Chapter III: From white to white

White. A blank canvas where one could sketch his life. The ever present blinding color that could deprive all vision from the weak of heart. It didn’t need much. Just give a man someplace to draw his entire life, and see him crumble from the fear of doing so. A mirror. A mirror for Jack to see his life as it was; empty, deprived of all purpose, in vain. Wherever he turned his head, there was not a blemishing spot of color to signify that he has done anything.

Tabula rasa, a blank page. Yet, they had cleverly stolen from him the ability to draw anything there. As he tried to move his arms, he felt restricted, tied. And the damn light kept shedding itself inside his brain, only to expose how empty it really was.

The monotony broke. A crack appeared in the vast emptiness. And through there, two figures stepped inside his haven. The one he had seen plenty of times before, a white tall humanoid. There was no other word that could describe what was standing in front of him, for even if one could tell that it was a human body, its face was empty; a blur of flesh-like color without any feature. Like someone had robbed this man all that which could describe him.

But the moment he looked beside him, Jack froze. He felt a shiver in his spine, so cold that it could have doused the flames of hell itself. It was the incarnation of a demon, which was standing besides the faceless man, what has caused him this feeling.

A vile beast, with hair like a million snakes that writhed in hatred towards him. But even this malice dimmed when one looked at the face of this medusa. There were no eyes, just black, bottomless pits. In her mouth, a million razor-sharp pointy teeth seemed to have a life of their own, as a sickly green poison dripped out of them, making a small pool of acid near her feet.

Jack wanted to scream, wanted to run, but fear held him tight. As he was cast in stone, petrified, weak, he could only watch in terror at the two figures. They didn’t seem to have noticed him, and he felt himself shrinking to nothingness, crumbling to his corner, as if by this way he could avoid detection.

But life isn’t so merciful. Slowly he saw the beast approaching him. It seemed larger from up close, each step enhancing her terrifying appearance, making her look like a giant, while he felt himself becoming smaller and smaller… like he was nothing. The beast was now only a breath away, its stink invading his senses.

Jack broke. He felt something hot overcoming him, something familiar, something long now forgotten.

There was a deep darkness. Not the kind that is just the absence of light, but like some kind of an anti-light, like abyss herself. Slowly, two dots started to appear, two eyes opening, two furnaces of red hot lava ready to spill destruction. They were not enough to illuminate the place, but in the far end of the darkness, a door started to open, little by little, like a rusted metal door that had forgotten it had hinges someday. As the eyes approached the opening, the outline of a human figure started to appear. A tall man, eyes made from fire, grin made of rage, soul made of destruction. It delayed just a second in front of the door, like he wanted to make sure that this was real, and then, with the speed of death himself, he rushed forward.

Jack felt that he was dying, the demon had bended her head towards him, her hand was approaching him, and he could clearly hear a gibberish incantation coming out of her mouth. The familiar hot feeling hadn’t left him. He knew that there was something he had to remember about it, but hard as he tried, the memory didn’t appeared.

An image flashed in his eyes; blood in a kid’s hand. And he remembered… rage.

The hot feeling had left him. Now he was a bursting volcano, the heat of the sun couldn’t compare with him. And he consecrated this fiery hell; his last escape. And he let it loose, towards the demon.

The doctor jumped just in time to restrain Jack’s fist as it flew towards Jennifer; she ended landing on the hard floor of the clinic’s room.

Seconds later three men managed to fully restrain him and to properly re-secure the restraining jacket that had somehow snapped open.

“What was that?” Jennifer whispered towards the doctor in a, still shaking, voice.

“Honestly mam, this hasn’t happened before. As I said earlier to you, he had spent his last days here just apathetically looking at the wall. I cannot know what triggered this violent behavior, till now he had only tried to hurt himself, thus we had him on the safe room with a jacket…” The doctor’s replied, still trembling with shock.

“But… this attack? Why…? Maybe some of the drugs had affected him somehow… he was always a very calm person…” Jennifer couldn’t believe what had transpired moments ago.

“No.” The doctor was still skeptical. “We are not giving him any meditation… yet. He has clearly suffered from a nervous breakdown, maybe from the long hours of work that you yourself have reported to us… But his body is in very bad condition too; like he was trying to slowly suicide through lack of proper nourishment and sleep. We need to wait for his body to recover before we start treating him normally. Although my first impression showed that maybe he could recover by himself given proper feed and rest… but now, after this incident I fear I might have to look a little better at him.”

“Please do your best Doctor… He is one of our most valued researchers; we would like to have him back at work as soon as possible.” Jennifer replied tired, and then turned her back leaving the building, and abandoning the doctor in his thoughts.

Jack really though that at that exact moment he could kill the demon. Yet the faceless man interrupted him, momentarily, just enough for the beast to run away. As he saw them leaving his haven, he saw another form. A man with eyes made from pure fire, from purifying heat. The man’s face looked familiar, like he should have known it, like he was used to see it everyday in the past… but again, his mind denied him of any clues.

The fiery being looked at the demon, then nodded to Jack, and followed her out. Jack was left alone again. Yet somehow, he felt even emptier than before; spent.

Some minutes later Jack heard a female scream, followed by an explosion. He would never learn that Jennifer had died in an explosion in her car, neither that this occurred about a mile away from the clinic, and thus that he shouldn’t been able to hear it at all…

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