Nillium Neems (16 page)

I looked from where I was to the broken
window of the Director’s office, almost on eye level with me. There
he was, the monster of monsters himself, staring downwards and
directing his generals. Beside him lay the crushed remains of
Mousy, a sight that made me more angry than sad. He’d put his life
into helping me, stopping this evil, and wouldn’t even live to see
the end of it. It was up to me to make sure their sacrifices
weren’t for nothing. Siegfried, the Mushrooms, Mousy, Hammy, all of
them. I’d probably die up here, but I’d do what I could to make
things rights.

I climbed higher, snapping off a few flaming
branches to take with me in hopes that I might spread the flames
quicker as I went. I was more nimble than most of the Tormentor’s,
small enough not to get caught up in the branches when some of them
did. Also light enough to balance on the thinner branches, which I
noticed with amusement that some of them would snap as they put
their weight on it.

The flames grew hotter beneath me, growing
in fury and now consuming whole branches. But it didn’t stop me.
Smiling, somehow happier than I’d ever been before, I pulled myself
up to the next branch, sweat running off me like water.

Glancing down upon hearing another crash,
there was the Twisted Puppet, falling and screaming as the flames
ate at his wooden body. The Skeleton was closer now, no more than
ten feet beneath me, unperturbed by the fire.

Still I climbed, hand over hand, branch
after twisting branch. The little crystal prisons flashed all
around me as the flames broke them, freeing the spirits trapped
within. I laughed aloud as I watched them explode like fireworks,
the former patients ascending cloudwards, each one raising a fist
to me, saluting my triumph.

Higher still I went, flames licking at my
feet as they raced me to the top. But I didn’t mind. No, I still
laughed, laughed and laughed as the race went on, until my head
broke through the topmost leaves. I saw sunlight at last, for what
seemed like the first time in years, its beams caressing my face. A
few birds took flight, startled at my unexpected appearance. I
watched them till they were out of sight.

Only a few crystals remained up this high,
and I took the nearest one to examine it. The small figure looked
horribly familiar. Though tiny and hard to make out due to the
obscuring prison that surrounded it, it looked an awful lot like
Jeremy...

Arms crossed, he looked as if he’d just
died, not a wrinkle of death upon his body. Fear etched his face
though, and the very thought that the Director would do this to
terror prone, helpless little Jeremy, made my blood boil. To see
one so innocent suffer in such a way was almost more than I could
bear. With everything I had, I hurled him downwards.

The spirits of the imprisoned were flying up
all around me now, disappearing in waves through the sky. Their
ranks slowly petered out, till the final few flew by me. The last
was Jeremy, stopping to stand beside me. He looked different in
death than in life, less nervous and standing just a little
taller.

"Don’t give up hope," he said quietly,
resting a hand on my shoulder. "Sometimes prayers take a little
while to come true."

"What prayers?" I asked.

Jeremy smiled and started to float once more
upwards, following the trail of his fellow captives.

"You just released over a thousand
wrongfully imprisoned souls," he whispered, just before he blinked
out of sight. "That’s a good way to earn points from Above..."

Realizing what he meant, I looked up, trying
to pierce the vaults of Heaven, hoping to see what was beyond that
blue sky and maybe, just maybe, see Someone looking back at me. I
didn’t. I saw nothing. But I knelt on my knees regardless and gave
the prayer thing another try.

It wasn’t fancy or elegant, certainly
nothing that would stand up well in church. Just a quiet save me as
I looked upwards for a sign, for anything. Nothing happened for a
while and I started to feel let down again, until a small flash of
light began far, far above. It descended rapidly, spiraling
downwards until I could see it clearly.

The image will be forever etched into my
mind. For what I saw was every spirit that I had just freed sent to
my aid, soaring right past humble little me and down into the
flames beneath my feet.

"Where are you going?" I shouted. They gave
no answer, soon gone once more from sight, this time down instead
of up.

Moments later, the whole Tree shook as if by
an earthquake, and it occurred to me that whatever they were doing
down there, it was hurting the Tree itself. The fire I had started
was destroying branches and leaves, but the spirits seemed intent
on uprooting the thing in entirety.

