Static Reflections: Book 1 of The M... - Chapter 2: Chapter 2

A flash of green. Confused whispers. A bright light was shining on his face. He was sitting in a chair in some sort of remote cement room with smooth, polished walls. A group of three animals stood in front of him, each with black armbands on the left sleeve of their gray lab coats. The accessories each had a white shield-shaped symbol with a picture of a pink brain and the letters "MG" on either side.
The hyena felt hazy, and his head was aching. He raised his dark hand to hold it, but his other hand came up with him, followed by a clinking noise that filled his ears. Looking down revealed that he had been handcuffed. Finally, Nick gathered his words to speak. "Where am I? What is this?"
One of the animals, a stocky black and white badger, turned to face a silver fox looking directly at Nick with his arms crossed. "Should I really ask him again?" he asked with a concerned face on his muzzle.
The fox nodded. "Go ahead."
The badger looked back to Nick, their eyes meeting. "Alrighty. Let's try this again. What do you remember, Nicholas?" The third animal, a brown weasel, touched a blue pen to a small clipboard.
The light illuminating him was blinding, and he squinted his eyes against the sharp glare. "Did I get arrested for something? And can you turn off that light? I can barely see."
The other animal's eyes darted at the fox once more. "Do I have to answer that question every time, Dante?"
"Just tell him 'no' and be done with it," Dante responded. "And cease the light spell again."
The smaller animal nodded, making some sort of strange gesture with his hand as the light went out. "No, Mr. Flynn. You aren't under arrest. Can you please tell me what you remember before we brought you here?"
Nick blinked ponderously, scanning  his recent memories, immediately finding what these animals were probably looking for. But he wasn't about to give answers before getting some for himself. "Hey, woah. If you're gonna have me in handcuffs and interrogate me all menacingly, I at least want to know why you brought me here. I'm not gonna answer anything until you tell me."
"Do you know what Absalom is?" the badger asked. His mouth was like a bow that shot his words into Nick's heart, sinking it into his chest.
The hyena swallowed, feeling it hard to get the saliva down like he hadn't drunk anything in days. How long had he been out? "You know about that?!"
"We do. We brought you here because your friend Boris is in big trouble. We want to help him but to do that, we need you to tell us what you know."
The gears in Nick's mind immediately began turning rustily. Can these guys really help Boris? There's no way, right? "He's . . . I mean, I don't exactly know what he is, but I know he's possessing Boris."
The badger's face changed to one of disappointment as he looked at Dante, yet again, gesticulating wildly as he spoke. "See?! He still remembers! I've done the spell eight times, and nothing is working."
Dante stroked his chin gently, clicking his tongue. "Uh-huh . . . . Never experienced something like this before . . . ."
Nick shook his aching head, furrowing his brows. "I'm sorry, can you guys explain what's going on now?"
"Since we can't seem to erase your memory of Absalom, I might as well tell you," the silver fox began. "Your little otter friend, Boris, committed a supernatural crime because he was under the influence of possession."
Oh god, Nick thought. "What crime, exactly?"
"Unfortunately . . . " The fox took a moment before he spoke again. "He murdered your band's manager, Astrid Delaney before the performance began."
"What?!" Nick attempted to get out of the seat but quickly realized his legs were cuffed to the chair as well. It jolted with him, scraping the ground.  "What do you mean?!"
"It's pretty clear what I mean. We're lucky that Boris caused a big scene, or the Mortal Guard wouldn't have been able to come and get you. You were knocked out cold, thanks to him. From the looks of it, you witnessed the murder yourself," Dante confirmed.
"Mortal Guard . . . ? I don't remember seeing anything . . . ." Nick's brows furrowed as he racked his brain for the info.
"Well, that's because we altered your memories of the events. Though, you seem unable to let go of the knowledge of Absalom for some reason." Dante tapped his chin curiously, humming after.
"Erased my memories? I'm so lost," Nick frustratedly responded, his head swimming with the torrents of information that were drenching him.
"I understand. The nurse will explain it in more detail in your room," Dante said. "I have a feeling you'll be happy to see her."
"Room? You're letting me go?"
A chuckle. "What? Do you think we'd let you go home with the information you retain? No! Of course not! It's far too dangerous. No, you'll be taken to your Resting Room here in the Medical Sect. You'll be staying the night, but we'll have a nurse come in and see how you're doing after a while."
Nick blinked. ". . . Where's Boris now? Did the police arrest him? Or the Mortal Guard or whatever you said?"
A defeated look spread across everyone's face. Nick noted the third animal hadn't talked but was writing on the clipboard the entire time. Dante sighed. "We have no idea where he went. And he took your friend Tyler with him. They're both missing."
A weight fell heavy upon the hyena's chest. "Wait, really?! Wh-what about Nora and Page?"
