Chapter Two

 

Dr. Atra visited us regularly for nearly a month, often daily. I found myself liking him more and more. He was different than the other doctors. He didn’t preach about how diseased our minds were; he merely asked questions and gave suggestions, not orders. Dr. Atra was kind. He was genuine. He cared.

 

It didn’t take him long to figure out which of us was which. Particularly when the nurse came into change sheets and addressed me by my true name. Contrary to what I had presumed, he didn’t consider it another mentality but simply interpreted it as a joke between two girls. Furthermore, he didn’t alert any of the nurses or other psychiatrists. We liked him even more.

 

I even suspected that he didn’t think I was entirely insane. That maybe he was now asking me questions out of curiosity.

 

“Run that past me again,” he requested one day, not long after the first meeting. “Particularly about the eyes.”

I obliged, explaining to him the theory that had gotten me imprisoned here. “When I was fourteen, I first started noticing it. I didn’t think anything of it that first time, because it was only one person, my uncle. It could have been a disease or just a trick of the light, you know? After that, though, I began to see people changing everywhere.

 

"First their diet would be altered, ever so slightly, to include more raw meat. Then their behavior, slowly getting more and more angry, more violent. Their eyes were the last thing to change. Every day, the pupils would grow and the irises would shrink until it was just all…black. And I watched it happen to people I know, my friends and family! It didn’t take long for me to recognize the pattern, the signs.” I paused to swallow, remembering my initial horror at the corruption.

 

“Here,” Dr. Atra said gently. “Have some vitamin water.” He handed me a plastic bottle with pink liquid, and I gratefully sipped it. “And then?” He prompted.

 

“Then I started confiding in people. Just a few. My sister was the first,” I added, glancing across the room where she lay reading a book. “Then my parents, and one or two of my close friends. None of them believed me, naturally, but they didn’t think anything was wrong with me, either. Maybe they thought I was teasing, or just had a fanciful imagination. I don’t know. But nothing else changed. Life went on. Even as I saw cousins, classmates, neighbors, even teachers morph from sweet individuals into…aggressive sadists.

 

"The worst was not knowing.” My voice grew quieter and my thoughts more somber. “Not knowing what was happening. Or when my turn would come.”

 

Dr. Atra leaned forward with interest, despite himself, I think. “Do you know what they are now?”

 

“No. I wish. And so does Laurel.” I looked at her again. For some reason, the psychiatrist usually singled me out, probably because I was the root cause.

 

“Does Laurel notice what you do? The change in eyes and behavior? Or does she believe it on your word alone?”

 

“At first she didn’t,” I answered. “But when I told her my suspicions, she began to see what I meant. The nurses don’t listen to me long enough. They don’t even wonder if there’s a chance I could be right. They just tune me out. Corbin did, too.” Another trait I liked about Dr. Atra was that he never chided me for lack of respect for my former doctor. “If you just try to see, though, Dr. Atra, if you can just get over your mental obstacles, you’ll see it, too. They always say that we humans are our own worst enemy, and that couldn’t apply more. By the time the rest of the world believes me, it’ll be too late.”

 

“You speak very profoundly. You’re only sixteen, right?” He checked the clipboard again, a lock of his hair falling forward.

 

“Seventeen.”

 

“Still. So profoundly that I’m starting to wonder if I belong here, too.”

 

I hid a smile behind my ghostly pale hand. My alabaster skin had only gotten worse from six months of no sunlight, though even in the summer I lacked color. “I guess I’ve had to grow up fast, but what do you mean?”

 

“If you’re crazy enough to be stuck in here, then I am, too. From what I’ve learned…” He hesitated. “I really can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m starting to see it myself. Yesterday I tested out your idea. I went to a shopping mall, and at least half the patrons had the eyes you describe.”

 

“Half?! Are you positive? That means it’s getting worse.” I was so preoccupied by this sliver of information that I failed to understand what he’d said. “That means the rate of corruption-” I shook my head and blinked. “Wait, what?”
“I think…” the doctor wet his lips, a habit I noticed he did often when he was flustered. “I think I believe you.”

 

I wasn’t sure who was more amazed, him or me.

 

“Really? Well, that’s three of us, I guess,” I laughed sourly. “A force to alter the earth’s revolution, I’m sure.”

 

He laughed, too, almost as bitterly as I. “True. And I can’t very well go around distributing pamphlets, or I’d be locked up here, too.” Dr. Atra grew sober, his face clouding over like an approaching storm. “I finally understand how haunted your eyes looked when you first came in here.”

