Why did they bring me here? Is it to punish me? Is it to make me forget again?
Or maybe I just never left this place.
Maybe I’ve always been here, my mind lurking in the shadows of my own heart while my body remained grounded. Maybe my mind went off into a different direction, causing me to flee. And in my fantasy, I find Sebastian and spin this dark tale. Maybe it was all a dream and now I’ve woken up to the true horror of my reality.
I’ll always be stuck here, in the remnants of my past. The institution is the only place I am safe, from both them and myself.
I don’t know how many minutes or hours pass before someone finally comes into my room. It’s a nurse, and she shoves me aside while opening the door. Baffled, I stare at her walking to my puddle of puke. I crawl up from the floor and mess with the door handle, but of course, it won’t open. She starts cleaning up the mess I made with a bucket of water, a brush, and a towel. Not a word is spoken.
I stand there in a corner, watching her work, feeling unsafe and unsure of what to do or say. For some reason, I don’t trust her or any of this, but how can I even trust my own senses right now?
I have to know if this is real. If I’m really here, in the hospital I know.
“Excuse me …” I mutter. “Could you tell me … where I am? Who are you?”
She doesn’t answer. Of course, she doesn’t. She’s probably been told not to speak to the lunatic. Maybe I did truly lose my mind after all, and now nobody will talk to me, afraid of retaliation.
I’m losing it. I’m losing myself in this situation. I need to find a way out of here, fast. My eyes skim over her outfit to try to find anything I can use—keys, a knife, anything—if only just to threaten her so she’ll open the door. But there is nothing that she carries which I can use.
But she’s here in this room with me. She passed through the same door that keeps me locked in here, which is made of cold, hard steel. Perfect for a concussion. That I’m even thinking this scares me a bit, but I know it’s my only way to get out of this room and find out if I’m truly back in the institution. It would be bad to do something to this woman, but what other choice do I have? I know they’ll punish me, but I’m here anyway, what more can do they do to me? To me, being locked up in this room is as bad as it gets.
When she’s done, she turns around and walks toward the door, ignoring me completely. If I’m going to do something, I better do it now before my chance is gone.
I slide closer to her as discreetly as I can. She places her finger on a scanner beside the door, and with a click, it opens. Mentally preparing myself, I take a deep breath. Then I grab her head with both hands and shove her against the doorpost. She shrieks, grabbing my arms, trying to push me away, but I have her locked between the door and me. One more bang against the metal and she’s gone. Blacked out. Her body sinks to the floor while I try to catch my breath. My hand is shaking as I withdraw and step back, stumbling over her legs. I feel like a monster for doing this to another person. She’s only here to clean and I just attack her out of nowhere. This is bad, so bad, but I know it is the only way for me to get out. I don’t trust this place, and I don’t trust this woman. I don’t trust anyone but myself right now.
So I make a run for it.
Through the halls, my legs take me wherever they can. I’m lost in a maze of long hallways that seem endless, completely vapid of any life source. This isn’t the hospital that I was in before I came to Sebastian, that’s for sure. It’s like I’ve been taken and zapped off to another planet. Ludicrous, but still it crosses my mind. The walls are completely void of any sign of human contact—no paintings, no phones, no scratches, no tapered wallpaper. It’s all blank, emotionless. All that I see are rows and rows of doors with tiny windows and empty rooms behind them. The more I look at them, the more I freak out. Where in the hell am I? What is this place where no one seems to live except me? It’s like it’s been completely abandoned or I’ve been running in circles. In any case, all the rooms seem empty and nobody is responding to my calls for help.
And then I see it.
It’s only a glimpse, but what I see cannot be unseen.
The woman in the back of one room, sitting on a stool, strapped to a chair. Her auburn hair falls down her shoulders, framing her pale, blank face.
That face makes me shudder. Her stare makes me stop in my tracks. My breathing comes to a halt, and for a second, I think my heart has ceased beating as well. I know her. I know her so well that it makes me scream out loud until I choke in my own air.
The woman in that room is my mother.
Accompanying song: “Supremacy” by Muse
Six hours ago
Coiled up by anger, my heart breaks in two, and thorny vines grow in its place. I feel punctured by my own wishes, bleeding out until I die. I scream at the car driving away, holding my precious little fairy. I can’t believe she’s been taken from me. Slipped away from my grasp, she made a run for it to try to find them herself. On her way to meet them, she was plucked off the streets and pushed into darkness. Evil has her in its claws and I know from personal experience that they won’t release her. Not by consent at least.
I stampede back to my building, trying to ignore my instinct to chase after the goddamn car, rip off the roof, and fetch her myself. I know it won’t work, and even if it did, I’d be dead before I got my fingers wrapped around her wrist.
