Chapter 2

Engelram continues to look out the window, thinking about how the attacker snuck up on him. The doctor enters the room. "Mr. Engelram, how are you feeling?'

"Sore but better."

The doctor looks at Jace's chart, "Good; everything seems to be fine. We'll keep you one more night to make sure you're all good.", He gets out a small flashlight looking into Engelram's eyes. He carefully touches Engelram's face examining it.

"Your swelling has gone down.", The doctor retracts his hand.

You've been asleep for three days", he says, "But I think you'll be fine; try avoiding any more attacks to the face for a while, alright?"

"I'll do my best, Doc," Jace chuckles.

The doctor smiles at him, "Just relax if you need anything, let us know; a nurse will be in soon with breakfast. "

"Thanks,"

The doctor took notes on his chart before heading out. Engelram sat watching the tv; it wasn't long before a nurse walked in; it was a young man; Engelram looked at him greeting him:

"Thank you for bringing my breakfast."

The nurse smiles, "Just doing my job," he pulls out the small table, "Are you in any pain?"

"Nah, I'm just a little sore, but that's all."

"I'm glad to hear that, Mr. Engelram."

"You can call me Jace," he says sheepishly.

The nurse smiles, "Well, Jace, would you like anything else?'

"May I have some coffee?"

"Of course." The nurse sets the tray down," How would you like it?"

" Mostly black but with a small amount of creamer, please, and thank you."

"Of course, I'll be right back." the nurse gives him a smile.

Jace grins as he starts eating, "Heck yeah, got me an attractive nurse," he says to himself. He sits eating, surprised, This time around, the hospital food was actually good.

He eats for about a minute before the nurse returns, setting the cup of coffee down, "Here you go, Jace, anything else?'

Jace looks at the young man, unable to look away; there is something about him. He was attractive, but it was almost unnatural. Jace shakes his head, realizing he was staring a bit too long:

"If it's ok, may I ask you a question?"

"Yes, of course."

Jace sighs briefly; it seems he managed not to creep the nurse out, "Not to be rude, but why did you color your hair white?"

" I'm blonde, but the tiniest bit of sunlight will bleach my hair to a lighter color."

"Interesting, you seem quite young."

"Well, thank you, but I'm not that young.", the nurse smiles," I bet you won't be able to guess my age. "the nurse says playfully.

Jace looks at him, studying his features, " The highest age, I'll say, late twenties." Jace wrinkles his face, thinking, "Early thirties?"

"I'm afraid you're wrong; I'm much older than you think. "

"Really?! Your Joking, right ?"

The nurse gives a light chuckle, " I'm afraid I have other patients to tend to. It was nice meeting you, Jace." the nurse makes his way out of the room.

Jace watches him leave, "Wow, who would have thought," he takes a sip of coffee, "Perfect," he finishes his food.

Another nurse, a female, who seems to be in her mid-twenties and still in training, comes in with a tray of food, "I'm sorry, mister Engelram, I am late with your food." She notices the tray with dirty dishes on the side, then looks at him; he stares back:

"Um, another nurse had already brought me food moments ago," Jace says, a bit confused.

She looks at him, perplexed, "What do you mean, another nurse brought you food? I'm your assigned nurse; I got caught up with another patient ."

"You didn't ask someone else to bring my food?"

She shakes her head, "No if you don't mind, give me a moment. Maybe one of the head nurses did." She briskly walks out of the room.

Jace sits there, unsure how to respond; he shrugs and continues drinking his coffee. The nurse returned, and this time, there was another nurse, a much older woman:

"Excuse me, sir, what did this nurse look like?" The older woman asks gently.

"A young man with blonde hair that looked white. His hair was tied back in a messy bun. He's quite tall, bluish, amberish eyes." he looks at her worried expression, "I'm guessing he wasn't a nurse."

RN writes down the description given, "What did he do exactly?"

"Brought me food, asked if I needed anything, I asked for coffee, and he brought me one. We had some friendly banter, and then he left."

The nurses look at each other, "How are you feeling?"

"Fine," he finishes off his coffee.

They took some blood samples from Jace, and they took the mug and tray, "If you feel out of sorts, let us know." The RN says, "We're gonna do some tests to ensure you weren't drugged or poisoned."

Jace nods, "Alright, thank you." He watches them leave, yawning. He turns off the Tv before laying back down, just wanting to sleep through the bits of pain he has; Jace lies, thinking about his attacker and how lucky he is they could have killed him or done permanent damage. He lays there thinking, why didn't they? Jace thinks, was that false nurse, his attacker, or just some weirdo? Jace lets out a soothing sigh; he needs to relax for now.

Jace had managed to fall asleep; he found himself waking up around daybreak. He sits up, stretching, he looks at the clock. It's 5 pm; he looks around and outside the window; the sun descends as the moon ascends, and the hospital is eerily silent. There was no sound of people nor machines, not even the ticking of a clock. Jace slowly turns his attention to what's happening outside of his room. He slowly adjusts his head looking out the open door; there seems to be no sign of other people. He moves his head and body, trying to get a better view. It was empty; there were no people, no signs of life. The air seemed stale; his body shivered as his heart beats rapidly; he held his breath for a second, calming his mind. He slowly exhales, then removes the I.V. from his arm and monitors the device from his finger; the drone of flatlining fills the room. He looks about finding his gun on the nightstand.

