Read previous installments of Myra here.

Myra read the message over and over. As she repeated it in her mind, it began to take on a rhythm. As that steady beat played in her head, the beeping she had heard before began to pulse again.

Myra closed her eyes. The beeping got louder. Her breathing got steadier. And she was suddenly cold. First, the shivers were at her feet and hands, and then her whole body seemed to shake as if she were outside in the snow without a coat.

She was back in the hospital bed, but this time she willed her eyes to open. She forced herself to be awake. She needed to see what was going on.

“Hello, Myra,” the doctor said as he adjusted IV bags on a hook hanging over her. “Welcome back.”

Myra tried to sit up, but a set of strong hands opposite the doctor who spoke to her pushed her back down.

“Don’t get up,” he said. “You want to move slowly. You’ve been here a long time.”

Myra opened her mouth to speak and the words felt like sandpaper in her throat. It took several tries for her voice to come out, like a pen that had been left exposed to the air for too long and needed a few strokes before any ink would appear.

“What…what is happening?” she finally questioned.

The first doctor took in a deep breath before he spoke.

“Myra, you are sick. Very sick. You had a psychotic break a few months ago and you tried to harm a few people. And yourself. Your mom brought you here. Do you remember your mom?”

Myra closed her eyes and tried to recall what he said to her. She saw herself and Jeanie in their apartment, but then seconds later she was in her house with her mom, crying, pulling her hair. She flashed again and this time she was with Jay right after the intruder incident as he tried to comfort her. But then, just as quickly, she was in the back of an ambulance, her arms tied down to the rails of the gurney. She felt every bump the ambulance hit on the road. Her final flash was an image of the man who broke into her apartment. The shadowy, hulking figure who terrorized her and her roommate that night. She desperately wanted to see his face clearly. To finally see the face behind it all.

“I need to know,” she mumbled.

The doctors leaned in.

“What did you say?”

Myra squeezed her eyes shut, forcing herself to look more closely at the intruder who turned everything upside down.

“I need to see his face,” Myra said.

“Whose face?” one of the doctors asked.

“The intruder.”

The image of the figure got closer, clearer. Myra felt as if she were approaching him from behind. She didn’t want to sneak up on him, but she needed to be quiet so she would have the upper hand. When she was right behind him, he turned around and she finally saw it.

Myra was face-to-face with her own image. She was the intruder. The figure in black. The one who caused unbelievable terror that night and every night after.

As Myra began to thrash, one of the doctors injected her vein with a sedative. Her eyes fluttered, desperately trying to stay awake. She didn’t want to be asleep anymore, but soon the drug took effect and she was in a deep, peaceful slumber.

*****

Myra was back in her apartment. Jeanie had invited over a few friends for a little get together. Myra hoped the cute Delta Chi boy would stop by.