To Kill a Cactus - Dark Matter part 4

Dark Matter part 3: HERE

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The hallways were filled with people, the nurses were walking back and forth, they were all talking, a quiet buzz filled the room, so many words that I didn't understand. When we passed people, they would look at us, almost as if they wanted to judge me, but they weren't allowed. I still didn't know the man's name that I was walking next to, unlike everyone else, he wasn't wearing a name tag. He did seem like someone who would be in charge in that place.

We moved all the way to the end of the corridor, there was an elevator, we got in and I could feel my nerves kick in, after all, I barely knew this person, what he was just going to drag me somewhere to kill me or do some crazy experiments on me, I peeked over to his face, he seemed so calm as if nothing could ever bother him, he didn't look like a murderer though, so I felt slightly less worried. My brain did manage to think about a million different other scary scenarios that could happen instead. Once the door opened again I felt like a nervous mess.

He stepped out and I stumbled in the same direction behind him. We were in a large open office, the windows were open, so a breeze ran all the way through the room, it was colder than I had expected, he moved to the bookshelf that covered the entire wall. I loved books, they weren't quite as popular among most people anymore, so I was surprised to see that he had so many.

I wanted to say something, but all the words were stuck somewhere in the back of my throat since when I opened my mouth only warm air came out. I almost thought that he had forgotten that I was there, he was just staring at his wall of books. I didn't know if I should just stand there, sit down, go to him, so I slowly stepped towards him.

"I know that you must have a lot of questions," he said without looking at me.

Quite honestly at that moment, my mind was completely blank, but I nodded nonetheless because I figured I must have had a lot of questions had my brain not been so dead frozen.

"I don't know how to answer all of them, there are things that are happening and a lot of it, we don't know about. I hope that perhaps you can help me," he added pulling out an old black book and placed it on the desk in front of us.

I had absolutely no idea what he thought I could help him with. I stood there rolling the bottom edge of my shirt nervously as I had done ever since I was little.

He slid his fingers over the pages quickly until he found what he was looking for. He turned the book towards me and stared at me a little too enthusiastically. There was a drawing of a beautiful woman in a red dress on the page he had turned to, she had long light brown hair, that was perfectly wavy and framed her heart-shaped face, her bright blue eyes were curved into a smile and she stood confidently by a window. I didn't think that was what he wanted me to look at, so I read the text. 

It declared: "One day when all of us are ill, there'll be a cure and she shall be the death of Me, the death of our kind and the Fire and the End and all shall be as it should be."

I was very confused, I read it over and over again, but it just made no sense, I looked up at the man, I was more certain by the minute that he was mental.

"Can't you see it?" he asked, I looked back at the pages in front of me, but I was oblivious to what he wanted me to see.

"Not really," I answered.

Somehow that made him smile, he pulled out a large mirror on wheels out from the corner and set it up right beside him.

"You look exactly like her," he said and pointed at the picture in the book.

I couldn't help but burst out in laughter: "I look nothing like her."

I looked at the photo and then myself in the mirror, I was a tiny girl, tangled dirty hair, baggy white hospital pyjamas and dark under eye circles, I had none of the glamour and elegance of the woman in the book. 

"Maybe you don't see it, but everyone else can and they believe that you want to kill everyone," he said in his usual calm voice.

I felt a wave of shivers go over my body, the fact that anyone could think that I'd hurt them seemed like such a ridiculous statement. I once organised a burial for an ant that I accidentally stepped on, hurting another living being was against all my beliefs. I didn't know if I should laugh or cry or run away, so I just stood there as if someone had hit me in the head.

"I don't..."I started, but I could feel tears coming to my eyes and I didn't want to break down. I stared down at the well-carpeted floor, it was a nice carpet, looked expensive, the floral design reminded me of a time when I sat in our garden without a worry in the world, I wished I could've been there instead of standing on this well-carpeted floor.

"I know that you don't want to, I have looked into your past as well as your future and I doubt that pain is something that you'd be able to inflict," he said in a low calming voice, he had suddenly got a lot closer to me than I had realised.

"What do you mean by that? My future?" I barely whispered and looked up at him.

"I have something else to tell you as well," he stated and turned away to sit at the table near us. I followed him there. For the first time, I saw that he was a little worried. I was quite certain by then that everything was not right with him, but what he said still surprised me.

"I am infected," he declared, he didn't look at me, his eyes were fixed on something further than the window or the scenery behind it. 

I knew I should've been afraid, he could turn into a monster any minute, but I felt like what he said had a different weight, there was more to it, so I sat and listened to what he had to say.

...

To Be Continued