Jace sees the gun's safety is on, he opens the chamber seeing the gun is loaded with bullets. Jace turns the safety off; he slowly walks to the door, which he uses for cover, as he carefully leans, scanning the area. Once he sees it's clear, he steps out; he stays close to the wall, checking each room before passing by them. He takes a breath:

"Hello? Is anyone here?", He calls out, then listens.

He hears nothing and calls out, "Is anyone here?" he asks; he stops once, spotting a trail of blood at the staircase entrance. He slowly makes his way to the door; he cautiously opens it seeing the staircase littered with corpses:

"What the fuck?", He carefully navigates down the stairs through the bodies, corpses of nurses and patients alike, and a few security guards.

He makes it to the next level down; the door is blocked from the other side; he looks through the small window, unable to see what is blocking it. He continues down to the next level, the same thing as the other door; it was blocked off; he checks the other levels. All the doors were blocked off from the other side; he groans a bit, returning to his level. He exits the staircase; he takes a breath; it was a good thing he was used to the smell of dead bodies. But a bit of clean air is nice. He cautiously makes his way over to the elevator; he presses the down arrow. He waits, staying alert of his surroundings. When the elevator arrives, he points his gun at the door, ready to shoot; luckily, it is empty; he goes inside, pressing the button for the next floor down. The elevator door starts closing, Jace has a small sigh of relief.

Jace notices the elevator hasn't moved; he slowly turns to the door, seeing long, bloody, slender fingers creeping through the small space between the doors. Jace's blood turns cold; his body becomes paralyzed, he feels his heart sink. He loses control over his body; his fingers drop the gun. His body presses itself against the wall as the door opens. His eyes widened; it was the false nurse. His face was splattered with blood, and his hands to his elbows were caked in blood. The male's body was lanky, he had a grin on his face, and his eyes were filled with pleasure; he casually licked a bit of blood from his finger then started to nibble on the flesh around his fingernails, biting small chunks off. He walks into the elevator selecting a floor; the door closes behind him as he turns to Jace. The man pins Jace against the wall staring straight into his eyes. Jace's eyes widen as he takes in the man's features once more, there is still something unnatural about him, an attractive man indeed, but his skin almost resembles that of a porcelain doll. Though the blue in his eyes sparkled, they were lifeless, his skin a sickly white, this time his hair was short, only going a few inches past his ear:

"Hello, Detective, My name is Aizen," he smiles, "I finally decided to introduce myself."

Aizen caresses Jace's right cheek, "I look forward to seeing you again," he wipes his hands on his shirt, then proceeds to casually leave the elevator.

Jace finds himself losing consciousness, dropping to the floor; he wakes to a female voice calling out to him. He slowly gains consciousness. He was still in the elevator, but nurses surrounded him; he sat up looking at them:

"You're alive!" He panics, "It's dangerous; we have to get out of here!" he abruptly stands. He loses his balance, but a nurse catches him.

"Mr. Engelram, are you ok? Let's get you back to your room", she says, guiding him. He looks around, confused; he sees people, the surroundings around him are lively, and he hears the ringing of phones and the ticking of clocks.

" This can't be! Everyone was dead !" he pushed the nurse out of the way and headed towards the staircase, opening the door; there was no blood nor bodies. He ran down the stairs to the next level, the door was no longer blocked, he opened the door, and there were people. He dropped to the floor gripping his head:

"How could this be?"

The nurse followed him, getting him up from the floor, and took him back to his room. They were concerned, "Mr. Engelram, I'm thinking maybe you just need to relax." she put the IV back into his arm and gave him a bit of sedative.

She leaves, returning with a warm wet rag, "What's all over your right cheek? It looks like blood," She gently wipes his face, then checks the rest of him for any injuries; she looks at him, "Get some rest," she leaves the room.

Jace touches his right cheek and returns to gripping his head, staring at the bedsheets trying to straighten his thoughts. He is unsure what to think or make of the situation, but he goes back to sleep thanks to the sedative.

Jace wakes up again; he hears people chatting in the back and sighs in relief. He sat up looking at the clock, and it was 9 pm; he goes taking a sip of water. A nurse comes in, checking on him, "How are you feeling, Mr. Engelram?"

"Better, thank you. I apologize for earlier; I don't know what happened,"

"No need to apologize; we figured you might be slightly overwhelmed."

Jace looks awkwardly at her, "May I get some more water?"

"Of course, Would you like anything to eat?"

Jace thinks, "No, not really, thank you."

She leaves, and Engelram grabs his phone off his nightstand and looks over his emails; he then goes to see if he missed any calls. Jace thanks the nurse when she comes back with his water.

The following day he is awoken by his nurse, who brings him breakfast. Once Jace is done eating, his nurse takes him to do a few head scans and tests. The doctor comes in a few hours later:

"How are you feeling?"

"A lot better, thank you." Jace looked at him, "How does everything look?"

The doctor looks over the charts, "We didn't find anything; your brain has healed properly. " he says, "Your clear to go home."

"Thanks, doc,"

"You just have to check yourself out." The doctor says before heading out.

Jace pulls out his phone and calls his partner; it rings for a while before he is sent to voicemail, "I was released. Could you come to pick me up?"

He sets his phone down to turn on the tv; he knows it will be a while before he gets a response. He sits thinking to himself, thinking about the incident. Was it just his imagination? Or did it happen? But everybody was fine. There were no bodies, and he didn't even have his gun, but at the same time, there was blood on his face where the man named Aizen had touched.