Thank you to all my lovely reviewers since last time: sweetladyjane2012, Swimmer girl 17, cityofstarlight, Macca40, StormerBeatsBad, PurlyandGirly, leah9712, omgringo, ThisBirdHasFlown, Marvel_is_best, NJ2001, and MaccasWeirdFriend.

14 August, 1965, 5:00 AM (New York time). Bellevue Hospital, New York City, New York, USA.

Light.

Light was hovering above him, just on the other side of his eyelids. George wanted to open them and see the light, but they seemed awfully heavy. Finally, he managed to pull them open a little bit, just enough to see the circle of bluish light that seemed to hang ethereally in the air above him. He squinted and tried to grab the light, but his arms felt heavy, too. He reached up, but the air above him was empty.

The rest of his senses began to kick in. He heard a steady, soft beep somewhere nearby. The empty air smelled chemical and sterile, and his dry mouth had a faint salty taste in it. He felt the starched cloth beneath him and on top of him. He pinched a bit of the cloth between his fingertips – sheets. He was in bed.

George blinked, and the will-o-the-wisp above him resolved itself into a round, fluorescent light, surrounded by white ceiling tiles. He blinked again. Planes don't have ceiling tiles, he thought.

Experimentally, he lifted his left arm a little. Something rubbery seemed to be dangling from the inside of his elbow. George reached over with his right hand and felt his left arm, only to find a small, plastic cylinder. He turned his head and blinked again. An IV was stuck in the crook of his elbow under a strip of gauze. Some sort of clear fluid was dripping from a plastic bag hung up on a metal rack next to him, down the rubber tube, and into his arm.

George blinked again. Hospital. That was where he was.

How did I get from the plane to a hospital? he wondered hazily.

George closed his eyes. He felt his chest rise and fall softly with his breathing and listened to the steady beep of the nearby heart monitor. He ran his hands across the starched white sheets and smelled the antiseptic tang of the air around him. He couldn't feel his legs.

George suddenly sat up abruptly. The metal rack from which his IV bag was dangling spun around with his motion. The speed of the beeping abruptly increased.

The young man stared at his legs, willing them to move. He tried to wiggle his toes, but saw nothing. He couldn't even feel the sheets below his waist. He started to panic.

A middle-aged nurse bustled into the room with an irritated scowl.

"Sit down," she commanded in a businesslike tone that infuriated George. "Mr. Harrison," she added, glancing at the clipboard in her hands for his name.

"I will not sit down!" said George. He'd meant to yell, but it came out as more of a dry rasp.

"Your heart rate has already increased beyond acceptable levels," sniffed the nurse. She pushed his shoulders down mechanically.

"Get off me!" rasped George weakly. "Why am I here?"

The nurse didn't reply, instead jotting down a note on the clipboard.

"Why can't I feel my legs?" demanded George, finding his voice at last.

"I can't tell you that," replied the nurse.

"Because you don't know or because you don't want to tell me?" inquired George acidly.

"Because I don't know what my security clearance is," answered the nurse with a self-righteous sniff. "We're trying to keep your presence here a secret for as long as possible."

"I already know I'm here! What can it hurt to tell me why the bloody hell I can't feel my legs?" snarled George, grabbing the woman's shoulder.

She pried his fingers off nonchalantly. "All information about your case is classified, including your health status."

"Are the others here?" asked George, then snorted. "Oh, yeah, bet you can't tell me. Can I at least call someone? I need to tell Paul not to come over here! Where is here, anyroad?"

"I'll go fetch Dr. Martin," said the nurse. She replaced the clipboard in a slot at the foot of George's bed and bustled back out of the room.

George sank back against the pillows, defeated. He stared at the IV bag, watching the clear fluid patter down into the rubber tube.

At last, someone came in. George sat up again to see an older man with gold-rimmed glasses, thinning grey hair, and a white lab coat.

"Ah, Mr. Harrison," said Dr. Martin. "How do you feel?"

"Like crap," replied George bluntly. "How do you feel, Dr. Martin?"

The doctor ignored George's question. "Your nurse informed me that you can't feel your legs."

"That's right," said George. "So when do I get to feel them again?"

"What do you remember of the crash?" asked the doctor, clipboard in hand.

"What crash?" asked George. "Last thing I remember is playing cards with Ringo. Am I in England? 'Cause we were only about an hour away from London, but everyone here has American accents."

"Your plane crashed about half an hour away from New York," replied Dr. Martin. "So no, you're not in England."

George groaned, then did a double take. "Our plane crashed?"

Dr. Martin nodded. "You were the sole survivor found by the rescue crew."

George's eyes widened. "They can't all be dead!" he exclaimed, unknowingly mirroring Paul's thoughts three thousand miles away.

"So you can't feel your legs at all?" asked Dr. Martin.

George shook his head. His brain was still stuck processing the news Dr. Martin had given him.

Dr. Martin made another note on the clipboard. "There's a very slim chance of recovery," the doctor informed George, returning his pen to his breast pocket. "You were found with debris lodged between your L4 and L5 vertebrae. We've removed the debris, but it left serious nerve damage. It's a miracle you survived at all."

"Yeah, d'you expect me to be grateful?" asked George venomously. "Grateful that all my friends are dead? Grateful that I can't use my legs?"

"Grateful that you're alive," replied Dr. Martin calmly. "Grateful that your mind is still intact, and that you managed to cling to something that would float."

The doctor returned the clipboard to its slot and got up to go.

"Can I telephone Paul?" asked George.

"Yes, there's a telephone on the table to your right," answered the doctor.

George grabbed the telephone and spun its dial. First the international extension, and then a familiar number.

He waited anxiously, but instead of getting Paul, he got an operator.

"I'm sorry, but this phone line appears to be disconnected," she informed him.

George hung up. He stared at the small, white room. Damn.

"There have been many deaths within these walls," said the cadaverous old man, leading the way down the darkened corridor. "It began with the sons of original Ravenhurst of Corvusheim, in the fourteenth century: the elder Simon, the younger William.

"When Simon returned and found what William had done, he was seized by rage. Rage enough to kill his own brother?"