Red. My eyes snapped open to bright red that shined like a light throughout the space. The same crimson hue one may find on sheets of homework after the teacher circled, crossed out, and marked your mistakes.

The doorframes inside the Asylum were skewed, tilted slightly to the side, causing the view to be elongated, slanted and off-putting.

Deep in the crevices were the shadows, black as the ink that spewed from the Scorchers. And like on cue, the humid musk of scorched caramel filled the air. The squelching sound of liquid goo grew louder as it approached from down the hall.

I stood with my back against the wall, afraid to make a move or take a step. Any noise could have the creature darting in my direction. Instead, I watched, as the massive beast inched down the tile, leaving a lingering trail of steaming tar-like liquid behind and the same smear on the ceiling as the curve of its neck glided along it.

Deep-set hallow sockets on the twisted bulge of a face peered in my direction. I gasped, placing my hands over my mouth to silence a scream. The look of the beast had a way of inducing more fear, especially in the subtle way it moved. It's slinky, lurking movements gave me the feeling of being hunted, especially as it twisted its head to keep me in its sights.

The red glow from an invisible source behind him accentuated its utter blackness.

"Leave!" I demanded. "Slither back into the hole you crawled out of."

It paused, almost seeming to shrink a bit in size.

"That's right," I screamed, feeling the heat of anger looming in my gut. "Get the hell out of here and never come back."

From the corner of my eyes, another black mass growled, stealing my attention. His jerky forward movements startled me as he moved in a way I've never seen before. In fact, this creature was nearly unfamiliar in demeanor as it didn't appear often. But I remembered it from its unusual guttural growls that resembled a pack of vicious canines swallowed in its steaming ink.

I opened my mouth to speak and instantly regretted it as the creature scowled and dropped it jaw wider than natural for the size of its head. In one quick convulsion, it spewed boiling, rancid goo from its gaping maw, coating me from head to toe.

Impossible to catch a breath in order to scream, my body instantly overheated, and the sting of searing flesh consumed me.

I opened my eyes to see Lilac and screamed in utter agony as the pain quickly ceased me. Lilac grabbed my shoulders and shook, bringing me back to my senses.

"You were dreaming," he assured me. "It was just a nightmare."

I couldn't catch my breath as the memory of the pain lingered over every fiber of my body. "Not a dream." The urge to scream again came and yet I fought it. Quickly realizing I needed to get control.

I immediately sat forward with crossed legs and instinctively took the smooth locks at the nape of my neck in my fingers, smoothing with one hand to the ends only to repeat with the other. From root to tip I allowed the strands to ease me into my meditation. The television set calmed my nerves and centered me, that static almost hypnotizing and soothing.

A gentle palm on my shoulder prompted me to open my eyes. With the sunlight now illuminating the space, Lilac's bright blue eyes stared back at me. "You were only dreaming, Kyla."

"It's more than that." The residue of goo ached my body, gradually searing away each nerve ending along with the fresh memory of the heat and pain. "Those things are dangerous."

Lilac's eyebrows dipped. "Is there anything we can do?"

"No." I took a deep breath, inhaling the sweet musk of the Scalded. "They've been with me forever, the only way to tame them is to not think of them. But when someone tells you not to think about something what do you do?"

He nodded. "You said 'tame them?' As in control them?"

"No, not—" I paused, looking at the twinkle in his eye.

"If you can learn to control them . . ." he started.

I nodded in agreement. "Then I wouldn't have a reason to fear them." I ran my fingers through my tight curls, smoothing the strand in the back from instinct. "But they can and will consume everything in their path including me. We saw them do it."

"How did the three little pigs defeat the big bad wolf?" When I didn't answer, he paced around along the cracked and soiled tiles in front of the horseshoe shaped reception desk. "They outsmarted him." He nodded. "You know how they did that? I'll give you a hint. I had told a friend about a tormenter who at every chance would push me around and call me names. You know what my friend advised?"

"Find out what makes that person tick?" I guessed, thinking back at what the nurses would often say to the girls in the hospital encountering the same issue.

"Exactly." He nodded. "The more you know about your tormenter, the more advantage you have."

I sighed in frustration. "But I don't want to see them as opponents. I don't want to see them at all. I just want them to go away, disappear from existence."

"Sometimes just wishing for it isn't enough." He added, rubbing his baby smooth chin where I assumed a few whiskers would be. "You know how many times I wished my tormenter would cease to exist? I cannot count the times using all my fingers and toes and even yours."

"The inky stuff they vomit is excruciating when it hits your skin." If he had experienced what I just had, he wouldn't want to do any taming either. He would want to keep them as far away as possible. "I don't think it's wise to mess around with them."

He tilted his chin, observing me from the corner of his eye. "I do not think you have a choice."

I walked around the space, allowing my feet to anchor me in reality, especially since waking from that nightmarish place. "It's like getting melted plastic poured on your skin. You can't just wipe it off, it hurts to move. Even realizing what your body was going through was impossible compared to the pain. You can't form words. You don't want to. All you can do is scream."

Lilac visually examined me up and down. "Why are you so upset? It was only a nightmare."

"No, it's more than that." I shook my head, remembering the bright red colors and off-putting shift the space took, creating weird angles and jagged corners. "It may have looked like a nightmare from the outside, but this place is so much more than that. It's the Knoques Hospital, only twisted and skewed with a mysterious blood-red light that seemed to highlight whatever's in my view, especially the creatures."

Lilac cocked his head, as he often did when scrutinizing or calculating in his mind. "Go on."

"And this time there was another creature." I shook my head. "One that rarely appears, but it was there too."

He rubbed his chin. "What do you mean, this time?"

"This isn't the first time I'd seen these creatures or that place, but ..." I reminded myself to stay calm and not focus on their haunting image, thinking about the space instead. "I thought it was only a couple of them. But there was another, a third." Hair stood up on the back of my neck, and I shook my head to erase the memories from my mind. "Forget it. I don't want to talk about it anymore."

Lilac nodded understandably. "We have other problems to think about. Like if we are going to stay here or not, because if we are not, we must find a place to go. If we are going to stay, then we have to prepare to fight for it."

"No one's trying to protect us." I threw my hands up in defeat. "Everyone thinks we and this place are a threat. And if we leave, they will forever hunt us down."

Lilac raised his chin. "So, again we have no choice."

"There are others here." A while ago, I've seen other people who go about their business surviving. Someone stays in that old, crumbling convenient store just a few minutes away. There's another person who prefers to live in a private hut hidden among the trees. We all instinctively give each other space, but there are others. "We can find out if they have any plans to continue calling the Scalded their permanent home."

When he nodded a relief swept over me. It was something to help keep my mind off of the terrible and horrifying things that shouldn't occupy the space. 

~~~

Thanks for reading, commenting, voting and adding to your library and reading lists!