That thought made me smile, as I wondered
just how much of the Director’s power might remain if the Tree was
dead. My smile dispersed a moment later when the Skeleton leapt
onto a nearby branch, his bony features distorted with rage.

I dropped to the branch beneath as he lunged
at me, but still felt the hot sting of ripping claws as they left a
deep gash in my arm. There wasn’t really much farther down I could
go or I’d find myself in the middle of the inferno, so I made do
with going sideways instead.

Burning leaves rained around me as the
Skeleton crashed through them, dropping onto my level. I whipped
around to face him and felt a claw rake my side, nearly knocking me
off the branch. My blood splattered it enthusiastically.

"It’s too late, Dr. Sirius," I taunted. "The
Tree is going to be destroyed and all of you with it! Maybe if you
repent now you won’t go to the same Hell that the others are
destined for."

"Dr. Sirius is no more," he replied with a
growl, "I am the Skeleton. And if Hell is my future, then it shall
be yours as well!"

He struck again and I felt pain for the
third time. I didn’t even really care at this point. I was going to
die up here anyways, so the fear of death from this Tormentor was
remarkably absent.

"Is that all you’ve got?" I replied,
laughing. "Come on, Dr. Skeleton. Bring it on!"

I ducked his next blow and grabbed him
around the arm, trying my best to twist it off. My attempt met with
little success. He lashed out with an elbow that hit me a jarring
blow on the chin, knocking me a few branches down. I could
definitely feel the flames now, receiving more than a few burns,
but still I didn’t care.

No, all I wanted was to enjoy the last few
minutes of my non-life and show this Tormentor who was boss.
Looking around for a suitable weapon, I snapped off a semi-burnt
branch and climbed back up to him, a defiant grin on my face.

I’m sure I presented a rather grim image,
clothes torn, ends flaming and smoking, my hair a mess and probably
on fire as well. At this point, blood and soot coated me like paint
as I held the heavy branch in both hands.

Grinning like a maniac, I went at him,
makeshift club flailing. He clawed once more, but I deflected it
this time, following up with a heavy swing to his rib cage. I was
rewarded by the satisfying crunch of snapping bone. There are
two-hundred and six bones in the human body, and I was fully intent
on breaking every single one of them.

My enemy was getting angry now and he lashed
out twice more. One claw slashed across my face, leaving a red
trail, while the other struck me across the shoulder. I returned
the favor and hit him again, this time trying to take out his hands
so he couldn’t decide to claw me again.

After that it pretty much turned into a
slugfest, neither of us bothering to defend, just taking turns
trying to do the most damage. All the while, the flames grew higher
until we were in the thick of it, the Tree shaking every few
seconds as the spirits did their part below us.

A clawed finger pierced the tendon on my
arm, making it near useless, but I was winning all the same. My
blows steadily chipped away at his form, until he had only one arm
and a few fingers left to attack me with. I raised the heavy branch
for my final assault, when the whole Tree groaned under my
feet.

Tuned-bronze walls of sound assaulted my
ears, crashing down upon me in a deafening avalanche. It was
horrible, like the dying, drawn out groan of a battlefield, every
soldier weary of life. The whole thing buckled beneath us and I
grabbed a branch to keep from falling off as the Tree slowly began
to topple sideways. Rather conveniently, right into the Director’s
office...

I closed my eyes and held tight, the jarring
impact of collision almost knocking me loose regardless. I’m not
sure how long I clutched the branch for. I only let go when the
final scream of a dying Tree had ended. Tumbling out of the
branches onto what remained of the broken office flooring, I rolled
to a halt against one of the walls

I hurt all over and couldn’t walk too well,
so I just lay there for a moment, before figuring that I’d better
get further away from the flames before they burnt me to death.
Half-crawling, half-rolling, I came up against another wall and
looked up at the bones within.

Every one of them was broken, connecting
veins dead and pale. Sighing at the effort I didn’t want to take, I
hauled myself to my feet at last and looked around. The innards of
every wall were just the same, dead or dying, no more, none left.
As my weary gaze traveled the room, I picked out other key
features.

