The Apology

There she is, smiling devilishly as the rain pours through the holes in the roof, streaks running down her cheeks; no hint of a soul could be found in her eyes. And she's just standing there… staring through me…

“Sarah, what are you doing here?” I ask her.

No response from her.

The ring on her hand begins to glow a hazy blue. As her body twists and contorts under the light of the moon, she lets out a scream I cannot even begin to describe. Her cries pierce the night as every inch of her changes into something that isn't her. Even her clothes change. Gone are the breezy dress and playful makeup; in their place, messy office attire takes form. It's a messy, brutal transformation. Never before have I seen an occult object do such a thing to someone.

In Sarah's place stands a man, a very tall, muscular man at that.

“Stupid ring rips me apart every time I use it,” the man explains, “but whatever it took to lead me to you, Taylor…”

The sight of the man disgusts me. I try to get away, but I trip over my own feet. Not letting that stop me, I even resort to crawling on the wet floor.

“What do you want from me?!” I scream.

“You must apologize,” the man tells me. “And you're running out of chances.”

The man is clearly unarmed, though he looks much stronger than me. I think about trying to run past him and towards the door, but it slams shut before I can make the attempt. It becomes hard to see without the moonlight shining in. I'm not sure what to say. Apologize for what?

“Apologize!” the man shouts. “Apologize for what you've done!”

What is he talking about? What could I have done to him to make him act like this?

Eventually, I find some light.. a hardly functioning neon light. Standing up under the light, I try to find the man. Nothing. Silence.

Is he gone? I dare not find out. I… I can't move… My legs lock in place.

Before I can even react, the man grabs me by the collar and lifts me into the air.

“Apologize! Don't make me say it again!” the man shouts, spitting at me with each harsh sound he makes. “Apologize for what you did!”

I gasp for air. His shouts gradually become incomprehensible the angrier he gets.

The grip on me gets tighter and tighter. The air is completely taken out of my lungs.

He looks like he could explode at any second. I’m having trouble breathing.

His anger intensifies even more. The grip tightens more than I thought humanly possible. I feel lightheaded… Maybe I can get this guy to loosen his grip on me…

Nothing works. I am completely unable to move. In desperation, my eyes meet his. I can't explain why, but I've seen eyes like that before. Those are the weary, drained eyes of a father dealing with tragedy.

It hits me, the realization of what happened.

I start to cry…

Something snaps inside the man; he begins to cry as well… He lets me go, allowing me to breathe a little better. Instead of pounding me into the ground like I thought he would, he takes his frustrations out on a nearby pillar. His punch is good enough to crack solid concrete. I can't help but breathe a sigh of relief that it wasn't me he punched like that.

“It shouldn't have been like this…” Tears begin flowing down the man's face. Real tears, actual remorse… “I didn't want this…”

Fuzzy memories flash before my eyes: a man cradling his injured son in his arms, the poor mangled child, the cure I offered to the man… Wait… Did it not work? All the magic items I sell at the shop always work. I offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee. And yet… here this man stands before me, nearly killing me…

“Why?” I ask the man after gathering up a tiny ounce of courage. I sneak up behind him to ask more questions. “Why does it have to be this way? All the photos… the timer… the severed finger… the timer…”

The timer! How could I forget? I attempt to reach for it, but -

The man swings wildly at me. I am just barely able to lunge out of the way before his fist could land a hit. “You took him away from me…” the man answers. “Because of you, my only child is gone… You must pay for what you've done. Everything I did was supposed to get you to apologize. That's all I wanted. All those procedures… Nothing worked… All that planning went to waste.”

Everything becomes clear now.

•

It was four months ago. The man came to my shop begging me for something, anything that could be used to heal his son. The poor boy had been hurt very badly in a car accident. Why he didn't send the boy to the hospital (or maybe he did and they were unable to help), I didn't know. The boy was desperately clinging to life already.

I was just about to close up shop for the day, but I couldn't just turn the man away. I wasn't sure what I could do, but…

Something had to be done, and nobody else was going to help them out.

I threw some generic cure-all ingredients into a bag and told the man to just see what works. He paid me $150 for the whole lot. I don't remember all of what was said, and I never saw the man again. People occasionally whispered rumors about a boy who died in a car accident, but I never paid much attention to them. Nothing happened as far as I knew after that.

•

Until tonight…

The man is now back to being a confused, stuttering mess, barely able to form the word “I”. I can't really blame the man. It's hard for me to form the words as well. Eventually one comes out of my mouth.

“Sorry…”

The man falls silent at once. His mouth is wide open, but nothing comes out.

“I'm sorry…” I struggle to say, “for everything… If I had known, I would have tried looking for you. I would have tried… tried… to make it up to you somehow. I could have offered you a refund, I could have -”

The man starts crying again, even harder this time. “I didn't want it to be like this…” he tells me. I just want this pain to stop. I can't live like a puppet anymore…”

What is he talking about this time? A puppet? Who or what would be making him act like a puppet?

“It was so much easier gathering the information on you as Sarah,” the man explains. “The pain I had to endure to do so… it was too much to bear… I just wanted a normal apology. Things shouldn't have gone this far. But… at least you did apologize… Now, I can be free. Free from them at last!”

What he meant by them, he did not explain. Nor did he explain what he meant by procedures. The man had been reduced to a babbling mess, but as long as he wasn't threatening to kill me, I'm safe. I think I'm safe, but…

Something isn't quite right about all of this. It all seems a bit too shady. If something really happened to his child because of me, there would have been something done in the courts about this. Nothing ever happened. No request for compensation, no court summons, nothing. The man couldn't have been lying though… I could see it in his eyes. I saw the child in his arms.

Unless…

No… It can't be like that. But then, if he isn't working for someone else, why would he mention living like a puppet or being free from them. It makes no sense.

I try to make my way out the door. If he's free, then clearly that means I'm free as well. It seems like a fairly reasonable assumption to make. As I make my way forward, I trip over something, most likely some piece of rubble from the pillar that man punched. The timer slips out of my pocket. It had been counting down every last second up to this point.

3… 2… 1… 0.

Oh, thank God… I managed to apologize before the timer hit zero, but barely. Who knows what would have happened if I was too late. I don't even know what happens to me now, now that I think about it.

Someone is breathing directly to my right, someone I do not recognize. I cannot see the person, but I know they're right there. I can feel their icy cold breath grip my shoulder. I stop to try to find the person. Nothing's there.

The breathing is now right behind me. I turn around to see who's there. Nothing.

More breathing…

How is this person able to move so fast? Or am I just imagining the whole thing? As far as I can tell, the only two people in this hangar are me and the strange crying man who was Sarah. Nobody else. But then who (or what) is breathing on me? Is there even anyone there?

Maybe it's just the wind. Maybe I'm just imagining the whole thing, I tell myself. It has been a long day, I tell myself. It has been a long several weeks, actually.

I hear a voice whisper… cold and soulless…

“Time's up…”