“Huh?” Annora jerked awake. “What?” she pulled at the restraints holding her wrists down.

“Annora,” Mrs Huff whispered. “Is it you?”

“Mum!” the girl wailed through the pain of her torn and swollen tongue.

“It’s all right, sweetheart, we’re here. You just had an episode.”

“Can you untie me?”

Mrs Huff quickly started work loosening one of the wrist straps.

“Carol, wait,” Mr Huff stopped her. “That might not be a good idea.”

“She’s fine now, Stan,” Mrs Huff’s eyebrows furrowed. “They gave her the medicine!”

“Daddy, please.”

“I don’t know… I just don’t think we should.”

“Please,” Annora begged softly.

“I just don’t want you to hurt yourself, sweetpea.”

“I won’t. I think… I think it’s over.”

“Really?” Tonia and Maggie gathered at Annora’s bedside.

“Yeah. I feel different.”

“Hmm. Maybe it’s okay, then,” her father conceded.

“Can you at least undo that one? It’s a bit too tight.”

“All right, we’ll do the one for now and see how you get on,” Mrs Huff nodded. She continued unbuckling the strap. “Hmm,” she muttered under her breath, struggling with one particular buckle. “What’s going on here, then? I think this bit’s stuck. Oh, darn… Let me just…” she leaned in close to get a better look.

Before Carol Huff even realised what was happening, Annora slipped her hand free, grabbed the back of her mother’s head, and smashed her face into the metal frame of the bed.

“Let me go!” Annora roared.

She was no longer the Annora Huff they knew. She was deranged, pulling harder on the restraints than before and bellowing nonsensically. With one tremendous pull, Annora was able to free one of her legs.

Mr Huff helped his hysterical wife to the side of the room, where they cowered from the monster that had encompassed their daughter.

Maggie and Tonia backed up against the wall. Maggie noticed the medical box the nurses had left on the floor and flung it open. Behind her, Annora tossed and hollered and thrust her head backwards again and again.

Copying the nurse as best she could, Maggie dispensed a bottle of the anticonvulsant into the syringe. She uncovered the needle and took tentative steps toward Annora’s side.

“I can’t get close enough! She’s kicking too much!”

Tonia leapt to Annora’s other side. After taking several hefty kicks to her stomach and chest, Tonia was able to grab Annora’s ankle and hold it just long enough. Maggie lunged forward and sank the needle deep into Annora’s flesh and pushed the plunger.

She fell back into stillness on the bed.

“Did it work?” Tonia asked.

“I think so,” Maggie stepped toward Annora’s head. Annora didn’t move. Maggie reached out her hand toward Annora’s forehead. She delicately placed her thumb over Annora’s eye and lifted the lid to check her pupils.

Annora’s eyes flew open and stared at Maggie, who froze in place.

“We mark… we mark the…” her whole body started shaking and rolling drunkenly, working through the effect of the drug.

She flung her arm over and grabbed Maggie’s shirt and yanked her in. Annora snarled and snapped and bit at Maggie’s head until Tonia could pull Maggie free.

“Quick, get more of the stuff!” Tonia gestured toward the medical kit.

Maggie threw herself onto the ground and prepared another syringe with twice the amount of the drug. She battled away Annora’s free leg and again plummeted the needle into her skin. Annora took a breath as though she’d been winded, but then continued writhing more savagely than before.

“It’s not doing anything,” Maggie breathed. “She’s fighting it off.”

“Shit!” Tonia yelled, looking around the room.

“We mark the path for… We mark…”

“She can’t seem to get the whole sentence out,” Maggie said to Tonia. “It’s like she’s trying but can’t quite get there.”

“So?”

“So maybe he doesn’t have complete control over her. Maybe the real Annora is in there somewhere, trying to stop it.”

“I don’t know, Mags.”

Annora spat out a clot of bloody saliva. “Let me go.”

“No,” Maggie said, defiantly.

“Let. Me. Go.” Annora barked.

“No, we’re not letting you go!”

“His Grace needs me.”

“He’s trying to kill you!”

“He will save me.”

“No, he won’t! You’re going to die because he’s some crazy lunatic who wants to rule everyone.”

“He will save us all.”

“No, he’ll destroy us! He’s a madman! You have to fight this!”

“He is almighty.”

Maggie changed her tone. “Annora, it’s me, Maggie.”

Annora pulled at the restraints again, growling and drooling.

