A Mist Of Whispers Ch. 01

On the outskirts of a small out of the way town, in the state of Virginia inside the St James Sanitarium, a young woman lays sleeping in her room, she moves subtly, but restlessly, her lips barely seeming to twitch, as her eyes rapidly move behind her closed eyelids. It is almost in the way she moves, her body language showing she's not dreaming peacefully.

"Annabel,"

"Annnbell,"

"Follow,"

"Follow us,"

"Follow us now."

The whispers softly began retreating from within her mind, Annabel awoke, her eyes flickering open as a scream caught in the back of her throat, shakily one of her pale hands reached out and fumbled for the switch to the metal lamp that sat on her bedside table.

"Click"

The feeble light the metal lamp threw dimly managed to sweep away some of the shadows in the room. Annabel's blue eyes swept around quickly, the scream that had been caught in the back of her throat tore loose as her delicate body began shaking, pale hand quivering as she brought it up to her chest, the light white cotton night-dress she wore with a kitten on the front, drenched with sweat.

Down in the nurse's station on the 4th floor, of St James Sanitarium. Nurse Sarah Smith sat, resting her head down onto the desk in front of her, on top of the day shifts paper work, that had been left scattered. A cup of coffee that she had gotten at the beginning on her shift, which began at 10pm each night, sat cold, a light film of milk having formed on top. Her head jerked up her light sleep shattered, as a sound pierced her light slumber. She took a few moments, blinking awake, as the sharp sound of a terrified scream caused the hair's on the back of her neck and arms to stand on end. Nurse Sarah pushed the chair backwards, and in her haste to rush off towards the room she accidentally knocked over the cup of coffee with a movement from her arm, which splashed over some of the paperwork running down off the edge of the desk to drip steadily onto the floor, pooling. She left the Nurse's station in a hurry, knowing the timber of that scream; that the previous mornings task had begun afresh today.

Annabel's terror slowly began to recede as she heard the sounds of Sarah's rushed footsteps echoing almost silently down the corridor. Her body still shaking as she wrapped her arms about her upper body, as Sarah rounded into her room.

Sarah cast a quick glance over Annabel's room, before she crossed to the bed slowly. Reaching out a hand she swept it gently across Annabel's damp forehead, in a well-practiced soft movement. A soft and gentle smile coming to Sarah's face, as she made soft and soothing sounds in the back of her throat trying to calm Annabel, down before she asked those same questions she had for every night, over the 3 years that Annabel had been at St James Sanitarium.

Slowly Annabel began to calm down, her bodies quivering slowly abating, as she began to breath slower. She felt Sarah's cool calming touch on her forehead, and after a while allowed a brief almost normal smile brush onto her lips. As it did so, this pale woman of 21 years was transformed into what one would believe to be a beautiful woman. As long as one paid little attention to the dark circles from close to a thousand haunted sleepless nights, and one ignored the paleness of her skin, that to most of the staff made her seem frail, almost as if, she kept dreaming the dreams would eventually cause her to fade away, as they drained her body of it's resistance each night.

Sarah allowed herself to think back as she continued waiting for Annabel to calm down, to the day that Annabel, scarcely a child, no more than 18 years old, had turned up on the Sanitarium's doorstep with her Aunt Liza. Aunt Liza had demanded that Annabel be admitted; claiming that the girl was crazy, and that there was no hope for her mind or for her soul. That she as a devout Christian woman, believed that Satan had claimed her for his own, upon her reaching an age of maturity.

Sarah silently shook her head as she remembered how pale Annabel had looked, and how withdrawn she had been. Barely doing more than shuffling as her Aunt Liza, walked and held tightly onto her arm, almost dragging the poor child along, the woman's knuckles a soft white because of the tightness of her grip. The child had looked to Sarah with saddened eyes that seemed to show little hope or much of anything else.

Annabel looked up to Sarah's face, seeing her faraway expression, she sighed almost silently, and gently uncurled an arm from about her body, and touched a pale fingertip to Sarah's face. Sarah was jolted out of her memories by the gently touch, before she smiled and looked down to Annabel. Her voice was soft as she spoke, "How are you feeling now?"