There was the dead body of a Tormentor, head
smashed in. There was Mousy, Paul, my friend and companion, lying
next to him. The Skeleton, his broken form caught in the branches
where I’d fought him. And there was the Director himself, back to
human and pinned to the floor by a tree branch stabbed through his
chest, breathing heavily as his eyes started to glaze over with
death. He no longer seemed full of darkness, inhuman with unearthly
powers. What I faced was now just a man, frail and full of
fault.

I walked over to him and looked down at the
man, this monster of monsters, directly responsible for all the
evil that had been done.

"How many patients did you kill?" I asked
him, kneeling down to look him in the eyes. I saw the little demons
in those white orbs staring back at me defiantly.

"As many as I could," he mumbled, spitting
blood out from between his lips. "I had as many people as possible
committed to the Ward, so that the Tree might feast on them. After
I learned that it could give me what I wanted, I made it my goal in
life to keep it fed."

"Where did the Tree come from?" I asked.

He didn’t answer me for a moment and I
thought he might be gone, eyes closing with death. But then they
snapped wearily open again to look at me.

"Hell, probably. It was already here when I
took over from Siegfried. Already leeching the life out of this
place and sending its roots through the walls. I just gave it what
Siegfried didn’t have the guts to..."

"Do you regret it?" I asked quietly, staring
into his eyes, trying to find the answer as to why someone would do
this.

He just coughed once more and laid his head
back, eyes closing for the last time. There was a whispering sound
like a deep sigh, on the very edge of my hearing. It was as if
Atrium Psychiatric Ward itself was relieved at his passing, glad to
be free.

I heard another sighing sound behind me,
this one very much real. I turned to find myself face to beak with
the Ethereal Vulture, who stood staring down at the Director’s
corpse with a resigned expression on his face.

"Fool," he muttered, words aimed at the
Director. "All of this, and you let a little girl beat you?"

"In his defense, I had help." I said to
him.

The Ethereal Vulture turned to me, eyes
doing that weird twinkling thing.

"Nillium Neems. You are a rather unexpected
force to be reckoned with. I underestimated you."

I shrugged.

"I got lucky. But I’m too tired to stand
here and banter. Are you going to kill me now, bird brain?"

He moved closer, almost beak to nose with me
now.

"Tempting. But I did tell you that safe
passage would be yours. You are free to leave Atrium, Nillium
Neems. Don’t cross my path again, or I will be forced to deal with
you personally. Go and lead a normal life."

He turned his back, floating away over the
broken ground.

"Who are you?" I called after him. "What’s
your part in the events that took place here?"

He didn’t answer, soon disappearing out of
sight. I was too weak to follow him. And at this point, I decided
it didn’t matter who he was.

I turned to look at the Director’s body once
more, only to see it fading away. There was a small flash of light
and a little pink rose appeared where he’d lain, emitting a
cheerful glow of its own that brightened up the room. I reached out
and touched one of the petals with my good arm, feeling the damp
softness beneath my fingers, smooth like silk.

So much had happened here, and many good
people had gone to rest. I smiled, figuring I had earned some rest
myself, a long sleep, perhaps forever. After all I’d done, I surely
deserved one...

For the final time, my Bookish Friend,

Nillium Neems, Out!

Day 1

Hi. My name is Nillium Amelia Neems. I am
twelve years old. I’m rather hesitantly writing here, because today
has been rather... eventful, and I need to get my thoughts down on
paper. Even if what I’m about to write may seem a bit strange.

Anyways, I slept in a bit today, since it
was a weekend and I had no school, and Mom thought it would be fun
to have a yard sale. Yay... Not that we really need to get rid of
stuff, she just decided it would be an entertaining way to spend
the day. Mom’s weird sometimes.

So, I was sent upstairs to rummage for stuff
in the attic, when I found myself surrounded by Bogey Men. Don’t
worry just yet, they weren’t real. I suffer from what people like
to call schizophrenia (supposedly), and sometimes I have these
‘mental attacks’ where weird stuff starts appearing. Usually I just
wait it out.