood. She turned on her heel and went back into the operating room before shutting the door behind herself.
My weary gaze swept over my new surroundings.
The hallway was straight out of a horror movie.
What had probably once been a lavishly decorated place was now all peeling wallpaper, dirty carpet, cobwebs, and tarnished light fixtures. To my right, the hallway ended, and a massive full-length mirror hung there with an elaborate gold frame.