Free For Nevermore Season 1 by Sean Platt Page B

of her skull, pressing into her flesh in a punctuated line, as though feeling for something. All at once, three fingertips pressed harder into her flesh. Noella cringed, wincing as she imagined the knife that would be slicing her throat, or maybe slip into her stomach and end her life’s misery in a slippery pool of goo.
    She may as well have been dead, there was nothing Noella could do to stop the violation.
    Wake up, wake up, wake up!
    Nothing.
    “Well, is she ready?” the man to her left asked.
    Ready?
    Ready for what?
    What are they going to do?
    Fingers pressed into her skull, rougher than the first time. The man to her right said, “Almost.”
    “How much longer? We’re running out of time.”
    The man to her right turned her head the other way — a medical exam with a monster’s bedside manner.
    “Maybe a month, maybe two,” he said.
    “Not good enough,” the man to her left said.
    Noella heard her personal world’s most familiar rattle, pills shaking in a bottle to her left. The man who had been to her left now had her orange-colored bottle in his hands, the bottle filled with the pills she’d been prescribed to make her dreams and hallucinations disappear. It was a fresh bottle she and Josie had picked up at Walgreens the day before.
    Noella heard the twisting of the cap as the man unscrewed it, and the horror of not knowing what they were going to do pushed her like fire in her mind.
    What are they doing with my pills?
    The bottle rattled again, and Noella heard the pills spill into the man’s palm. And then silence.
    What are they doing?
    Nothing was making sense, and again, she had the distinct feeling that she’d died. These were medical examiners in her bedroom and her brain had somehow remained alive, for a little while anyway. But if that were the case, why would they say she wasn’t ready yet? Ready for what? Moments later, she heard the pills fall back into the bottle, then the cap being screwed back into place. Then he slid the bottle back into place on her nightstand.
    Wake up, wake up, wake up!
    The fire spread throughout her body, pushing from her brain to her limbs, thawing the numbness as it flowed.
    Wake up, wake up, wake up!
    To Noella’s shock, her brain won and her body finally obeyed. Her eyes opened and she shot straight up in bed. The two men stood just feet away, dressed head to toe in black suits — complete with pants, shirts, and old-fashioned bowler hats — like traveling salesmen working for Satan.
    They stared down at her, their surprised eyes a sudden echo of her own.
    “She’s awake!” the man to her left nearly shouted.
    Noella tried to leap from her bed, but was immediately met by two shockingly strong hands, shoving her back to the mattress. The man on Noella’s right slapped his hand over her mouth, then leaned in and whispered, “Relax. It will all be over soon.”
    No!!
    Noella bit down hard on his fingers, kicking wildly with her feet, looking for any leverage she could find. But he didn’t release his grip. Instead, he pressed harder into her flesh as the man to Noella’s right reached into his suit jacket to get something.
    Oh no, a gun!
    But it wasn’t a gun. It was a small, glowing orb, the color of sky and the size of a tennis ball. It hummed, louder as the man brought it closer to her face, until it sounded like a hundred bees buzzing in whisper.
    The man holding her down pushed her deeper into the mattress and said, “Shhh, just relax,” pressing harder against her shoulders to keep her pinned.
    Noella tried to shove him away, but the blue ball was so . . . so beautiful.
    Noella couldn’t help but smile as she stared at it, and she certainly couldn’t look away. It was as if the ball was whispering to her core, soothing her insides and promising that everything would be all right, forcing her to surrender her defenses and succumb to the beautiful eternity waiting for her in the middle of all the blue.
    So peaceful.
    The hum grew louder until