We were going fast with the car after the ambulance raced to one of the three hospitals in Paladin. While Teresa was driving the car, I was just a little lost in myself; I couldn’t understand why he killed himself. He is an outsider like me. While the goblin was half human and I am a human, we don’t fit in with the ones living in Paladin. While I can walk outside the zone and return to reality in Stockholm, he has nowhere to go except for the outside village. Creatures or half-breeds who live together, but because of the aggressive behavior of a goblin and the human side of him, he must have felt lonely and an outcast. Same as me, a whole human with some small powers to protect creatures, people, or whatever others call it to keep the peace here. For the goblin to fall into darkness, eat people's faces, and do bad things means that this world is not kind to anyone, and that coat guy with the hat managed to escape.
The car stopped, and I watched the entrance to the small building, a hospital here in Paladin. Still, in reality, it was just a long one-story building. Nothing special except the bricks was visible, as if it were a run-down building before they probably built the hospital. Hopefully, the inside doesn’t look like the outside. We got out of the car and walked towards the entrance when suddenly someone yelled from behind:
“MOVE!”
When I turned around and saw some guy with a rolling bed, I quickly moved to the side and looked at a red octopus the size of a human with googling eyes making some hissing sound. Two tentacles were cut off, with black ooze leaking from the injured areas. They quickly rolled through the entry and turned left. We went inside, and an old lady with pink hair, white clothing, and a white hat sat at a desk between the left corridor and the one going straight.
“You sure this is the hospital where the ambulance drove to?” I whispered to Teresa.
She nodded without saying anything and went up to the desk.
“Hello! We are from the Van Polan organization. We are here to see a patient named Greta Ganther.” Teresa said.
The old lady glared at us and said:
“Badge, please.”
Shit! I left my badge on the table at home. Well, my sloppiness is almost legendary. I always get bailed out by Victoria or Teresa anyway.
Teresa got her badge up and showed it to the old lady, who responded:
“Follow the orange line that goes straight from your angle.”
We started to walk down the orange line a couple of meters before suddenly it turned right. It was a long corridor that, in what I understood, looked like an emergency room. There was some strange smell in the air, though, something I had never smelled before. We kept walking following the orange line, and curtains covered some spaces that looked like they were used as temporary rooms, as they have in emergencies at the hospitals back in Stockholm. I noticed that the smell came from one of those rooms with curtains.
We reached the end of the corridor, and the orange line was now turning to the left. I could see a couple of women standing there, and it looked like they were looking into a room. We kept walking, following the line until we reached them. I tried to squeeze myself through them until I came in front of the window and saw a man sitting on Greta and looking like he was doing CPR on her.
“What happened?” I asked out in the air.
Of course! A voice that I knew was heard behind me.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
“Her heart stopped! He is trying to revive her.”
I knew it was Victoria, and she had come here before me, which is unusual because she doesn't usually follow up this close on assignments. I usually never manage to see her in crowds because of her talent for being invisible to the eye. I looked back and stared into her blue-colored eyes and then turned back to the window and saw the doctor who had been doing the CPR stop and went down from the bed. He checked his clock, which, of course, I knew he was reading the time of death of Greta.
I looked back at Victoria, who shook her head.
“Your eyes are telling me everything, Berk, don’t you even dare.” She told me with a severe tone.
I pushed two women on my way and opened the door, knowing everyone would follow suit, trying to stop me. I don’t care about that; I did everything possible to protect her because I believed she would survive. I won’t let her give up that easily on death. I quickly jumped up on the bed on Greta and started to do CPR on her, which the doctor became confused.
“KEEP THE FUCKING TUBE IN HER MOUTH FOR AIR!” I screamed at the nurse, who hurried and started to push air through her mouth.
I kept giving her a heart massage and felt several hands trying to drag me backward, and I used all my strength and pushed them away for a moment and kept giving her massage.
“COME ON GRETA! FIGHT IT!” I screamed at her.
Suddenly, I felt an immense power in someone's hand grab my shoulder and me getting thrown backward away from Greta while watching them canceling the CPR on her. My back hit something hard, which I think was the wall, and I fell on the sofa in the room. Damn! That would hurt a lot if I fell on the floor, but my back hurts a little bit with that speed and strength used to throw me backward. Only Victoria has that kind of power with the witches.
I looked at her angrily and saw she was unhappy about my behavior. She came closer, grabbed me by my tie, and dragged me outside of the room into the corridor.
“LET GO!” I screamed at her.
She grabbed me by my jacket, lifted me, and threw so hard that I got dragged on the floor and hit my back with my head coming directly afterward. I could hear her steps approaching me, but everything was blurry until everything went black.
I opened my eyes, standing in front of an elevator suddenly, checked to my left, which had an old door that looked like it had seen its best days with a text on the yellow-covered glass that looked like someone had pissed against the glass for 40 of the 50 years.
“Go through this door if you want to die.” I read it out loud for myself.
The invitation looked tempting, but this must be a bad dream. I ignored the door to the left and tried to push the button on the grey elevator, but there wasn’t any movement. Okay! So this means obviously that the elevator isn’t working. I looked behind me, but only disgusting flower paintings covered the wall; the appalling thing was that the flowers had mouths and were eating something that looked like humans. Legs were sticking out from the sharp teeth. Someone seems to have some weird kink for flowers.
I checked the right side and saw a door with a rainbow painting on it.
“Yeah, Berk! Go through the door that looks really like a trap with rainbows.”
Probably, people would use the getting killed door instead, but a rainbow makes it obvious it is a trap or something else. Well, let’s take the chance anyway. It's only a dream anyway, I think!
I opened the door slowly and saw a short girl dressed like a maid.
“What the fuck is going on here!”
She seems to be looking at the green wall I recognized from schools during the 80s; it’s a writing wall that teachers usually write on with a white chalk pen. Small desks were all over the room, with chairs that someone had scattered everywhere. It indicated that this was probably a classroom. For one second, I was so occupied with looking around the room that I forgot there wasn’t any light inside. The light came from outside, and I moved closer to the windows, keeping my distance from the girl looking outside. There were several significant buildings around where I was, and it looked like I was pretty high up. There was one wrong thing: even though there were many buildings, the light shining into the room wasn’t the sun. Outside was a sea of fire, which I tried looking down to see if there was any ground, but all I saw was an ocean of fire. How will I exit this dream if there isn’t any exit?
When I turned towards the girl, she looked around with a face that looked ten or twelve years old and the odd outfit of a maid. Her eyes were red, and she was smiling at me:
“At last! It has been such a long sleep for us. I am looking forward to taking your soul and killing you from inside instead of being all cramped up inside you.” She said and just laughed.
I gave her a smirk and responded.
“Sorry! But I am not for sale.”