"Oh, Nillium, you really are clueless. You don’t understand what you are, do you?"
"He told me his name was Siegfried Von Nillium!" though even I could hear some doubt creeping into my voice. "Of course he’s my father. And no, I don’t understand why I seem to be the only one who can see what’s going on. But I am, and I’m going to stop you."
"Let me show you something, Nillium. Show you exactly why you stand no chance."
The Director stepped towards a wall and punched, the strength of his blow knocking a hole in the plaster and revealing the walls innards. I nearly threw up at the sight.
Inside of the wall was not the electrical cords and insulation I had expected, but bones... and not the bones or wooden framework of a normal structure, but human bones, all connected by a deep red wiring that looked awfully like blood veins. I just stared in shock for a while, not sure what to say or think. I glanced at my two companions, but both remained silent, letting me take in an awful truth that they were all too aware of.
The Director watched my reaction with a wolfish smile.
"Former patients are to thank for that," he said smugly. "Their bodies and spirits have brought this place to life. Every one of them that dies grants my Ward more and more power, which grants me power. I do not let their souls depart, but keep them trapped here within my grasp."
"B-..." I began, not sure even what to say.
His smile widened, revealing perfect and white teeth that could have been in any commercial for a dental product.
"We have something here in Atrium, known as the ‘Black List’. It’s a record of all of the patients that are slated to have ‘accidents’ so that they can empower me a bit sooner than fate would have it. Of course we only kill those patients whose deaths won’t be questioned by family on the outside."
I opened my mouth but no words came out. All words had failed me before this onslaught to all that I considered good and moral in the world. The Director continued.
"There are a few rogue spirits who refuse to stay imprisoned, like Siegfried and the Mushrooms, but even they cannot leave the Ward. All they can do is cause mischief, which my Tormentors stop soon enough. And that is where you come in, Nillium Neems. You are nothing but one more attempt to cause me trouble."
"So they gave me the ability to see things as they are?" I blurted out, still reeling mentally.
"Oh this is too much!" He said with obvious delight. "You really don’t know, do you? No, they didn’t give you power to see, they gave you everything. Siegfried is your father in the same way that a scientist is father to his creations. Because that is all you are, Nillium Neems. You are his creation. A manifestation of all the hopes and dreams of the spirits who haunt this place. An embodiment of their pathetic acts of resistance. You are their defiance given life, created solely to stop me."
"But I remember my parents!" I shouted, not bothering to conceal the terror in my voice. "I’m twenty years old and I remember everything that’s happened in my life!" but even as I said it, the uncertainty I had felt upon reading my patient file in Higgins office came back to me. I didn’t remember anything very clearly come to think of it.
"All false," the Director confirmed, as if hearing my thoughts. "Every memory you have is false, even of your ‘life’ in my Ward. You have only been in existence for sixty-five days, and that fact I know for sure. And to answer your next question, the reason I have done nothing about you until now is because I was unaware of your presence. Siegfried and his followers hid you all too well from me..." and here his face took on the first note of annoyance I had seen.
"When you pulled a bone from the wall in your room, weakening the structure of my Ward ever so slightly, was when I first became aware of what you are and the threat that you pose. So, I looked through our records for a Nillium Neems to confirm my suspicions, and found every record to be false, planted there by Siegfried and the others. Your birth certificate was false, a non-existent doctor listed on it, your parents are false, the doctor who ‘admitted’ you to this Ward is false, all of it was false. You are the rather brilliant last ditch effort of the rogue spirits who stand against me."
"I’m not real..." I said quietly, more of a realization than a question. Looking down at my hands, not sure whether to be relieved or upset that my life was a lie, I understood that I was just a pawn. Meaningless.
The Director nodded. I looked at Siegfried, whose head was bent, possibly in shame. He didn’t meet my gaze.
"Why tell me all of this?" I asked, turning back to my enemy. "Why didn’t you have your Tormentors outside kill me, or you yourself try to kill me?"
