Help Needed

The memory of a children's hospital is ghastly.

Gladys sat, entombed in a dying van parked so deeply in the lot it was technically a satellite. Distance didn't help; it just made St. Paul's looked like a candy-colored tick stuck to asphalt. Cheerfully ominous.

She took a deep, grounding breath. "I'm projecting. I know I'm projecting."

"So get on with it," her bag said in a tone of entrenched boredom. The clasp was open enough to let a small tail of darkness flick idly back and forth. Nic wasn't patient-- night terrors usually weren't, even before getting caught inside anachronistic accessories. "Mortals and their loops. Obsessing forever."

He wasn't wrong. With a sigh Gladys grabbed the bag and got out.

Crossing the lot was exhausting. Nobody remembers cars, so they never exist in places like this. Why bother? But everyone recalls walking and emotions. So the trip became a marathon of effort, pushing through resignation flavored with dread so deep it felt like dying. Magic helped, a little, but it was a relief to finally stumble into the waiting room and watch the world outside vanish.

Inside the hospital had more detail, but not much. It was another half-remembered place, just an impression of antiseptic smells, endless benches and cold tiles. Only the colors remained constant, a bombastic palette on every wall like melting ice cream. Gladys waved to a vague impression of a receptionist as she went by.

Then she roamed a bit. Not the best approach, honestly. But after a dozen random turns she hit the jackpot, emerging into a hallway with the kind of details only pain can remember: A bright tunnel of clean tiles, big windows and plastic wall bumpers. Posters so cheerful they bordered on saccharine, with colors so bright they hurt. All of it arranged to point towards the end, where a small chair waited next to an open door.

A large man sat there, hunched over and sobbing. He didn't look up as she walked by, but Gladys kept an eye on him until the door closed with a soft click that erased everything.

"Hello? Who are you?"

She turned and there he was, sitting on the edge of the hospital bed in that ungainly sprawl only the young ever managed. Just a boy, famine-thin and terminally pale, practically drowning in a hospital gown and blankets. But his eyes contained worlds: Abyssal pits set in sunken hollows of unwanted knowledge.

Gladys put her bag down on the end table. "Daniel Pratt."

"That's me," he frowned, unimpressed by secondhand clothes and a fuzzy mop of red hair. "But who are you? Where's my dad?"

"He asked me to help, actually. From the outside." She popped the catch, letting Nic out in a slow flood of shadows. He solidified into a feline shape, balefire eyes trained on the small figure. "You can call me Gladys, and I'm from Underhill Services."

"Are you a doctor?"

"A witch, actually."

"Oh. Is that why you have a cat?" He seemed fascinated and repulsed by Nic at the same time, drawn taut like a piece of string.

"He's not a real cat," she explained. "Nic is more like an... assistant. He helps me with things like this. He's a night terror."

Something ageless moved through his eyes. "What does that mean?"

"You're haunting your dad, Daniel." Gladys watched him carefully, unsurprised at his lack of reaction. "Whenever he sleeps, this memory is waiting. He can't resist coming."

Daniel looked down. "He loves me."

"He does." Gladys pointed and Nic slid forward, pooling in the boy's lap. "And that's not bad. But you're using him up a little every time, and it has to stop. Nic helps with that. So do I."

A stick-thin hand rose and settled on the living shadow. "How does he help?"

"You just choose to move on. Nic will do the rest-- he eats bad dreams. He's already taken the rest of this one as we walked through. It's something nobody else will ever know but us."

"What if I don't want to go?"

She winced, but didn't hesitate. "You'll become one of the cythraul. A bad spirit, hopping from person to person. It's one of many outcomes, honey. All of them bad."

He thought for a long time, sitting under unforgiving hospital lights with a lap full of darkness. Eventually Daniel nodded once, then leaned forward and somehow fell through Nic. In return the night terror grew slightly, then turned on itself and slipped neatly back into her bag.

The world grew blurry, unreal. Somewhere far away a man's voice cried out in guilty relief, knowing there was time enough at last.

Gladys closed her eyes. She hated lucid waking. "Be kind to that one, Nic."

"Or else."

WC: 795

r/Susceptible

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