 

“Speaking of eyes…” I changed the subject as another thought hit me. “I haven’t noticed anyone here has been corrupted, have you? Not,” I amended, “that I’ve met most of the patients, but it seemed like a lot of them were still human.” I wondered at that last comment; everything had an opposite. That meant that if we were still humans…than those with black eyes weren’t. That they were inhuman. I shuddered at the terrifying connotation that followed thee word.

 

Out of the corner of my peripheral vision, I saw Laurel sit up and c**k her ear in our direction. She was listening; Good, I thought fervently. Because she’d never believe this conversation if I told her.

In the meantime, Dr. Atra’s eyes narrowed as he thought. “No, you’re right. One or two of the nurses are changed, though, and most of the AsPD patients, too. Come to think of it, that’s probably why they’re here- they were so violent.”

 

AsPD. Antisocial Personality Disorder.

 

My actions mirrored his as we turned our horrified gazes to Caroline, now ripping off the head of her teddy bear and eating the stuffing.

 

“Caroline?” Dr. Atra called, his voice stretched with apprehension. “Come here for a moment?”

 

She stared at him with wide eyes for a moment before tottering unsteadily over, tipsy as a drunk. She didn’t say anything- she never did- but walked up to the doctor.

 

He grabbed her chin and examined her eyes. “Brown!” he announced joyfully. He, Laurel, and I all breathed harmonious sounds of relief, then laughed warily at the sound. We were now three of a kind, three against the world.

 

I began to look forward to Dr. Atra’s visits as though they were my sustenance, the only thing besides gravity that held me here. It was useless, really. There was no way to dodge the fact that the situation was hopeless. The world- our world- was being corrupted by…something. A virus. An alien invasion. It didn’t matter what was causing the change. We couldn’t stop it.

 

The situation grew steadily worse. Watching from my window, I observed as more and more pedestrians exhibited the tell-tale symptoms. It was a time bomb, really, until everyone was corrupted, particularly if Dr. Atra’s mall experience had told us anything. The speed of corruption had practically doubled since the last time I’d seen the light of day.

 

Light of day. That thought sent me spinning into waves of delight. Fields full of wild flowers came to mind, ribbons of gossamer sunlight weaving through emerald forests…but of course, most of my memories were nothing like that. I pictured instead the home of my childhood, the arid Nevada desert where a neighbor might be ten miles away. The cloudless blue sky that stretched on without end, the bands of wild horses that galloped in proud declaration of their freedom. Diamond-painted rattlesnakes and heathery sagebrush. That was home.
 

“Melanie?” Dr. Atra poked his head into our room after knocking. “I’ve changed your care orders. No more nurses, I’m afraid. You three will have to look after your daily needs on your own.” I had been anticipating this announcement for a while- it meant that my regular nurse, and most of the hospital’s nurses, had been corrupted. I exchanged a significant look with the doctor.
 

Something was wrong, very wrong. The air was full of change, and Laurel, Dr. Atra, and I were in the whirling vortex of it. That’s when I began to fear, not for my life, but for my existence.
 

But, contrary to this unshakably ominous feeling, nothing did change. Caroline remained insane but entirely human. Laurel and I were edgy yet safe, and Dr. Atra remained the most hopeful of us, sure that there had to be some way to win. I wanted to believe him, but we had no army, no means of escape, no supernatural powers. And yet we weren’t hurt. Life- or a pathetic imitation of it- went on in the hospital.
 

This uneasy peace shattered six weeks later when Dr. Atra burst in. This alone made me agitated- unlike the nurses had, the psychiatrist always gave us the courtesy of knocking.
 

“Melanie!” he gasped, clutching at a stitch in his chest. “Laurel! Oh, God. They’re coming, they’re here!“ No wondering who ‘they’ was. “I couldn’t lock them out of the hospital but I closed off this ward. They want to kill you. They’re getting even more dangerous as we speak- the growth of mob psychology . We should have done something earlier…” he sighed, knowing as well as I did that there had been nothing to do. “Do you trust me? Both of you?”
 

I nodded, and Laurel answered, “Of course. What do you want us to do?”
 

Dr. Atra nodded towards the window. “There,” he instructed. “We can descend the fire escape.”
 

Laurel’s eyes opened, wider than I’d ever seen them, and she took a step or two back. “No.”
 

“What do you mean, no?” Dr. Atra snapped. “Do you want to live or not, girl?”
 

I felt the cold finger of dread wind its way down my back. Laurel knew something was wrong, and I’d trust her with my life. I took one look at Laurel’s terrified expression, then swung my gaze to see the doctor’s face. To meet the doctor’s eyes.
 

Black. Black. The irises were black, all black.
 

“Oh, God,” I heard all the breath leave my sister’s voice.
 

“Laurel,” I whispered. “He’s been corrupted.”