The Sentient Corruption (The Sentient Trilogy Book 3) Read online

  Outside it had taken on a much more chaotic and scrambling atmosphere as people pushed him aside and stared suspiciously. They all displayed desperation in their eyes, like they knew of a coming darkness and were fearful of it.

  White tents were arranged in a grid pattern, roughly twelve tents deep, in front of the small medical building. Each were around ten-foot-tall and square in shape. Their material doors, both front and back, had been rolled up and pinned in place to allow people a path through. Inside they were large enough for a four-foot table to sit either side of the moving line of people.

  Graham followed a couple into the nearest tent to investigate. Upon the tables were ready made packs of supplies. They included everything from Army issued canned foods to antibiotic Medi-pens for emergency administration only.

  Without thinking, he copied those in front of him and took one for himself, sliding the bag’s strap over his shoulder before moving on. Once he emerged out of the other end of the first tent, he stepped out of the unstoppable flow of patiently queuing people, found a space to stand, and took a moment to take stock.

  A man from one of the tents behind suddenly called out above the moving crowd. “Please don’t push, there’s enough for everyone,” he said.

  Graham turned to see and faced yet another line of people moving along the row behind him. Those that already had a supply pack carried on to the next tent for whatever was being handed out there, while the rest tried to fight against the current to get one for themselves. It was every man for himself.

  Some had made the mistake of bringing their children onto the battlefield and were paying for it now; the cries of young ones caught in the middle permeated the air like needles in Graham’s ears.

  He had to get out of the madness and find somewhere he could think clearly. Going back the way he came was out of the question, so he cut a path across the rows until he reached one of the derelict shop-fronts at the perimeter.

  There he sat on the window display, after checking for loose glass first. Probably the first time you’ve been used in a while, he thought of the disused store behind him. It appeared to have survived better than most of the buildings here; it still had its roof intact at least. Seeing just how much the rural areas had fallen apart in the twenty-or-so years since they were abandoned was a depressing sight.

  Another tent had now run out of supplies, this time a tent handing out bottles of water. The woman running it shouted at the top of her voice to the others nearby. “Tent number 7 is out of 10 litre bottles, tent 7 out of 10 litre bottles,” she said.

  That voice! Graham recognised it straight away. It was his sister Ruth, doing her usual and lending a hand. It did not surprise him to see her doing this, he knew she was never one to shy away from a challenge. Finding her amid such a crazy crowd made total sense to him. She would not take any shit from anyone. So who better to keep the grabbing hands at bay?

  Forgetting his bag of supplies altogether, he left his shop-front seat and slowly wandered over. By the time he remembered, it was already too late; someone had assumed it unwanted and swiped it in a flash. He did not really need it, but still, such an affront had angered him internally. On second consideration, getting more supplies appeared the easiest way of reaching Ruth without having to cut in line anyway.

  This time as he shuffled along behind another family he kept his eyes locked on target. Finally, he had some idea of what was going on. His family had not dumped him in this museum-peace of a town after all, they were there too. Somewhere. He was nearing his sister slowly but surely. He would get his reunion after all, just as he had been hoping.

  At no more than two metres away from his sister he tried to shout her name. For some reason he could not even manage to do it. Something had clicked inside his brain, pausing him in place.

  A deep throbbing began to appear behind his eyes, somewhere entirely out of his reach. He found himself unable to control his blinking any longer. However much he wanted to try, he could do absolutely nothing about the sudden pain, like that of a blistering hot poker through his skull. Grabbing at the sides of his head only angered him more as his hands failed to make contact with the affected area inside his brain. His body began to shake violently, threatening to break his balance completely.

  Instead of calling to his sister, Graham soon found himself desperately wanting to scream in pain. The faces that had stopped to stare quickly blurred as sweat gushed from his brows. He had never felt such severe discomfort before. Not even the piece of wood that had stuck in his side during his ordeal at Sanctuary had hurt this bad. Despite the immensely powerful sensations he was feeling, he still noted the lack of any sign of this previous injury. Had he healed while inside the Sentient world too?

  Please, God, stop this now! he repeated over and over in his own head as the pain pulled his arms into his chest.

  Then, in the blink of an eye, his sister vanished from sight. Everything had gone along with her too, even the pain. Only a shadowy outline of something a few metres in front of him was visible. His eyes squinted in the darkness to see what it could be. He was back to normal again, as if the incident had never happened at all. But where was he now?

  “Hey, sir, can you hear me?” someone asked directly behind him. “I said, do you need help?”

  He angled his aching head to the side, bringing the man talking to him into his peripheral vision. Making out the bright white of a doctor’s jacket brought him some relief. He was back in the hospital. Confusion kept him staring into the dark room. How did he get there so suddenly?

  “How about we go back to your room, would you like that?”

  Graham was too busy trying to hold back a flood of emotion to pick up on the doctor’s tone. He could not understand what had brought him there. Had he blacked out? Telling himself not to worry did nothing to help.

