Narcoleptic Surge

The air in the Legacy Wing hallway hung thick and cloying, a miasma of antiseptic and stale fear. Night had clamped down on Cedar Hollow, muffling the usual hum of the clinic into a low, guttural growl. Patient Y, a boy barely old enough to shave, lay thrashing on the polished linoleum, a tangle of limbs caught in the throes of a REM-induced seizure. His narcolepsy, usually a quiet thief of consciousness, had become a violent conjurer. Each jerky contraction of his body sent tremors through the floor, a frantic drumbeat against the oppressive silence.

Dr. Maya Lane knelt beside him, her movements precise, economical. Her gaze, sharp and focused, darted between the boy’s contorted face and the blinking red light on the portable EEG monitor. Nurse Tomas stood sentinel nearby, his broad frame a solid presence, his usual stoicism etched with a new, weary tension.

“It’s getting worse, Maya,” Tomas murmured, his voice a low rumble that barely disturbed the stillness. “The cataplexy’s tied to the seizures now. He’s fighting something in his sleep, something… violent.”

As if on cue, Patient Y’s body convulsed with a force that made the monitoring equipment rattle. His eyes, rolled back and unfocused, seemed to stare at something beyond the ceiling. Then, with a violent shudder, his entire frame went rigid. A strangled cry escaped his lips, a sound ripped from the deepest well of terror.

The overhead fluorescent lights, usually a steady, sterile white, began to stutter. They flickered, died, then flared back to life, a frantic, erratic pulse. Each agonizing blink illuminated the hallway in stark, disorienting flashes. In the brief, blinding bursts, something new, something impossible, resolved itself on the floor.

Maya gasped, her eyes widening. Beneath the boy’s twitching form, where the light caught it just right, the stone floor was not just stone. Intricate, geometric patterns, impossibly fine, were carved into its surface. They were ancient, alien, and as the lights pulsed, they seemed to writhe with a hidden energy, pulsing with a pale, phantom luminescence that vanished as quickly as it appeared.

“What in God’s name…?” Maya breathed, scrambling to her feet. Her mind, usually a well-ordered library of medical knowledge, felt suddenly adrift in uncharted territory. The flickering lights, the boy’s extreme reaction, the sudden revelation of the carvings – it was too much, too coincidental. “He’s somehow… amplifying it. Whatever this is, it’s reacting to his seizures, and the lights…” She trailed off, a chilling realization dawning. “It’s like a feedback loop.”

Tomas, however, was already on his knees, his large hands hovering over the floor, his face a mask of grim recognition. The flickering light glinted off the sweat beading on his forehead. “These… these aren’t just carvings, Dr. Lane,” he said, his voice heavy with an ancestral dread. “These are warnings. Old warnings. From my people. Glyphs of binding. And warding. They say this place… it was built over something. Something meant to be kept sealed.”

The word ‘sealed’ hung in the air, heavy with unspoken implication. This wasn’t just a clinic anymore; it was a forgotten threshold.

A new sound cut through the sterile air – a dry, rasping click. Dr. Michael Hargreaves, his usual impeccably tailored suit now rumpled, emerged from a nearby doorway, a proprietary gleam in his eyes. He carried a sleek, metallic device – his illegal neuro-enhancer. He’d been drawn by the commotion, but his interest wasn’t in the patient’s distress. It was in the *energy*.

“Remarkable,” Hargreaves murmured, his gaze fixed on the boy’s convulsions and the flickering lights. “A surge of bio-electrical activity directly correlated with external stimuli. And these patterns… fascinating. An untapped energy source. Imagine what we could do with this. The acceleration…” He gestured with the device, a predatory smile curving his lips. “If we can harness this surge, feed it into the neuro-enhancer, we could achieve breakthroughs beyond anything we’ve imagined. Think of the data, Maya. The *results*.”

Maya stared at him, a cold knot of dread tightening in her stomach. His ambition was a blind, deafening roar that threatened to drown out the whispers of danger. Tomas’s hand, calloused and steady, rested on the ancient runes, a silent testament to the terror of knowledge unearthed. The boy’s ragged breathing filled the brief lulls in the flickering lights, a fragile counterpoint to the escalating crisis, each seizure a jolt that amplified the urgency, revealing a truth etched in stone and fear. The revelation was here, stark and terrible, and the race against the encroaching darkness had just begun.