"We've already shifted Page's memories of anything supernatural. She's home and safe now. Your friend Nora . . . Well, that's something you should probably discuss with her."
The questions continued to run from his mouth like water from a broken dam. "And the concert? Was it canceled? What do you mean? Is she here? Where is she?"
"Our Disaster Sect took care of the concert. Don't worry about it. You'll be able to speak to Ms. Lynn shortly."
"What about my parents?" Nick continued, with no signs of stopping the flood. He knew that it was heading toward an inevitable wall, anyway.
"Don't worry about it," Dante repeated, sounding completely used to the reactions from Nick. "It's all taken care of. You don't need to lift a finger."
The hyena wasn't sure how to gauge the situation, so he simply said, "Okay, sure, but if you're gonna hold me in some facility, I'd like to talk to my parents so they know I'm okay."
"Unfortunately, we can't let you do that. We're going to escort you to your Resting Room. Your nurse will explain everything, so are you going to resist or go willingly? I ask this because we're going to uncuff your legs."
Nick looked down at his feet as Dante said this. "I'll . . . cooperate, I guess. But this is just insane, you know. I don't know how to process it."
"Well, that's the purpose of the Resting Room. It gives you time to process everything and, as I stated before, have everything be explained to you more clearly. You'll learn about our organization and everything like that there."
"Okay," Nick frowned, still unsure of the entire scenario.
The fox clapped his black hands together. "Alright! Well, my name is Dante. I'm the leader of Austin Prostasia's Trauma Sect. I'm sure we will see each other again."
"Austin's what? You're leaving already?"
"I'm much too busy to carry on here. These two will escort you to your Resting Room." He pulled out a small silver key from a box that was in his coat pocket, coming forward and kneeling. He unlocked the cuffs on Nick's legs, removed them, and stood back up once he had finished. Nick stayed sitting, waiting for further instruction. As more and more time passed, reality started sinking its claws into his brain. This was really happening.
The tall silver fox gave him a small wave before exiting the room and leaving him with the two other animals. He watched them, expectantly. The pudgy badger came forward, gesturing for Nick to stand up, which he did. The walking mammal led him out of the room and down the sterile hall.
The hyena realized that the place must have been massive, judging by the length of the hall and the number of rooms that lined the walls. It seemed to go on forever. It was almost daunting thinking about what the rest of the (What did Dante call it?) Sect looked like. Then, there were the strange noises from all around the group.
Nick had been in a hospital similar to this once when he had gotten in a car crash at age eighteen. It was eerily quiet and cold. Almost like no one was there or had ever set foot there. The halls were pristine such as these, but whereas these halls stretched into the distance, the hospital Nick had visited had been a lot smaller, with sharp turns and splits visible at the end of every hall.
This place had a far different environment. There were moans, yelling, and animalistic noises—nurses and doctors shouting at each other, clearly stressed out of their minds. At one point, a gurney with squeaky wheels quickly rolled past the trio, disappearing around the corner. The two animals escorting Nick weren't talking due to the wall of sound assaulting their ears. Nick hoped they would get to the Resting Room soon. How did anyone work in these extremely loud conditions?
They made their way down the busy hall; left, right, left, left, further.  Finally, they arrived at a door with a small black scanner next to it. The badger took out a white card and held it against the device. The light switched from red to green, and the door opened like something out of a science fiction film Nick had seen but had never been into. The contraption slid upward instead of swinging forward, despite having a handle.
The trio stepped inside, and the men instructed Nick to strip down to his underwear, put on a floral-print gown they handed him, and sit on the bed.  A roll of thin paper was lying across the top, and a new white pillow sat on the end. The hyena did so.
He was worried about everything, especially Boris, but his curiosity trumped all else. What was this place? Where was this place? At least he would know more soon, according to the somewhat intimidating Dante.
"The nurse will be in shortly," the badger said. "The door is going to close, and you won't be able to open it, so if you need anything, you ought to let us know right now."
Nick shook his head. "I'm okay. How long until they get here?"
"Shouldn't be too long."
"That's good, at least," Nick sighed.
"Anything else before we go?"  the badger asked.
"No, sir."
Merely nodding, the animals in the lab coats left, and the door slid down, making a clicking sound after it was secure. Nick was left entirely alone for the first time in this strange sequence of events.
His first intuition was to look around at his surroundings, but there wasn't much to see. A small candle with a pulsing flame, a grouping of plain cabinets by the door, a gray stool with wheels, and a little tan trash can across the room that was half full. There were no posters on the wall, which gave the room a very isolated vibe,
There was no IV drip or heart monitor, which was very strange, as those seemed necessary in a place such as this. And the candle wasn't enough to make up for the sheer amount of cold Nick was feeling. There were no blankets in sight, so all he could do was suck it up and wait.