  Such a strange event, and yet he had experienced something like it before. Only that time it had not been accompanied by the feeling of someone digging around inside his head with a tiny pickaxe. In the Sentient world the scenes had simply changed.

  “No, no, no, no,” Graham said, turning on the spot and almost falling from the dizziness it caused him. “Where am I?”

  The doctor dipped his head to see Graham’s eyes clearly, all too obviously checking his patient’s pupils too, while he was at it. “You’re in the hospital basement. Do you remember how you got here?”

  The basement? Hearing the doctor say it only partially alleviated his concern. For a brief moment he had the heart-breaking suspicion he was still within the Sentient world. In there he had faced regular switches of scenery, always in the same blink of an eye too.

  He told himself this was not the case with his latest situation. He could remember, with crystal clear clarity, his escape. No, this was still the real world. So what had happened?

  “I… I can’t think straight,” he said, looking behind himself.

  The light coming in from the open door at the top of a narrow staircase to the side of him was enough to highlight the immediate vicinity. He stood upon a dirty concrete floor that had large cracks in some places, where small tufts of grass had managed to grow – as much as the lack of light allowed, at least.

  But at the end of the unlit space, he could just about make out a collection of metal chairs, a janitor’s style cleaning bucket and a plastic mop, all covered by a thin coating of moss. No-one had used the basement for a long time, which made his reason for being there even more of a mystery.

  “Come on, let’s get you back upstairs, shall we?” the doctor asked gently.

  “What else is down here?”

  “Nothing, just you.”

  Graham’s blacking out theory was starting to fit the bill perfectly. “What’s behind the chairs, over there?”

  The doctor sighed as he looked his mystery patient over a couple of times. After a second or two he decided to humour Graham, if only to keep him calm. “Erm, well, I guess that must have been the back-up generator. But this p
lace has been out of use for a long time, so it almost certainly doesn’t work anymore. We’re using power generators the Army has provided, that’s what’s powering the building now.”

  Thinking this over for a moment, Graham eventually conceded; there was no fight left in him to face anything else. He had only just made it out of an almost inescapable prison, what had felt like an utterly hopeless situation at the time. All he wanted now was to see his family again. Being so close earlier only made the need that much more urgent.

  “My name’s Graham,” he said as though he was not even certain about this anymore.

  “Good, good,” the doctor replied. “OK, Graham. Can you tell me which room you left to come here?”

  Graham shook his head. He had never considered checking his room number when he took a walk outside. For all he knew this was not even the same building.

  Taking his arm gently, the doctor began to lead him toward the stairs. “Don’t worry, Graham, we’ll get you safely back there.”

  They took a short but slow trip through the ground floor and were soon back to the nurse’s station. Graham recognised it immediately. From there he was then able to lead the rest of the way. His room had been halfway down the corridor, somewhere on the left. When he spotted the room he had sneaked the dressing gown out of before, he knew it was but a few doors away.

  His arrival back at his own room was not announced by him or the doctor, it was by the raised voices inside his room. A heated discussion had broken out among the occupants and it showed no sign of stopping. Through the frosted glass he could see three people and one smaller one, all standing close together. Spotting the black-haired, four-foot-high figure nearly broke him in two; it had to be his precious little daughter, Alex.

  “How can he up and disappear like that, and no-one sees him do it?” a woman said.

  Recognising Jane’s voice, he felt himself begin to choke up. Could he even hold it together? He was seeing them for the first time in, what Luke had told him before his escape back to the real world, was around eighteen months.

  “Jane, please, calm down,” Graham’s sister Ruth said.

  Graham stood with the door handle in his left hand, ready to open it. If not for the growing suspicion that it was still all a trick of some kind, he would have forced the door in already and faced them. As it was, he deliberated over whether to find out for sure or turn and run again. He looked to his white coated companion beside him for support.

  “Go ahead, your family is waiting,” the doctor said in response.

  A deep breath out, then Graham was ready. He twisted the knob and began to push the door open. It was at this point that Jane spoke again.

  “I can’t go through this again, I can’t,” she said, freezing suddenly as Graham stepped in.

  Stopping in the doorway, the door swinging in the rest of the way by itself, he stared his wife in the eyes. She had been sobbing, but ceased the second he appeared. In turn he could not move; the shock had him in a state of denial.

  He had last faced such a strong feeling while talking to another version of Stephen within the other world. Was what he now saw really happening, just as that had?

  “Holy shit!” Elliot exclaimed. “Buddy, you’re actually awake.”

  “Daddy.” Alex raced forward. She made the short distance to Graham in no time at all and showed no sign of slowing, instead careening into him, her arms trying their best to engulf him in one go. Their time apart had been just as difficult for her to stand, now they were together once more.

  But Graham could not fully enjoy the moment. In all of his many fantasies about this very moment, in not one of them did he imagine he would struggle to truly believe it. He held his hands hovering an inch or two above his daughter’s shoulders, still not quite willing to trust any of it. They stayed together for a few silent moments while Graham considered how to feel in return.

  “Graham?” Jane said. She was too nervous to approach. From her static position she reached out to him.

