The Conversion

by DK Andrews

I look at her with my frightened eyes. I already know it’s hopeless, but here I am still trying to seek her compassion and love when I know it’s not going to happen.

  “Oh stop it you little slug! As if you are so innocent!”

  She tosses downs her beer and throws the empty over her shoulder.

  He grabs both my hands in one of his rough, calloused mitts and then roughly pulls me in towards him with the fist balled with my hair. My body is so small I can’t resist his strength, and the pain makes it impossible to think straight. He’s a mountain of a man far too big and tall for me to fight off.

  “Take her to the bedroom,” Gloria says casually, pointing down the hall.

  He drags me down the hallway towards the bedroom, I try to get free stall to save myself, but his hands are too strong —they are as big as a bear’s paws. He kicks open the bedroom door. As a last-ditch effort, I try to bite his hand that is caught up in my hair. I bite down as hard as I can. He screams and lets go of me. I run back up the hall towards the living room but he quickly catches up and hits me hard from behind with a punch in my lower back, and I fall face down on the carpet. I already knew this is going to happen.

  “Mom, please. Help me. You’re my other you can’t let this happen!” I shriek, in the hope that Gloria will do something to save me. I hear Micah begin to cry in the front room.

  I can’t get up, the pain in my back is agonizing, and my head is spinning. With a quick kick to my side, he bends down grabs my right ankle and drags me back to the bedroom.

  “Mom, save me!” I howl for last time

  I am completely dazed and don’t have the power to fight anymore. Once inside the room, he slams the door shut and throws me onto the mattress where he rips off my pants. I close my eyes; I can hear the sound of his zipper and feel his ghastly sweaty body. An appalling alcohol-laced smell comes from his mouth and fills the room. I stop screaming because I’m almost unconscious and essentially dead inside. I no longer seem to feel the physical pain, and it’s as if my soul has left my body. I’m numb. The vessel is empty. There is nothing left.

  When I open my eyes, I need a second to figure out where I am. I see the ugly walls of the bedroom, and I know I’m still in this horrible memory. He’s gone, at least. Got what he paid for and left. I gasp for air, cover my face with my hands, and try to stop my tears from falling. It’s exactly what I did four years ago after this brutal rape happened.

  I know I can’t change anything— but I think I may be able to cheat the system and chose not to relive all my memories, I know I can do this!

  This time I will try to find the courage to scrape myself off the floor. The floor which I now see again is covered with small stains of my blood. My whole body hurts terribly, but THIS TIME I will do it differently. I stagger from the bedroom and push myself onwards into the living room. Gloria is sitting on the couch and drinking a beer.

  “I thought you would never come out,” she says, laughing. “Well, at least you’re a woman now.” She pauses to take a long swig. “You should thank me.”

  Four years ago, she said the same, and I stayed for five days in the bedroom, lamenting the death of my innocence.

  I’m about to turn around and lock myself in the bedroom once again, when, suddenly, I change my mind.

  I’m going to do what I should have done four years ago.

  I close my right hand into a fist and rush at my mother. I punch her right in the face. She ignores it completely. She doesn’t feel it because it never actually happened. But at this point I don’t care—it just feels good enough to finally let out all the resentment I’ve been holding inside and fight back.

  I’m not going to lock myself in the bedroom and cry for five days straight this time. I open the front door and start to run down the street. I don’t know where I’m running to, I have no direction and no purpose. I just run. I pick up speed and sprint—I want out of this awful neighborhood. I don’t want to see any of these ugly houses. I don’t pay attention to anything around me. While running, thousands of thoughts cross my mind.

  Needing to take a break, I stop and hunch over, lowering my head and seeing the gray road I’m standing on. Sweat is running down my face. I wipe it off and look up.

  There is a police station right in front of me. Of course! That’s where I should have gone four years ago! I quickly run inside.

  “Officer! Officer!” I say, trying to get the attention of the two young police officers behind the counter, but they look right past me as if they don’t see me at all. I grab one of them by the arms, but he just continues to ignore me.

  “Officer! Please help me!” I shout at them. All my attempts to be heard fail.

  “PLEASE SOMEONE HELP ME!” I shout at the top of my lungs.