The best course of action right now is to breathe. Slowly. Calm myself down and think about this rationally. How can I get her away from them? I know they’ll take her back to the facility, so the first thing to do is scour through their records to try to find something that I can use to free her. I grab my phone. The desire to raise hell on earth is too strong to ignore, but I know that I must be careful. One wrong word and they’d know I had it all planned out. One word could mean the end for the both of us, and she has to survive. After all we’ve been through, all that I’ve done to bring her back from the brink of insanity, she needs to live. Too much effort has been poured into this to fail now, and I care too much about her to let her be taken back there. I know that place isn’t good for her and that she’d be better off by my side than anywhere else. I know her deepest, darkest desires, what makes her tick. Nothing can replace that, no therapy can fix her brokenness—which I caused and only I can mend. She needs to be with me. How dare they take her from me?
The phone is almost crushed as fury rages through my veins. A sudden ringtone pulls me from my thoughts. I bring it to my ear, sucking in a deep breath to prepare for the blow.
“Arthur here. I’ve come to report to you that we found her.”
“Oh, really?” I try to act all surprised, but my blood is boiling right now.
“Yes, and we’ll take her to a facility in a more remote area.”
“What do you mean ‘remote area’?”
“Ah, well, you see, she was dawdling around your building again, so I figured it was best if she was taken far away from your place now. Maybe the larger distance will put her off from escaping.”
His words don’t really sink in. All I can hear is far, far away. Meaning not the facility she was in before.
“What?” I stammer.
“Is the line failing?”
“No … I’m just baffled that you’d go this far to thwart me in my success to finally complete my assignment.” I weave my way out of my startled state with words. “It seems like you really don’t want me to succeed.”
“Sebastian, is that truly how you think about me? C’mon.” He bursts out into laughter. “You know me better than that.”
“I was finally reaching a point where I could almost finish it. How am I supposed to continue now?”
I hear him muffle a laugh again. “I’m glad you care so much about your assignment. Hubert here was worried that you’d been slacking off, but I see that you’re trying your very best to make it work.”
“Of course I am!” I yell, emphasizing the fact that I do care about the b
ooks and reenacting the scene that I was meant to do with her. In all honesty, I just want to wrap my hands around Hubert’s neck and choke the life out of him. “Why else do you think she’s so goddamn infatuated with me that she even managed to escape and come to my home? I don’t even know how she got my address. She’s a persistent one, that’s for sure.”
He laughs again. “I’ve noticed.”
Just the thought of him ‘noticing’ anything about her brings chills to my spine. They’d better keep their hands off her … or I’m going to cut them off myself before they die.
“Regardless, she’ll be taken care of,” he says. “You need not worry; you’ll get to finish your assignment. I’ll give you the details once we return. We’ll be accompanying you in your endeavors this time.”
“What? Are you kidding me?”
“Like I said, Hubert needs a little more confirmation that you’re on our side, which I’m willing to grant him if he behaves. You will proceed with your scenes once we’re all set up.”
I can already hear him put down the phone. “Wait!” I yell, but I’m too late. Before I have the chance to ask which facility she is at, he’s disconnected. Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck!
I smash the phone to the ground. It splinters into tiny pieces.
Nothing, nothing can fill the void left by her absence. Nothing can subdue this rage filling my body to the brim. I will find her and I will bring her back, whatever the cost.
But they won’t tell me where she is … unless I continue my work with their oversight.
Which leaves me no other option.
Accompanying song: “Follow me” by Muse
Seven months ago, I walked into our house to find my mother sitting on the couch with a stranger. Six months ago, he was there every day, dining with us, having breakfast with us, trying to tell me what to do. It was as if he was trying to replace my father, which was impossible. I’d let no one that close. My mother, however … she let him get very close. Too close.
One day I found her with a bruise on her wrist and a cut on her cheek. I remember her telling me that she had slipped on a rag and fallen on the tiles. Even back then, I hadn’t believed her, but what was I supposed to do? Fear came out with every breath she took. She was in denial, seeking love and comfort from a man who could not be trusted. All because my father was no longer here.
I didn’t just feel pity for her, I felt angry about the way she handled his death. Not that I had handled it any better—I’d stopped going to classes, dropped out of college, and went full-on party mode with my best friend, Ashley, just to escape reality.
When I came home with her after a long night of clubbing, he was there too, watching us from a corner, sitting in a chair that was not his. Drinking from a glass that was not his. Nothing there was his and yet he had marked it as his own like a dog pissing over that which he wishes to claim.
His eyes had this maleficent hint in them, and the way he shifted in his chair and set his gaze on Ashley had me cringing, clasping my legs in fear.
“What pretty girls you are … especially you,” he had said. “What’s your name again?”
“Ashley,” she’d replied with no regard toward his demeanor.
She didn’t notice his blatant stare, his narrowing eyes. This man could not be trusted. If I could kick him out, I would’ve done it long ago. Unfortunately, this was not my home. My mother called the shots.
“Why is it that you have not introduced her to me before?” he suddenly asked me.
My lips parted in silence, not knowing what to answer, but when I spot his eyes swooping over her body like a hawk, I knew not to reply. Ice filled my veins with terror. The pissing dog to mark his territory had just transformed into a rabid creature, plotting to eat her alive.
His eyes told me enough.
This was the moment I realized that I should’ve long been gone from this place.
