Chapter 2
That was not normal. That was a miracle.
They assigned me to take care of an old woman named Madison Dixon.
Most of the time, she was lost in her own world. Her eyes were cloudy. She didn't recognize anyone. She could not speak in full sentences.
On sunny afternoons, she sat in her wheelchair and stared at the giant tree in the yard, mumbling to herself.
I pushed her on walks. I fed her. I cleaned her. Every day repeated itself. It was dull and mechanical, as if I were a machine running the same program over and over.
In the third week, something changed. I was wiping her mouth when she suddenly grabbed my hand.
Her thin fingers were shockingly strong. I froze and looked up at her.
The fog in her eyes was gone. Her gaze was clear and deep. I could see my own stunned face reflected in it.
Then she started speaking. Every word came out clean and steady. Her voice was dry, but it carried a strange rhythm. She recited passages from books I had never heard of.
The language was dense and hard to follow.
I forgot to breathe. It felt like an old, broken radio had suddenly picked up a clear signal from another time.
Then, just as suddenly, it ended. The light in her eyes faded. Her face slackened. She went back to being confused. Drool slipped from the corner of her mouth.
After that, it kept happening. The clear moments came without warning, and they never lasted long.
But Madison was not the only thing that felt wrong. Everything here felt wrong.
All the residents ate the same thing. It was a dark green liquid, served in clean white bowls. It was thick and heavy. It smelled like grass, wet dirt, and something medicinal.
No one ever explained what it was. On the menu, it was simply called "special nutrition meal."
I started noticing something else. Almost every resident had faint green patterns on their skin.
I saw them on hands, necks, and ankles. The lines looked like thin vines.
At first, I thought they were just age spots. But they showed up again and again, always the same shape. That was when the fear started to settle in.
One afternoon, the dining room was empty. I stood there for a moment, then reached out. I wanted to touch the green liquid, maybe even taste a drop.
The second my finger brushed the edge of the bowl, someone grabbed my wrist.
It was Kevin. His grip felt like metal. Pain shot up my arm. The calm look on his face was gone. Now he looked both angry and afraid.
"What are you doing?" he demanded.
"I... I was just curious," I stammered.
His eyes locked onto my finger—the one that had almost touched the liquid—his gaze so menacing that it sent a chill down my spine. He fixed me with a sinister glare, his warning slow and deliberate. "You shouldn't touch this."
He released me, but his gaze stayed sharp. A moment later, he seemed to catch himself. His voice softened, but somehow that made it worse.
"Robert, remember your job. You are here to observe and record. Don't be curious." He paused, then added quietly, "This will only make you grow too much."
Grow too much? What did that even mean? Something like a tumor? I didn't dare ask.
That night, I got up to use the bathroom.
As I passed room 307, I noticed the door was slightly open. A scream came from inside. It sounded like a wounded animal.
I stopped and looked through the narrow gap. My chest tightened.
Inside, Arnold Trivett was on his knees beside the bed. He used to complain about losing his hair all the time. Now he was clutching his head with both hands, his body shaking violently.
The hallway light was dim, but I could see it clearly. His white hair was turning golden.
It started at the roots and spread outward, growing inch by inch right in front of my eyes. This was not dye. This was something alive, something wrong.
Fear wrapped around my chest like a vine and kept tightening.
Kevin's warning about "growing too much" echoed in my mind, mixing with Arnold's screams. Together, they formed a question I didn't want to answer.
After that, I could barely sleep. The smallest noise would wake me. I always felt like something was watching me in the dark.