  No reaction from anyone—everyone is just quietly minding their business. I collapse on the floor and break into tears.

  “They can’t hear you,” I hear a female voice say.

  With all this atrocious preparation process and the Mentior session, I think perhaps now I’m starting to go crazy—I can hear voices now.

  “They are not a part of your memories,” the female voice continues.

  I think it’s probably the Mentior machine somehow trying to communicate with me. Terrified, I look around, but everyone is still just ignoring me. Then my eyes come to rest on a woman sitting in the corner. I know she sees me. Her face is so familiar! I know her…

  “No point yelling so loud,” a woman says.

  I’m confused. I try placing her. Where have I seen her before?

  Then I remember: she’s the creepy lady from the bus stop. What is she doing here? Or is my mind playing tricks on me? Maybe it’s all just a dream or hallucination.

  “Are you real?” I ask.

  “Yes, I’m real,” she says. “Are you?”

  “I think so. I’m honestly not quite sure anymore. I saw you yesterday outside Ultima center, do you remember me?”

  “Sure,” she answers, indifferently.

  The police officer she is sitting across from is talking to her, but he doesn’t see me or acknowledge our conversation. I formulate a plan to try piece everything together. First, I should probably find out her name. She is wearing the same clothes as yesterday, so presumably, I’m seeing her in the present time, but I wonder how she sees me? Do I look like myself as a terrified young teenager? Of course, the main question I have is what is she doing at the police station, in my memories?

  “What’s your name?” the woman asks me as if she just read my mind.

  “Alina. And yours?”

  “Nicole.”

  “Nice to meet you,” I say, out of habit.

  “I guess we’ve got a lot to talk about, Alina.” She gets up from her chair and walks toward me. Patting me on the back, she says, “Come on, let’s go outside.”

  Stunned, I just watch her walk away. At the door, she turns back and says, “What are you waiting for? Want to go back into your memory? If so, hurry, I don’t think you have that much time. You should know I’m just as confused as you are. I have no idea what’s going on.”

  I definitely don’t want to be back in that depressing shack with Gloria. But somehow Nicole’s words have reassured me.

  I slowly follow her out the door of the station, watching her as we walk. She’s not wearing anything special—just well-worn black jeans and baggy green sweater with rolled-up sleeves, same as yesterday. Then, suddenly it hits me: she’s not wearing a bracelet.

  “Are you confused?” Nicole asks quietly.

  “A little,”

  “Are you going through the preparation process?”

  “I am.” I want to ask her direct questions so that we can find an underlying cause of this mess faster. “Did you sell your life?”

  “I did,” Nicole answers, looking down at the ground. She’s walking ahead of me now, and takes the sidewalk to the right while asking, “Do you mind if we walk this way?” She’s obviously made up her mind already.


  “That’s fine.” I follow. Do I believe her? Did she actually sell her life? Where is her bracelet then?

  Turning to look at me, she asks, “How is it possible that such a beautiful young girl ended up at Ultima?”

  “I’m not that young,” I say.

  “No? What are you? 22? 23?”

  “I’m 18.”

  “Well you have a very mature face; it’s scarred with pain and fear,” Nicole says poetically. “How old are you in your current memory?”

  “Fourteen. What about you?”

  “I’m 35 in real life, I’m supposed to be 31 in my memories,” she says.“I was made to relive the worst memory of my life today.”

  Suddenly her smile turns sad. I notice her eyes are welling up with tears; I don’t want her to cry.

  “Me too,” I say, trying to sound sympathetic and let her know she isn’t alone.

  “Well, at least we are in this together now.” Nicole gives me a comforting smile. “How did you get into my memories? How did you manage to escape yours?”

  “I really don’t know,” I say.“Honestly, I just decided to leave my house without any thought and just ran. Ran as fast as I could. I had no idea where I was running to, and the next thing I knew I was standing in front of the police station.” I look her in the eyes and blurt out, “This feels very strange, me talking to you like this. It feels so real like I’m not plugged in into Mentior.”

  “I feel the same, Alina. You know, I’d never thought of escaping or cheating my memory, but now I think it might be a great idea. What’s the point of reliving something that you can’t