Chapter 2

We’ve been sitting in my office for some time now. Benny is still strapped to the table in the other room, knocked out by a sedative, and won’t be awake again for some time, if ever. His life hangs in some balance that I’m not even sure I’m aware of. The veil of mystery surrounding me seems to be drawing closer, suffocating me and refusing to back off. How could we do this to him? A sense of dread hangs over the entirety of my office.

No.

Cut it out.

I can’t let myself become distracted by the fate of Benny. I have other things to worry about.

I realize I’ve been picking at an old scratch on my wrist and it has started to bleed. The bright red fluid travels across my skin, navigating it’s way through my arm hairs. Before it can dry, I wipe it away. Blood pools in the cut again, but this time it lacks the momentum to make the same trek across my arm. I press a tissue at it and pull my mind back to reality.

We’ve been sitting in silence for minutes, but it has felt like hours. It’s been torture. Each passing second, another heartbeat of anxiety pulses through my veins. I can’t take it anymore.

I open my mouth to speak, praying that my voice won’t fail me, but he beats me to it.

The sound of his voice makes my skin crawl, but I have yet to put my finger on why. I’ve only heard it a few times, but the lack of emotion in each syllable and word is haunting. Robotic isn’t the right word. This sounds like the voice of something that has no care in the world. At least none that I can relate to.

“My people have lived in this world for centuries. Simply surviving by hiding in the shadows. We’ve grown to appreciate that; even favor it. Although some of us have tried to be more open, this has never worked out well, especially for us.”

He’s standing in the corner, still in the shadows as if to emphasize the point he’s making. Regardless, I never try to look at him; at least not directly.

Over the months of interacting with this being, I have grown more and more accustomed to the possibility that my suspicions of his origins are correct. Of course at first it felt fantastical, but over time, as things occurred, I understood that there are some secrets in this world that have stood the test of time.

“I still don’t understand why you came to me. Why do you think I can help you?” I ask.

“You’ve been chosen for a variety of reasons, Clayton. One of which is that we know you are a good man. Isn’t that right?” he asks with a hint of emotion in his voice. It would have been imperceptible if not for the complete lack of emotion from him up to this point. Is this some kind of joke to him?

“How would you know whether I am a good man, or not?”

I glance towards his hidden corner without thinking. My eyes immediately dart back towards my desk out of some primal sense of fear that I cannot resist. A chuckle escapes his lips, and the chills that run across my skin send a shiver down my spine. It takes everything in my being to keep it hidden, but I can sense he noticed it.

“Would you not protect the ones you love, no matter the cost?” he asks.

Again, subconsciously, I glance at the photo on the wall of my wife and daughter, only to tear my eyes away from it. I’ve always been a terrible poker player. He can see right through me.

At that point, something courses through me. Some steel finds itself in my spine. The words escape my lips with no filter.

“A good man would not dissect another human being!”

It wasn’t exactly a shout, but loud enough to make me realize we had been barely speaking above a whisper up to this point. My emotions got the better of me. Or maybe it was the infectious nature of Benny that overwhelmed my primal instinct to not anger this hidden being in my office, but regardless, I snapped. Benny was – is – a good man, and he should not become a science project at the whim of some beast.

When the figure appears across from my desk, my whole body shrinks against my office chair. My office isn’t large, but the space between the corner of it and my desk is wide enough that I should have seen him move towards me. He appeared instantly.

“Sacrifice is necessary,” he whispers to me, but it hits me with the force of a scream. “Don’t ever forget that.”

I can’t help but stare at him as the threat processes through my brain. My hands are gripping the arms of my chair to the point of pain. I’m frozen in place.

His eyes are pools of blackness, so dark that I’ve never seen anything like it, and I can’t look away. Transfixed, I try to speak, but air seems to have vanished from my lungs, and I realize how frozen I truly am.

After what seems like an eternity, he blinks, and breath returns to my chest. My hands are still strangling the arms of my chair, but at least the feeling of dread has left my body. What control does he have over me? Are my presumptions of him and his origins correct? That would mean only one thing.

He recedes back to the other side of the room and begins to pace. A strange act for someone so aggressively dominating moments ago, but something seems to have him preoccupied. In these moments, I find my strength again.

“So you need me, and Benny, to help you find a cure?”

He stops pacing. Slowly, he turns his head towards me, and gives me that stare again.

“We do NOT need to be cured!”

The shout takes me by complete surprise. The items on my desk rattle, while simultaneously I throw my head back to get my ears as far away from the terrible noise as I possibly can and cover them with both hands. It’s a horrendous experience that I hope to never hear again. I sense something and slowly open my eyes. Somehow, he’s towering over my desk, but after a moment he retreats back a few steps almost in apology.

“What we are does not need to be cured. We are a genetic adaptation, evolved from centuries of trial and error, but our future is at risk. I’m asking you to defeat the virus that is crippling our kind, and the key to that virus is coursing through that man’s veins.”

He points behind me, towards the other room with Benny, to emphasize his point. 

His skin is incredibly pale. The nail on his finger trimmed perfectly, but longer than normal. For the brief moment that I saw it, I couldn’t see much age in his skin. Chills again, but at least this time I can hide them. 

I try to find words to respond to his statements, but I’m speechless, and not because of some force overwhelming my body. The idea that this being in my office is some beast out of legend is starting to have its effect on me.

My eyes return to the picture on the wall. He told me in the beginning that my research would help my daughter fight the cancer in her blood. Of course I didn’t believe him, considering my life has been devoted to studying the very part of the human body that is failing her, but over time he convinced me. No threats were needed.

Hearing him speak in my office this evening has changed my thoughts on that. Every breath he takes in my presence is a threat to everything I know. Should I be giving him what he wants? Can I be complicit in whatever goal his people have?

As I wonder about these questions, I realize he’s disappeared from my office without a sound. Looking back and forth between the shadows, the hair on the back of my neck begins to rise. For a moment, I can sense something behind me, and then the whisper enters my ear like a spider crawling inside.

“Do what you need to retrieve it.”