My latest entry in the NYC Midnight Flash Fiction Contest. This is round one in the contest and I had 48 hours to write a story with the following prompts: Suspense/A Rehab Center/A blackboard.
I must say, suspense in 1000 words is NOT easy. Wish me luck!
Night Therapy
All is not what it seems at Green Ivy Rehabilitation Center. Uncertain how she even got there, can Anna escape before she vanishes like the rest?
Anna froze, the knife she’d stolen at dinner ready in her hand, but the footfalls outside her door faded into silence. Balanced precariously on the footboard of the bed, she resumed her attack on the screws of the ceiling vent.
Something was very wrong at Green Ivy Rehabilitation Center. One, Anna didn’t need rehab. She didn’t put processed food into her body, let alone drugs—she was a vegan for cripes sake! Two, she couldn’t recall how she’d even gotten here. She certainly hadn’t checked herself in as they’d claimed. Three, several girls had gone missing since she’d arrived and the staff acted as if they didn’t even remember them.
Anna was done trying to reason with these people. She’d been here three long weeks with no communication with the outside world. Her Mother had to be worried sick. She was getting the hell out of here…tonight.
This place made her feel like her head was in a bucket—like one of her senses had been cut off—which left her feeling nauseated and really pissed off. She rubbed at her chaffed wrist. The ID bracelet they’d given her was made of metal and polished black stone, and nothing short of a hacksaw was getting it off her wrist.
The last screw fell away and tucking the knife in the waistband of her pajamas, Anna wrenched the vent free and dropped it on the bed.
Hurried footfalls sounded in the hall outside her door.
They were coming!
With a desperate leap, Anna hoisted herself into the duct, but before she could pull her legs inside, a hand closed around her ankle and jerked her back. She struck her chin on the opening and landed in a dazed heap on the floor.
Dr. Hamilton and two orderlies stood looking down at her.
“Going somewhere?” Dr. Hamilton asked with a supercilious smirk. Anna had wanted to slap that expression off the woman’s face from the moment they met.
“Apparently not,” she said, rubbing her chin.
Dr. Hamilton nodded at the orderlies. “Take her. I think it’s time for a little night therapy.”
They each grabbed an arm and pulled Anna upright. Heart pounding, she struggled between the two hulking men as they dragged her into the hall. “I don’t want any of your therapy! I don’t even belong here!”
“Oh, but you do.” Dr. Hamilton gave a petulant laugh. “I almost feel guilty when they don’t understand what they are…almost.”
“What are you talking about?”
She fingered the amethyst pendant around her throat. “You’ll see soon enough, child.”
They took Anna to a room in the basement, and when she saw the “treatment” chair, she threw her weight backward, twisting and kicking, but it did no good. The doctor’s goons strapped her down anyway, binding her arms and legs to the metal frame.
After the orderlies had gone, Dr. Hamilton uncovered a medical tray beside the chair and selected a long thick needle and a piece of white chalk.
“What are you going to do to me?” Anna asked, her voice quavering despite her best efforts.
The doctor smiled. “I’m going to make us sisters under the skin.”
She pricked Anna’s finger with the needle and rubbed it along the length of the chalk, and then did the same with her own finger, leaving behind twin lines of crimson.
Dr. Hamilton turned to a blackboard at the back of the room and started writing lines of…runes?
Anna tried to calm her breathing. She still had the knife. She just had to get to it. She thrust her hips to the right, raising her butt out of the seat until she could reach the knife in her waistband. She pulled it free and started sawing at the strap holding her right hand to the chair.
“Have you ever caused something to happen just by thinking about it?” the doctor asked as she continued to write.
“No,” Anna said, trying to watch her and the strap at the same time.
“Oh, I bet you have and just didn’t realize it,” the doctor said. “You see, my dear. You’re a witch.”
Anna tried to decide if she was serious and came to the sad conclusion she was. “If I was a witch, you’d burst into flames about now,” Anna told her, sawing faster and harder as the strap started to give.
Dr. Hamilton laughed. “Not with that bracelet on your wrist. It nulls your powers.”
Anna pulled, and the strap gave all but a single thread. She held the strap down with her thumb and concealed the knife beneath her arm as the doctor turned to face her.
She pointed to her amethyst pendant. “I’m stealing your magic and putting it in here, where it will keep me young and beautiful for another few centuries.” She gave a predatory smile. “You’ll die in the process, but that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.”
The doctor advanced on her, holding the pendant out before her. Anna’s eyes grew wide. The purple stone glowed, swirling with the stolen power of how many murdered witches? Dr. Hamilton was chanting, her voice low and guttural as she walked a counter-clockwise circle around Anna.
Anna screamed as pain seared her chest. Magic was ripped from her in waves of light that funneled from her body and into the doctor’s necklace. As Dr. Hamilton came around the chair, Anna jerked her wrist free and made a desperate grab for the pendant, ripping it from the doctor’s neck.
Power surged through Anna’s veins, disintegrating the magic-dampening bracelet, and filling her with light and heat.
Dr. Hamilton shrieked, her clawed hands reaching in vain for the gem. Between one blink and the next, time caught up with her, and she crumbled to dust at Anna’s feet.
Anna flung the necklace away, but the feeling of power remained. Centuries of stolen magic now resided within her. The only question was…what would she do with it? Fortunately, she had a lifetime to figure it out.
Words To Write By 