"Inescapable
is the hand that prevails,
this slow descent
into madness."

The boy opened his eyes to the sterile, whitewashed walls of a hospital room. Everything was hazy, as if a fog of confusion had been dropped before him, dulling his senses and thoughts.

He was heavily sedated, he knew, for it was an effort to focus his mind on one flitting thought after another. The only constancy in his world right now was the steady hum of the monitors and life supports-and the fire in his chest that somehow, despite the painkillers, wouldn't go away.

Try as he might, he couldn't piece together what had happened. He could only recall a brief flash that could be lightning, then a pain so intense that it sent him tumbling into darkness. He could feel the heavy dressings around his chest. He tried to move an arm and realized he couldn't---he was so spent, with no strength left to move a muscle.

The boy sighed helplessly into the tube in his mouth that helped him to breathe. He desperately wished to remember, but even that worry faded from his mind entirely. Snatched by the drugs and the haze of pain, he slipped back into the fitful, confusing images that were his dreams.

* * * * * * * * * *

"David John Trent?"

The voice that inquired was thickly accented as to be almost guttural, and he turned on the sidewalk, startled as to who had called him. School had just ended, and as usual, he planned to stop by his favorite book shop before heading home. The owner of the voice was a giant of a man, lean and swarthy, wearing a long black coat that was not quite leather but looked strangely like the skin of a bat.

"Yes?" He inquired-- before he saw the malevolence in the man's black eyes, before his mind registered danger and screamed for him to run. Time seemed to slow to a standstill. He took a step back but the man was quicker. Somewhere, a woman screamed. He had only time to see the gun in the man's hand flash.

* * * * * * * * * *

Sarah Myers shook her head once again as she brought the medicine tray to the patient in room 5. As the night nurse on duty, she had scanned the endorsement sheet of her patients. This particular case had struck her with mingled horror and pity, hidden in the cold, medical terms of the previous nurses' notes:

David John Trent, age fifteen, gunshot wound in the chest, post-grafting and repair of ruptured left pulmonary artery. To note for signs of pulmonary embolism, hypotension . . .

The words rambled on in her mind.

'Just what is going on in the world right now?' She asked herself. 'Shooting a boy in cold blood right in the middle of a street! The poor child.'

Sarah Myers entered the room to find the boy awake, staring into space, his green eyes wide with terror and pain. Then he saw her, and he groaned in guarded relief.

"There now, David," Sarah soothed the rigid shoulders. "You're going to be alright. Doctor Mallory says you'll be out of this gloomy place in no time! I'll give you something for the pain right now and you'll be able to sleep without nightmares, how's that sound?"

The boy nodded gratefully, and as the nurse set to her task, he closed his eyes. He had to think, but the pain was making him nauseous. Someone had tried to kill him and he had no idea why. Had it been a mistake? No, he reasoned. The man had seemed so sure, so certain.

Something wasn't right. Where were Gran and Grandpa? Surely his grandparents would have known by now, and would have come rushing to see him. Then a cold thought dawned on him, and his heart quailed with fear. Oh God, what if the man got to them first?

With that, he suddenly found the strength to struggle, but the nurse held him down so easily that it brought tears to his eyes.

"David, you really should rest now." Sarah admonished him, though her face betrayed concern. "Doctor Mallory will be here early tomorrow morning. He'll answer all your questions, okay?"

David nodded doubtfully, but his eyes remained troubled. The nurse stayed with him until the medicines took effect, scattering his worries and fears and dulling the pain. Before he lapsed into the quiet darkness, he thought numbly: What if the man knows he's alive, and decides to finish the job? But the thought was snatched away before he could grasp it, his mind enveloped by the soothing, welcoming darkness.

* * * * * * * * * *

"Hello, David." A portly man in a white coat greeted him with a smile. "I'm Dr. Mallory. How are you feeling?"

The boy considered the question. Physically, upon waking with the sunlight (from the one window) shining gently on his face, he found that the ache in his chest was still there, but bearable. Someone had removed that damnable tube stuck in his throat. His voice felt scratchy, and his throat hurt, but it was quite a relief to finally be able to speak.

"A lot . . ." David croaked, "better than yesterday." He added hoarsely.

Doctor Mallory listened to his chest for several seconds, felt his pulse, and nodded. "You're doing great, kid, considering how frantic we were on you a couple of days ago," he said, smiling reassuringly. "I'll have the nurse get you something to drink, and some soft "squishy" foods later today." At the boy's grimace, he laughed. "If you eat everything the nurse gives you, I promise you'll be out of the ICU tomorrow."

The doctor glanced at the door, and David noticed the concern behind his light banter.

"Son, the police are here and they're going to ask you a few questions. Think you're up to it?" At David's reluctant nod, he added, "Don't worry, you don't have to say anything if you're not ready for it. They've been hounding me for the past few days but I told them no. Is there anything else I can do for you?"

"My---my grandparents," the boy whispered, half-fearfully. "Can I see them? Are they alright?"

The stricken look in the doctor's face told him, more or less, and he stifled a groan of despair.

"I hate to be the one to tell you this, David." The man hesitated, his eyes filled with sympathy. "Your grandparents were found unconscious in your home, the day you were brought to the emergency room. Your grandmother was taken to St. Martin's Hospital. From what I've gathered from her doctors, she's stabilized, but she hasn't regained consciousness. Your grandfather---I'm so sorry, son--he didn't make it."

The room began spinning with him as the center, and he closed his eyes tightly and turned away. 'God, this isn't happening,' he cried silently, 'not to me, and especially not to them. Please, let me wake up . . .'

"Look, David," said the doctor worriedly, noting the boy's white, pinched face. "You don't have to see the officers today. I'll see what I can do."

Dr. Mallory laid a comforting hand on the boy's quivering shoulder.

"No." David said. "I have to talk to them. I need---to know---what happened."

* * * * * * * * * *

The meeting with Officer Dayton wasn't enlightening at all---for both parties. There wasn't much the cop could tell David that he didn't already know, and he certainly couldn't give the man any information other than what he remembered, which was sketchy at best.

His recollection of the assailant matched the other witnesses' description, of an unusually tall man in a strange black coat, dark of face, with piercing black eyes. But not one could recall the man's exact features, to Dayton's obvious frustration.

A lot in this was puzzling, the officer mused. There were no signs of struggle in the case of the boy's grandparents, as if the assailant (or assailants) had moved very quickly and efficiently. And, all the witnesses seemed to have had a strange bout of amnesia.

The officer inquired about the boy's acquaintances, people who might have had cause to harm his family, but the boy couldn't for the life of him know of anyone that would have that strong of a motive. His parents had died in a car accident when he was very young, and he was practically raised by his gran and grandpa.

After the fruitless, exhausting interview, David was shaking so hard from the horror of it all that the officer finally took his leave. Dayton assured him that one of his men would be stationed by the door in shifts; he wasn't taking any more chances with this assailant, he said.

Somehow the pain had returned with a vengeance, augmented by the pain of loss and uncertainty. The boy cried for his grandparents, for the man who was more a father to him than his dad, who he could barely remember, would ever be. It was a long time before he finally drifted into uneasy slumber.