  He would have to make the first move. He had to prove he really was there too.

  He soon gave in to the urge to find out once and for all and reached for his wife. “Come here,” he said, pulling Jane right into the middle of his and Alex’s embrace. The three of them squeezed each other to within an inch of their lives, without a single concern for doing so.

  The family had been reunited finally. His two favourite people in his arms again, he revealed his immense relief with a trembling lip and a look to the ceiling to hold in the moisture forming behind his eyes. After so much time apart, he now had what he missed so dearly. Only then did he fully believe he had made it home again.

  Ruth and Elliot held each other too. For a brief moment they all enjoyed the quiet, not realising someone was still watching.

  “I can see this is a delicate time for you all,” the doctor said, taking a backward step through the door, “so I’ll come back in a little while to see how you’re getting on.”

  Jane suddenly pulled away from Graham and addressed the doctor before he could leave. “Wait, please,” she asked through a loud sniffle. “Where did you find him?”

  “He was in the basement, must have wandered down there by mistake.”

  “It’s OK,” Graham interrupted. “I just lost my way, that’s all.”

  He noticed, with disapproval, the look the doctor sent to Jane just before leaving. He did not appreciate the message it was clearly loaded with either. The nod suggested more to the story, that the subject would require some tact to talk about. Sure, he had blacked out suddenly and had possibly lost some time because of it too – through the window he could see if was now night – but that did not mean there was something wrong with him. In his mind at least, that seemed right.

  “I’ll be back in a little while to run some tests, just as a precaution.” The doctor had added the last bit as an afterthought, before he left the room. He had decided to tread lightly around the subject; God forbid they should confuse the patient even more.

  “What happened, G? Why’d you go to the basement?” Elliot asked.

  He had nothing to say in reply, only a shrug could fit the job. He had walked from outside, back into the hospital and down into the basement without any memory of doing so. To him it had been automatic, like he was led by some form of autopilot. Telling them this would only add to their worries, so he decided to keep it to himself for now. Unless the doctor lets it slip, he considered with a grimace.

  “What’s the matter, are you in pain?” Jane said in reaction to his change of expression.

  “No, I’m fine.”

  She ignored his answer entirely and began to lead him. Despite his reluctance to move – and Alex’s refusal to let him go – Jane continued to push until he could go nowhere but the bed. Unsure of whether he would be able to manage by himself, she did not even hesitate in helping him turn and lower him into a seated position.

  “Please, Jane, I’m OK,” he said, not quite complaining, but close.

  “Sorry.” She sat beside him and pulled his hand into her lap, where she held it tightly, afraid of letting it go again.

  After a long time without a single word spoken, Elliot chose to break it up. The silence had become one filled with anticipation. There were questions hanging over Graham, ones he was not particularly looking forward to answering. Again, during his own version of this overdue moment, there were differences. In them he always skipped ahead of the awkward conversation, one that was about to begin whether he was ready or not.

  “What happened to you back at Sanctuary?” Elliot said. He grabbed a seat from the edge of the room and slid it into place right in front of Graham and Jane. Alex hung back and placed her crossed arms on the back of the chair. She rested her head upon them and stared at her father with her big round eyes wider than ever.

  It had happened quicker than expected, Graham was stuck before a single word could leave his mouth. Just the thought of the place that he was having to force himself to
remember made his lips twitch and his teeth clench. They had to know everything he saw, and they needed to know now, regardless of his discomfort with doing so.

  A deep breath in and a long pause later, and he was finally ready to say the words that now caused his head to hurt the longer he kept them in. “To save me from the collapse at Sanctuary Luke encased my body in crystal. After that I woke up inside the Sentient tower. I was in their world, trapped and disconnected from my body,” he said, then waited for their response.

  The room did not erupt with shocked reactions as he had anticipated. Instead, everyone became quiet and grappled with the implications of his words. He considered suddenly that Phoenix must have explained it all to them already; she was there somewhere anyway, surely? “How much did Phoenix tell you about it?” he followed with.

  Ruth took a step toward the end of the bed and placed her hands on the rails. She looked to each of the others in turn and then back to Graham. There was something coming, something none of them wanted to have to explain, and it concerned someone he was sure he had only seen a few hours before.

  “We haven’t seen her, Graham, not since…” Ruth stopped short of finishing and did another check of the others.

  “Just tell me. Where is she? I spoke to her before I made it out, that was maybe a couple of hours ago.”

  “No it wasn’t, G,” Elliot said this time.

  But Graham was far from ready to accept this and argued profusely against it. “It was. I know it was. She found a way of communicating with me inside the Sentient world. That’s how you found me, because she showed you where to look. Didn’t she?” Graham did his own survey of the faces staring worryingly at him before asking more. Their hesitation had him ready to snap. “How long ago was it then?”

  Elliot leant in further. “G, you’ve been in a coma for three months.”

  Finding out he had been unconscious for much longer than his own body told him forced him to slump in place, bending his spine like a bow at full tension. That was three months out of the Sentient world, three months with his family stolen from him for no apparent reason.