The Crow (Part 10)

Chapter 10

i

I woke up.

I felt pain, which came as a relief to me. I was lying on a plain white bed with sheets, blankets, and pillows all of the same ilk.

My arms were strapped to my sides.

I tried to move, but I might as well have been trying to lift a two-ton rock off of me. I felt drugged, my body numb.

“So, you’re finally awake,” the plague doctor said. “Did you have a nice nap?”

The best thing I could think of to say was, “Fuck you, and the horse you rode in on.” The plague doctor laughed.

“I see you’ve seen the depths of madness, Ryan Wallace, but you haven’t even begun to experience it.” He pulled something out of his pocket, from inside the trenchcoat. At first, I didn’t know what I was looking at, but then, I saw . . .

“That’s Rachel’s necklace,” I said in a very small, very quiet voice. “How—?”

“How did I get it? Do you want to know?”

“Yes, you bastard.”

“She didn’t have the guts to kill herself, so I . . .” He paused, looking for the right word. “. . . I pushed her.”

“You motherfucker,” I said in wonder. “You fucking asshole. You killed her, you shit son of a bi—”

The plague doctor held up a gloved hand for silence. “One sacrifice upon many. And there were many. I have been here for quite a while. Who do you think created the Black Death in the first place? Humanity isn’t the smartest entity in this universe, you know.

“I could tell you everything, but at what cost? Your sanity? Would you give your sanity for knowledge?”

The thing started to hit me, little rabbit jabs here and there, while yelling through its face mask. “Huh? Answer the fucking question! I killed your fucking mother! Your dad left you! Answer the QUESTION, Ryan!”

“Fuck you!” I yelled. “Fuck y—”

And suddenly I wasn’t there.

ii

Black.

All black.

Nothing as far as the eye could see. If you even could see.

“Wh—where am I?” I asked. My words echoed: where am I, ere am I, am I, am I, m I, I . . . The silence was very loud, very unsettling, and the dark seemed to bring ominous promises. Already, I was losing track of how long I’ve been

(dead)

here, and when I screamed, “WHAT DO YOU WANT!” nothing happened.

That was when I realized that something was underneath me. I thought I was floating, and I thought that

(welcome)

there was no bottom.

I was wrong.

(to)

I flipped myself upside down (the blood rushed to my head and made me dizzy), and stretched out an unsteady hand to the ground. I felt cool smoothness, like glass, and my hand brushed against

(forever)

a handle.

“Yes!” I exclaimed. “Yes! Yes! Ye—”

—and I was pulled out.

iii

I was falling.

Instead of black and darkness, I was falling through a white haze, and instead of nothing, I was seeing everything. I knew what I was seeing, though. I think I’ve seen enough visions to last me another lifetime.

My first vision was somewhere in the middle of space, and I knew somehow that it was far from the Milky Way. Maybe even the universe.

I’m about to see something, I thought to myself. I don’t know what—and I don’t want to know.

But I saw it, anyway. I saw it all.

I saw it all and

iv

the plague doctor was staring at Ryan, following his visions with visions of his own.

“He wanted to know,” the plague doctor said to himself. “He got what he wanted.”

Ryan started to shake violently, his thrashing to-and-fro, blood bubbled from his mouth, and he started to

v

screamed as I saw it all.

At that point, I was at the golden gates of insanity, right at the door way, that’s how close I was to losing it.

I saw how the plague doctor fell to Earth, sailing through a sea of stars. I saw its planet, and how they were created.

Worst of all, I saw the destruction of its planet.

I think that was the moment I became catatonic

(psychological eats RED it eats RED it eats RED it eats)

and wondering if I was dead. I was still falling.

Falling into the abyss of madness.

vi

“Dyskinetic, catatonic, etcetera,” a candy striper said perkily. “Just like you wanted.”

The candy striper was named Ruthy. She couldn't remember her last name. In fact, it seemed that she couldn’t remember anything of her life since she started working for the plague man.

It was as if . . .

. . . as if what? Who cares? The important thing was that she was even alive.

“Thank you, my dear.” The plague man patted her left cheek, and she immediately pulled away from him, as if scolded.

So cold . . .

The plague man laughed. “Take care of yourself, my dear.” He

(no, it)

walked away, the tail of his trench coat swaying in his wake.

Ruth hadn’t jerked away out of fear of molestation. There was nothing at all seductive from the little pat on her cheek. But his hands.

His hands were so cold. Cold like—but that was crazy. He couldn’t be dead. But they sure did feel like that: stiff, cold.

Dead.

And for one scary moment, she remembered everything.

Caleb Irby

June 26, 2021

July 20, 2022