The Age of Ascension by James Holmes (reading tree txt) 📕

leant into the room, took hold of the handle and with a grudging reluctance, she pulled the door shut.
The corridors she trailed in her journey to the ward were empty; not a soul passed her in either direction and it seemed as though she was the only person alive in the entire World. She glanced down at the watch pinned to the front of her uniform to see it was a little after 11am; there was no reason for the hospital to be so deserted and the notion brought a fluttering to her stomach. The overhead lights were dimmer than usual, buzzing incessantly as she passed beneath them and it was just that subtle noise and the creak of her shoes against the linoleum that brought the corridor to life. As she reached the ward, the door to the office opposite swung open and another nurse in white uniform stepped out, engrossed in the file in her hands.
‘What’s going on, Vanessa?’ Amelia asked, her hand outstretched for the file.
Vanessa handed it to her and she opened it straight away, flicking through the few pages. ‘A man was left in the lobby about ten minutes ago,’ she replied, the unease evident in her voice. ‘I called security to check the CCTV and Austin said the camera in the lobby went fuzzy for a few seconds and when the picture came back this odd looking man was sitting there.’
Amelia didn’t look up; her eyes still skimmed the pages. ‘Is he hurt?’
She shrugged half-heartedly. ‘He won’t let me check him over, but as far as I can see there’s nothing causing him a great amount of pain,’ she stepped in closer, her voice lowering. ‘He’s not really that coherent though; he doesn’t seem to know who he is, where he is. Newberry said to keep him here for the time being, keep an eye on him and send him to the psychiatric ward if he gets too much.’
‘No problem; is he in there now?’ She gestured towards the ward.
Vanessa nodded and started off down the corridor. ‘You should know,’ she said, looking back. She bit her bottom lip, clearly unsure as to pursue what she was about to say. ‘He asked for you.’
The hair on the back of her neck twitched as Amelia watched her walk away, an unusual feeling of intrigue and apprehension coiling around her stomach. She swallowed back the feeling of unease and turned to the ward.
The sky outside was overcast, and because of that the room was dismal and oddly cold. With just a few patients awake; the only source of light came from the small wall-lights above their headboards, and long shadows from those lights streaked across the floor, joining the darkness that had nestled beneath the beds. She looked straight ahead and saw the man sitting hunched in a wheelchair at the window.
She ambled towards him, glancing at each bed as she passed and smiling at every patient who wasn’t asleep or too immersed in a crossword or book. She looked at them long enough to see if they needed anything; normally a slight hand would beckon her over, but that morning nothing deterred her from her path to the back of the ward and the elderly gentleman waiting patiently for her.
As she grew nearer, she could hear him muttering to himself and there was something about his quiet whispers that unsettled her, so much so that as her hand graced the wheelchair’s handle her pulse quickened. She paused for a moment, following his lead and stared out of the large window at the bleak morning. Rain started to speckle the glass as she walked around the chair to face him and she gasped at what she saw.
The subtle sunlight caught in the wrinkles on the man’s face, making them seem more profound and his gleaming face all the more haunting. He was pale and emaciated, with his long black hair shaved to the crown, the rest scraped back to accentuate the harshness of his features. His face was painted black with strange markings; a single eye in the midst of his wrinkled forehead, the tips of which curled down to encompass his eyes. Along his receded hairline, was a line of scarred triangles, their points directed downwards and looked almost like the weathered fangs of a fierce beast. Beneath his lower lip, there was a barbed piercing of ebony that protruded through the skin and glistened like decorated bone. He sat there in a hospital gown, one a little large for his tall but skeletal frame and in a way he looked childlike.
‘Hi,’ she said, looking down at him. She waited for a response, but didn’t get one. The old man’s cracked, shrivelled lips moved, but no words slipped past them. Amelia edged closer, slipping the file under her arm. ‘Can I get you anything?’
Again, he didn’t answer so she knelt before him, examining his tired face, trying to gain his attention. She noticed that his hands were shaking as they gripped the arms of the wheelchair and as she looked down at them, she saw that tattooed on the back of his frail right hand was a sequence of symbols. They looked as though they could have been plucked from a piece of Egyptian hieroglyphics; they seemed ancient and cracked beneath his gnarled skin. There were five symbols, spaced at equal distances apart, from left to right. The first was what looked like a reed, the second a curl of fine black ink, the third, a semi-circle above a striped full circle, the fourth a jackal, and the fifth was a sitting man.
The tattoos distracted her for a moment; she felt a great energy radiate from them and her unease grew as a feeling of foreboding settled upon her. She was mesmerised and it wasn’t until she heard him wheeze and draw in a long breath that she looked up at him again to find that he was already looking at her, his dark eyes like chasms filled with astonishment.
‘Y-You?’ His voice was aged and weak. ‘I’ve been waiting for you.’
‘How do you know me?’ she asked in reply, forcing a polite smile onto her face to try and hide her nerves.
‘I have seen you before; many times. Even my Brothers tell me stories of you now.’ He lifted his head to look at her. ‘Nasty birds, always sticking their noses in where they’re not wanted.’
‘What have they been telling you?’ She took hold of the handles to the wheelchair and as she did, she heard him draw in another deep breath.
‘News of others like you; countless tales of atrocity.’ She let the wheelchair rest at the foot of the bed, and tossed the file onto the nightstand. She pulled back the blankets, not entirely listening to what he was saying, but when she heard the wheelchair creak behind her and the grunting that followed, she looked round to see the old man had pushed himself to his feet and now staggered towards her, his hands outstretched towards her face. ‘But they don’t see,’ he said in a cracked, low voice. ‘How can one so beautiful be harmed?’ He was in front of her, his hands almost on her cheeks.
‘Easy now.’ She took his hands and pushed them back to his side. ‘Why don’t you get some rest?’
He lay down slowly, his eyes still lingering on her face. She pulled the blankets up around his chest, only to hear him gasp and before she knew it he snatched her wrist, gripping it so tightly her hand grew numb in an instant. ‘It has begun,’ he whispered in delight, his wrinkled face caught in shock.
She grabbed his hand and tried to prise open his stalwart grip. ‘Let go of me.’
He pulled her in closer to him. ‘Didn’t you hear me?’ His breathing became rough, snarling as he threw his head back and let out a shrill, screech that sounded like a thousand fingernails dragging down a blackboard. ‘The Bleeding of Worlds has begun!’ He began to fit, and it was only then that Amelia was able to escape from his grasp and she scrambled away from the bed. She looked at him, enthralled as she watched him writhe and twist beneath the sheets that grew tangled around his body, his skin gleaming with sweat. He clawed at his head, panting and gasping and in a flash he sat upright, his back arched as if in great pain. His tortured expression turned from anger and pain, to one of sheer astonishment as a mist of ebony cloud enveloped his glaring eyes.
‘I can see the First Thunder,’ he whispered, and collapsed back onto the bed.
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Publication Date: 10-15-2009

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