"Because I wanted to meet you. I wanted to see with my own eyes the famous Nillium Neems, and I wanted to tell you, face to face, just how meaningless your existence is. Your hopelessness and despair is a feast to me, the likes of which I have not enjoyed in some time. How does it feel, to be nothing but a lie? And a rather pathetic one at that."
I stood in thought for a minute, not really sure what to say. Slowly, I reached up and took the Snoopy Cap from my head, turning it over and over in my hands. There, taped to the inside, was the lighter I’d stolen from Higgins office, along with the Black List. The List of all of those patients he’d killed. I looked at Paul, at Mousy, my friend who had stood by me through so much. He smiled, though it was a bit strained.
"Is my Snoopy Cap a lie?" I asked. "Is Mousy’s friendship a lie and Dr. Hammy’s sacrifice? Are all those you killed, those Black List patients a lie?"
"No, but they are meaningless. Meaningless, worthless gestures."
And that was when the Director made his first mistake. If he had said yes, they were nothing but lies, I would have given up then and there. But they weren’t. The friendships were real, the comfort of my Snoopy Cap was real, the triumph over his minions and my fight with the Hooded Man. And that long, long list of death. That too was real. It wasn’t much, but it was enough.
I ran at him and placed both hands around the demon’s throat. He snarled in disbelief that I would dare to touch him, and that’s when things got interesting...
It was the blackness in his heart, welling up and revealing itself for what it was. His skin quivered and blackened into a midnight shade, and his eyes became two holes, dark sucking voids that were an absence of color, not merely black, not anything.
He screamed at me, more a scream of fury than of fear, and reached up to grab my hands. Inhuman strength drew them apart from around his neck, till he held me at arm’s length. With a snarl he threw me backwards into Siegfried and Paul, knocking all three of us to the ground.
I leapt to my feet, turning to face the monster. His form quivered once more and the transformation continued. The blackness spread all around his feet in a pool of shadows, so dark his form could no longer contain it. Though he remained pretty much himself in appearance, his shadow continued to grow, revealing a winged and demonic form, at least twice the Director’s size.
Siegfried raised both arms, exerting the last of his will and materializing weapons for both me and Paul. Two heavy sledge hammers appeared from the air and fell to the ground, both weapons slightly aglow with some unearthly power. I raised an eyebrow in question at this rather odd choice.
"Take them and slay him," Siegfried said haltingly, his whole body flickering between slug and man. "Strike not at the Director’s form, but at the very heart of his power. You are the only chance we have, Nillium Neems."
He reverted back to a slug, no longer able to sustain his old appearance. The Director screamed with fury and leapt upon him like some wild animal, rending at him with his teeth. His mouth opened wider than any human maw should have been able, and to my utmost horror, he swallowed Siegfried whole.
Paul put his hands to his mouth in shock. I just yelled, picked up a hammer, and charged the Director. He was too fast, catching my arm as I brought it down and hurling me backwards. I hit the wall with a thump, denting it slightly, and my hammer f
ollowed shortly thereafter, nearly squashing my head as it hit the wall beside me.
I got shakily to my feet and pulled my weapon loose, noticing the grotesque jigsaw of veins and bones, and it came to me what Siegfried must have meant with his departing words.
"Paul!" I shouted, as he picked up his own hammer and charged towards the Director. "Forget attacking him. The Director said it was this stuff within the walls that gave him power, the remains of trapped patients."
"So?" Paul replied, circling the Director and striking when he’d found an opening. The blow did no noticeable damage other than to knock his opponent back a few steps.
"Siegfried said to go for the heart of the Director’s power. That’s what all this stuff has to be!"
Paul just rolled his eyes at me.
"That’s stupid, it runs through the walls. We’d have to bring down the whole building to do any damage." He lunged at the Director again, but his foe was getting wise to his tactics and ducked under the blow, coming up beneath his arm and throwing Paul like he’d thrown me. The little Frenchman landed on the floor and slid, his hammer right beside him.
"Listen, Mousy!" I shouted, hoping that name might at least get through to him. "The first bone I pulled out of the walls back in my room was all dry and crumbly, right? Only dried blood stuck onto it. It looked