Present
I find myself staring at my mother in shock. She can’t be here. This isn’t real. She should be dead. I saw her body lying on the ground filled with bullets. How is this possible? I must be dreaming. I shake my head, gazing through the glass. She looks back at me like a reflection, mimicking my movements. This has to be an illusion caused by stress. I can’t explain this any other way.
Tears well up in my eyes. This isn’t real, and yet it feels like it is. My fingers feel numb as I place my hand on the door, inching closer to the tiny window, attempting to find out if what I’m seeing is truly here.
Suddenly, a hand lands on my shoulder, and I scream, startled. Twisting on my feet, I turn to face the man who did all of this to us. Newman has a wretched smile on his face, one that makes me want to scratch his face until it becomes unrecognizable.
“Oh, dear … you do have a way with slipping under the radar.”
“Take your filthy hands off me,” I spit.
He chuckles. “My dear girl, you’re not really in the position to make demands. Now, why don’t we talk for a minute, hmm?”
“I have nothing to say to you bastards.”
He cocks his head. “Oh? Are you not the least bit curious as to why your mother is here? I could tell you, you know …”
The moment that he mentions her, my breath falters.
Is she really here after all? My lip quivers. How? She … she died.
Words cannot describe how I feel right now. A colorful pallet of emotions race through my mind.
“Yes, my dear … look at her,” he says as he slowly turns me around within his claws. He leans in next to my ear, pointing at the glass. “Isn’t she beautiful?”
“How?” I murmur, a tear rolling down my cheeks.
“Do you remember?” he asks.
For a moment, I contemplate smacking him in the face and telling him that I remember every fucking humiliating and dehumanizing act they did, but that would make it too easy for him. He would know I remember … which would give me less of an advantage. So I keep my mouth shut and shake my head. If he knows that I remember, I could be put through worse than just this cage. Now I understand Sebastian’s fear … lying will keep us alive.
I don’t know where in the hell I am, why Newman is here, or what this place is. But my mother is right in front of me, and I want to know how. That’s all I want to know.
“She got shot,” he says.
I swallow away the lump in my throat, which feels like a bullet stuck in my esophagus.
“But you never knew that she was taken to a hospital to recover …”
That must’ve happened when they kidnapped Ashley and me. Of course, it all makes sense now. I remember her being shot. I could see her lying lifeless in the yard, but I never knelt next to her and felt for her pulse. I never knelt down to hear if she was breathing. Maybe she was still alive, and maybe she’s sitting here in front of me in this room, waiting for me. Waiting for me to come back for her and hug her.
“She’s in here to recover from her trauma, just like you. We brought her here, just like we did with you,” he says. “Getting shot isn’t something to get over easily.” He sighs. “Although that’s not the only thing that keeps her from you.”
“What?” I say, my hot breath making the glass misty.
“She hasn’t told you?” he whispers in my ear, chuckling when I shake my head. “Oh, my dear girl, I think it’s time you had a little talk with her.”
He brings his hand to the indent beside the door and places his finger on the scanner. The door opens. Why am I not surprised? These men have their fingers in every pie. They must be allowed access to every goddamn building in the United States.
“There you go,” he says as the door clicks open.
He holds out his hand, signaling me to go in. I push back the nerves as I place my hand on the handle and open the door. I’m about to meet and talk to a person I thought was dead. It can’t get any stranger than this, but I have to be brave.
As I step inside, I see the fear settle in her watery eyes, tears well
ing up. I slam my lips together, pressing them back as I step closer and into the light that shines down on her face. At this moment in time, there is nothing more I want than to hug her and tell her that I love her. Even if she betrayed my dad, she’s still my mother, and she’s alive.
So I do. I run to her and wrap my arms around her, hugging her tight. I can feel her cold tears drip down her cheeks and fall onto my shoulder while I press my body against hers. Her hands are strapped to a chair, making it impossible for her to hug me back. It’s okay, I have enough love for the both of us.
“Lillith ….” I hear her mumble. I sniff her hair, taking in her scent, unable to keep the tears at bay once she speaks my name.
“It’s okay, Mom. You’re alive. Oh my God, you’re alive.” I can still barely believe it. “You’re here.”
“Lillith …” Her voice grows darker, shallower, and her body shakes in my arms.
I hug her tighter, trying to make her feel better. “I’m here, Mom. I’m here. I’m okay.”
I lean back and grab her face, gazing at her like I haven’t seen her in a million years. The beauty that I once knew is scarred by emotions, but I can see through the fog and find her soul staring right back into mine. It’s there that I find the broken pieces of my own soul. Pain. Regret. Sorrow. Death.
Her eyes are laced with poison. She grips the chair, biting her lip as my brows furrow.
“No …” she whispers.
A chill runs down my spine, covering my body in goosebumps. She shakes her head, her lip quivering as I take a step back.
“No, Lillith,” she says.
“Mom…” My lungs feel constricted.
“Don’t you remember?” is all she says.
That word that makes me cringe. The word that means the world is about to break down in front of me again. Everything that I thought was a lie.
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