Marcus Bell watched Sarah Jenkins intently, trying to decipher the truth behind her slurred words and frightened gaze. The young woman's fragility and apparent sincerity contrasted sharply with the macabre atmosphere of the workshop and the disturbing implications of her confession. Was she truly connected in some way to Silas Thorne's mind, or was she simply another victim of his twisted influence? He needed answers, and Sarah Jenkins was the only one who could provide them.
"Sarah," Marcus said, his tone softer and more understanding. "I need you to explain this to me calmly. You say that Carl Stargher communicates with you in your dreams. How is that possible?"
Sarah hesitated for a moment, as if she were hesitant to reveal an intimate and shameful secret. Then she took a deep breath and began to speak, her voice flat and monotonous, her eyes fixed on the floor. "It started… years ago. When… he… had the… accident. I… worked at the hospital, in the intensive care unit. He… was my patient." She paused, and a shiver ran through her body. "One night… I dreamed about him. But… it wasn't a normal dream. It was… different. Real. As if… he was there, with me. In my mind."
"So what happened in that dream?" Marcus asked, trying to keep track of Sarah's confusing narrative.
"He... talked to me," Sarah continued. "He told me things... strange things. Things... only he could know. About... his job. About... the dolls. About... the girls." Her voice broke, and fresh tears streamed down her cheeks. "At first... I thought I was crazy. That it was just a nightmare. But... it kept happening. Night after night. He... came back into my dreams. And he asked me for things. He told me... what to do."
"And you did what he asked?" Marcus asked cautiously, "Like... painting the dolls, for example?"
Sarah nodded slowly, not looking up from the floor. "At first… I resisted. I was afraid. But… he… became… more… insistent. More… threatening. In my dreams. And… I started to get… afraid… of… not doing it. Of… what might happen… if I didn't obey him." She paused, and a quiet sob escaped her lips. "And… little by little… I started to… believe him."
To believe that… he really… needed me. To… help him with his… work."
"And what is this 'work' Silas talks about in his dreams?" Marcus asked inquisitively. "What exactly is he asking him to do?"
Sarah looked up again, and this time, in her dark eyes, Marcus thought he saw a flicker of… fanaticism? Blind obedience? "He… tells me that I must… perfect the dolls," she answered, her tone almost mechanical. "He says that pure… dolls… are… incomplete. That they need to be… broken… to be… truly beautiful. And he asks that I… paint them… with blood. To… complete their… transformation."
Marcus watched her silently, processing Sarah's chilling confession. Dreams shared with a comatose killer, macabre orders issued from mental limbo, dolls desecrated with blood... It all seemed unreal, straight out of a surreal nightmare. But the evidence from the red workshop, the photographs of young girls, Sarah's own anguished presence... were too tangible to ignore.
Was this a case of psychic possession? Extreme mental manipulation? Or simply the delusional confession of a disturbed woman, a victim of her own sick imagination? He didn't know. But he was sure of one thing: Sarah Jenkins, consciously or unconsciously, willingly or unwillingly, was deeply involved in Silas Thorne's twisted "handiwork." And the truth, incredible as it seemed, lay hidden in the whispered confessions in the darkness of the red workshop, in the broken shards of a mental mirror shared between a nurse and a comatose killer.
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