Silence. The realization hit the hyena of just how quiet it was now. He could hear absolutely no noise from the outside halls. Not even a little bit. He concluded that the room must be soundproof. But was that better? His breathing sounded much louder than before, which made him slightly anxious. How could he even trust anyone in this place?
He was in the Resting Room they spoke of, but would he truly be spending the night in there? There wasn't even a TV as there was in most hospitals. As the wait dragged on, he found himself looking around again, and his emerald eyes stopped on the curious flame, pulsing in and out at a rather average speed.
How was it doing that? It didn't take that long to figure out why it was doing that, though, as Nick was a reasonably intelligent fellow, and he put the pieces together relatively quickly.  The lack of a heart monitor, the pulsing of the flame, and the average speed it was moving.
The candle was the heart monitor.
To test out his theory, Nick brought his right hand over his heart, seeing if the beating synced up with the candle's pulsing and finding that they did, indeed, match. Only now did he also notice that there was a number carved into it neatly, preceded by the letters "NF."
He wasn't dreaming. He had known that from the start. He had known what was going on with Boris before this. That wasn't a dream, either. Out there. He knew that there was a risk of Boris killing someone they knew. It could have been any one of them—even the hyena himself.
And it ended up being Astrid Delaney, Water on Fire's jaguar manager who Nick had somewhat developed a little crush on. She was gorgeous (Especially without her makeup). She was serious when she needed to be, but her walls really came down in private. Astrid had also stopped drinking as heavily as she used to. She had come a long way in her life. Not to forget that she had spots similar to him.
As he waited, Nick thought back to a night when Astrid found him outside of a band party. They discussed Nick's most recently written song, Transmutation, the hyena's struggle with the growing fame of Water on Fire, his fears for the band, and where he thought his life was heading.
Then, the conversation switched to her side. They discussed what books she was reading, how her pet dog was doing, and how her relationship with her father was slowly being repaired. Nick remembered he was leaning back against the band's van as they talked. It was a slightly chilly night, but the restaurant they had been at emitted a soft orange glow that emanated warmth.
As the sand in the hourglass fell, Nick could feel the connection that they were strengthening through conversation, and while he wanted to reach out to her, to stroke her face and hold her, he knew that trying to go for his band's manager was a dangerous game to play. Surely, every single white piece on the board would come for his queen and it would be checkmate. The thought was a hook bobbing on the surface of the water, and he was a fish, staring at the bait.
That was a good night. Nick had never felt like he needed love, that he couldn't live without it. He knew that even if he grew old and never had a partner or a legacy left in his wake, he still would have found some way to make his life fulfilling beyond love. Though it was nice to think about and it would have been nice to have.
But now Astrid was dead. He would never see her eyes again or hear her voice with her direct way of speaking, or the laugh that rarely came out around anyone but those she trusted. All of the progress she had made in life, everything she had ever done and would have done was cut off.
Was he being selfish? He was thinking of all of the things he would never get from her again when she would never read again, speak to her dad again, or feel brave enough to drop her walls for someone she trusted. She would never let anyone in again because Boris had taken her life.
No, she was gone because of Absalom. Nick brought his legs up to his chest, deciding to let his emotions roll over him like a wave and sob into his knees, pressing them gently into his eye sockets and letting the fur soak up his tears. Not only was he confused, but he had lost someone no longer tangible to him.
And the candle. That green light from before when the strange animals were interrogating the hyena. Those were definitely magic. The badger called it a spell. He had said he had done it eight times before, and he had been frustrated that Nick still remembered Absalom.
Nick could never have predicted he would be in a place like this. Of course, if the supernatural could exist and Boris could be possessed, then magic could exist just the same. It wasn't hard to believe, but it was hard to process. It was all hard to process.
Why would they want to make Nick forget that Absalom existed? Before he could think any deeper, the door opened, and a skinny doe stepped in, clearly his nurse. But this wasn't just any doe. This doe had antlers. And Nick knew her very well. Or so he thought.
"Nora?!" he gasped, eyes bugging out of his head. "Holy shit, am I seeing things?"
"It's been so long, Nick!" Nora smiled widely, a gaze of recognition on her face. She was wearing a soft-looking white shirt and pants that rested on her blank tennis shoes. "I'd hug you but, uh, it's against policy."
The hyena blinked, currently leaving behind his emotional breakdown. "Uh . . . I saw you yesterday, though. And come on, you always hug me when we see each other."
"That wasn't me," Nora responded. "And I'm sorry, but I respect my job and gotta follow the rules. No hugs."
Nick was dumbfounded. Just before he had been the waves, but now he realized he was a beach, the saltwater information constantly rolling over him, pulling grains of sand into its murky depths, eroding his mind. "I don't get it . . . ."
"I haven't seen you in a few months."
"What?"
Nora exhaled, grabbing the small stool and sitting down, crossing her arms and putting one leg over the other. "It's time you find out where you are and what all of this is."