Annabel's lips twitched into a vague ghost of a smile, as she looked up to Sarah, how she loved it when Sarah was the one who came to her at night and chased the nightmares away. In her normal soft toned voice she replied, "I am fine, now. Thank you Sarah."

Sarah gently smoothed Annabel's hair back as she dredged up the usual questions. "Was it the same dream, Annabel?" The question was hardly a question any longer; it was just something of a habit after these three years, a question to be asked for paperwork's sake and nothing more.

Annabel slowly nodded. Her voice soft as she answered the other as yet, unasked questions, "No, I didn't see anymore than normal. Just heard those voices. Asking the same questions they always do."

She softly sighed as she dipped her head down slowly, her blue eyes taking in the stark whiteness of her blankets, blue eyes managing to focus on the kitten on her night-dress.

Sarah silently nodded, watched as the girl looked down. She bit at her bottom lip lightly with her teeth, drawing it slowly into her mouth, before slowly releasing it. Sarah gently ran a steady hand down over the girl's loose brown straight hair and smiled. Her voice soft, warm, comforting and her tone light as she spoke, "It's all right Annabel. You know those question's are just a formality. I wouldn't ask you them, if I didn't have to write down your replies in the nightly report, for the head Nurse for this Ward."

Annabel sighed softly, very softly; as she brought her head up and looked up into the warm and caring coffee brown eyes of Sarah, and slowly a smile blossomed on her pale white subtly trembling lips, her voice soft as she spoke; "Thank you, Sarah. I know, I remember you need to ask them. It's not like the nightmare allows me to forget why I am here."

Annabel paused, biting down hard on her bottom lip, trying to keep her lip from trembling more as she still subtly fought for the calmness she knew she would eventually find, with Sarah's kindness and caring touch; her words soft almost unable to be heard, with a slight quaver, "I remember."

Annabel softly closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath.

Sarah smiled slowly. As she stopped stroking Annabel's hair, her tone gentle as she spoke, "Would you like me to get you a hot chocolate?"

Annabel slowly re-opened her blue eyes and tilted her head back looking once more to Sarah. Slowly she dipped her head in a nod. Sarah smiled, and lightly stroked the girl's hair once again, before she moved to turn and looked back to Annabel, "Will you be all right while I go for a moment, and get the hot chocolate for you?"

Annabel nodded, managing a gentle smile for Sarah. She laid her head back into the soft fluffy pillow with the little bunny pictures printed onto it in pink, and closed her blue eyes. Sarah turned slowly, her footsteps quiet as she walked out into the corridor and headed over to the elevator. She hit the button and waited, very softly humming a lullaby tune her mother had sung to her, when she was a very little girl. It brought a smile to her lips.

"Ting".

The elevator doors opened and Sarah walked inside. She turned and hit the button to the 5th floor. Leaning back into the wall of the elevator, she waited still softly humming for the doors to open.

"Ting".

The elevator doors opened, and Sarah quietly slipped out, heading down the corridor towards the staff kitchen. Inside she turned checking the level of the water in the kettle she switched it on and pulled a mug out of the washing up tray. She put two teaspoon's of hot chocolate mix into the mug and picked up the sugar bowl. Dipping a spoon in she added one sugar, put the bowl down and went over to the fridge to get the milk.

Down in Annabel's room, Annabel was running threw in her mind as she supposed she did most nights after her dream; that was 'if,' she thought 'one could call this on going nightmare? A dream.' As usual seemed to make no sense to her. It puzzled her, yes. It haunted her daily, and stalked her most nights. But it made little sense. She shivered at the thought, and she supposed to herself; it seemed like after all of these years it was getting slowly, subtly closer. In the back of her mind she wondered what would happen when it final caught her. Would she end up going where her twin sister had three years ago?

Sarah crossed the floor the milk container in her hand and poured some into the cup putting the milk down she waited for the kettle to boil, her mind drifted back to the first time they had gotten Annabel to talk. It had made some of the staff wonder about the young girl, who even now thought she was a young woman, they still thought of her more as the little frightened girl who had came to them, with such vague memories. That under hypnosis had filled out into something that had shocked some of the staff, and caused other's to scoff and think she had made it up.