“Annora, I think you can hear me! Don’t let him win! Don’t let him!” Maggie’s throat choked up. “Please, Annora!” she sobbed.

“I think she’s gone, Mags,” Tonia whispered. Maggie fell to her knees.

With an immense screech, Annora pulled the restraints right out from their metal fastenings and leapt from the bed. She hunched on the floor like an animal stalking prey.

“Oh no,” the words barely came out of Maggie’s mouth.

“My Annora!” Mrs Huff wailed.

Annora spun round. The chain on the end of the leather strap jangled against the floor as she moved. Every step was sinister. Every jerking movement of her body was villainous. Then, she stopped. She straightened, pulling her body from that of a broken doll and into something hominine and forgivable. Something recognisable.

“Mummy?” her voice wavered.

“Annora?” a cowering Mrs Huff said.

“Mummy, it’s me!”

“My flower!” she held her arms outstretched, inviting the small girl in.

Annora flew forward, throwing her arms around her mother’s neck.

But it became quickly apparent that something was wrong. Very wrong. Mrs Huff’s hands swiped and scraped at Annora’s back. She tried to scream but nothing came out. No sound. No air.

“No!” Tonia screeched.

Mr Huff came to his senses and jumped to his wife’s aid, but it was too late.

One final crack, and Annora let go. Carol Huff’s body fell to the ground.

Mr Huff melted over his wife, bawling.

“Let me out,” Annora said to him.

“There’s no way out,” he mumbled the words through hefty sobs.

She stepped closer to him. “Let me out.”

Across the room, Maggie side-stepped to her bag in the corner and took out the two knives she and Tonia had carried on their journey. She handed one back to Tonia and held the other close to her.

“He’s telling the truth,” Maggie called. “There’s no way out of here. They locked us in.”

“His Grace needs me,” Annora rocked back and forth and side to side, manic. “We will mark the path for him. He will show the world that he is almighty.”

“He’s disgusting,” Mr Huff spat.

Annora roared. She picked up the corner of the bed and flipped it onto its side. Then, without blinking, she smashed her fist directly into Mr Huff’s face. And again. And again.

Maggie and Tonia gaped in horror.

The sound of bone on bone pierced the room.

His cries finally stopped, and Stanley Huff joined his lifeless wife on the floor of the hospital room.

“We have to get out of here,” Tonia stuttered.

Maggie pulled out the electronic key from her pocket and buzzed the door open.

They raced to the nearest exit and tried to open it with the key card. A red light told them their access was denied.

“Try again!” Tonia urged, banging her fist on the door.

“It’s not working! They locked down this whole wing, remember?”

“Let’s try the other way,” Tonia pulled at Maggie’s sleeve.

As they ran down the corridor, they could hear the scraping and banging as Annora tried to escape her room.

“Fuck!” Maggie cried. “All of these doors are locked! Shouldn’t there be a fire escape or something?”

Tonia looked at her, answerless.

Maggie froze. “Tonia,” she whispered.

“What?” Tonia whispered back.

“Do you hear that?”

Tonia stood still. Her face drained. She nodded.

A low, gurgling breath was clearly audible. Every few seconds, the sound of chains rattled.

Both girls took a defensive stance, holding out the knives.

Slowly, Annora dragged herself round the corner and into view.

“Let. Me. Out.”

“We can’t! Look!” Without turning her back, Maggie reached out and swiped the sensor. “Access denied, see! We’re all trapped!”

Annora put her hands up and scraped her fingers down the wall with the desperation of someone being buried alive. One hand left fresh blood tracks on the whitewashed walls.

“Let me out!” came her frenzied caterwaul again.

“I told you, I can’t!”

Annora let out the most mind-piercing of banshee screams and leapt toward Maggie, pushing her back into the wall, tearing at her face and hair.

“No!” Tonia yelled.

“Annora, stop, please!” Maggie bellowed.

But Annora couldn’t hear Maggie’s plea.

With all the strength she could muster, Maggie thrust the blade upward into Annora’s stomach.

Annora continued thrashing at Maggie, biting at her face.

“No!” Maggie cried helplessly.

Annora’s hands found their way to Maggie’s throat. She squeezed. She squeezed and barraged the back of Maggie’s head against the wall. Maggie’s fingernails sank into Annora’s bony hands.

And then she fell.

Annora collapsed, face down onto the floor, with the blade handle sticking out of her back.