Chapter 1

I don’t want my death to be an inconvenience for anyone, so I make sure my blood won’t spill under the bathroom door. I make sure that my roommates are all out of the apartment at their classes, waiting an extra twenty minutes to feel reassured that nobody forgot a phone charger or some other item that would lead them right to the scene that was quickly unravelling behind the shower curtain.

Now feeling confident that no one will accidentally walk into this situation, I quickly begin to line the shower floor with my bath towels, smoothing out the wrinkles like mom used to do to my comforter before bed. I find myself tracing over and over the seams at the edges, imagining that I was looking at that pink Barbie comforter smoothed over my tiny child frame through my mother’s eyes.

Does mom even remember that?

I shake the thought from my mind as quickly as it came, hurriedly getting up and locking the bathroom door shut, the buzzing and whirring from the dishwasher and air conditioning dampening. The bathroom feels so quiet, and the sudden lack of white noise makes my heart rate quicken, my tongue going dry.

Fuck. This is really real. I wonder if this what it’s like for each person who does this…

I clutch my phone in my hands, staring down at the email I have typed and retyped hundreds of times over the past few weeks. I reread it, listening to my own gut clenching loneliness and sorrow exploding from the screen. I take a deep breath, the carefully strung sentences ready to be sent.

Before I can put a second thought into this, I hit the schedule send button. 1 hour. I’ve given myself one hour to do this, before everyone I’ve emailed that to is hit with the harsh reality of being too late. I chuck the phone into the empty sink, out of my sight, and take the few short steps into the towel-lined shower.

I’ve imagined all the next steps over and over in my head, replayed exactly how I will do it. I recall the steps I’ve practically memorized after weeks of planning, and take the first step. I sit down on the carpet of navy blue bath towels and pull the shower curtain closed. No one should have to see this the moment they step into this bathroom, not if they’re not prepared, especially if they’re not who I want to find me first. Before I can overthink all of the potential orders for the people I’ve emailed to find my body, I move on to step two.

I reach my hand into the pocket of my sweatpants, feeling my fingertips brush against the folded up note I shoved in there early this morning. I pull it out and unfold it, smoothing the wrinkles and folds as best as I can before sliding it under the shower curtain and onto the bathroom floor, face up. The message scrawled on it in dying black ink is simple.

Dear security guards,

I am hoping that you will be the first ones to find this. You do not know me very well, which is why I hope that you will get to me first. I am lying on towels to make cleanup easier. Please keep my roommates from seeing my body. I’m sorry.

I take a deep breath. Step three is next, which is immediately followed by step four. Step four is going to be the hardest thing I experience in my life… well except for living. I laugh numbly at the thought.

Well I wouldn’t be doing this if it was harder than living.

Before I can stop to consider the hilarity of that idea, I reach up and switch the water on, cold droplets rapidly beginning to soak my clothes. I gasp, hurriedly turning the knob to hot.

Fucking dumbass.

I think to myself as the cold water shocks me out of the preplanned rhythm I’d been imagining over and over for weeks. Startled and a bit disoriented, my mind begins racing, tears threatening to burst from my eyes. As quickly as the shock sets in, it dissipates, the sensation of warm water soaking through my clothes, weighing down my hair bringing me back to my plan. I turn my face up into the steaming hot water, forcing myself to hold my position there for a few moments to allow my cheeks to adjust to the high temperature.

See? Not too bad.

I lean back until I am lying flat on my back under the hot water, the droplets hitting my chest before bouncing off and spraying the inside of the shower curtain and my face. I rapidly blink water from my eyes, the anticipation of step four feeling like both an anvil being dropped on my chest and a weighted blanket being lifted from my shoulders. From my other pants pocket I pull a brand new X-acto knife I bought from an art supply store yesterday. The blade is so sharp, just the tiniest bit of pressure drew blood from my fingertip last night. I had to be sure it would be sharp enough to cut through not just one forearm but two without getting too dull.

Holding the black handle in my right hand, I press my thumb onto the slider on the side, clicking the blade up a few notches until it is about 2 inches past the end of the plastic handle. I stare at it, trying to summon some kind of whirlwind of emotions to make this feel faster. I think about the trauma, the pain, the isolation. As I stare at myself reflected dimly in the blade, I realize that no whirlwind of anger or pain or depression is going to carry me through this process. The numbness that I’ve felt for a year though will.

Before I can muster up any more courage, I roll to my side propped up on my left elbow. I take the point of the blade and jam it firmly into the crook of my elbow, leaning on knife with all of my weight as I slash downwards, the huge laceration opening like a deep red and pink canyon all the way down to my wrist. A garbled screech exits my throat, my eyes immediately watering as I stare down at my own fatty tissue and muscle. Blood pours from the wound, quickly soaking the towels beneath me. I gag as the water from the shower stings my sliced open flesh, my eyes practically bugging out of my head. I breathe raggedly as I grip the knife in my shaking hand, pressing it once more into my skin, this time right below my left thumb on my inner wrist, leaning my whole body into it as I slash horizontally. A bright stream of blood spurts from my wrist, and I drop the knife onto the towel, staring at the crimson rivulets that flow from the wound, just as quickly being swept away by the hot shower water.

Holy shit… I actually did it.

I stare at my arm for a few more seconds, black spots suddenly swimming in my vision and my body beginning to shiver despite the continuous hot water soaking me. I blink hard, picking the blade back up and shoving the handle into my left hand. My fingers struggle to grip the knife, each flex of my wrist causing a bout of nausea that makes me gag and cough. My hand trembles as I get a good hold on the handle, forcing myself to roll to the other side. My vision swims and the faint smell of dirt confuses me, but I try to stay focused.

Just a little longer, it’s almost over…

I use my whole upper body weight to lean the knife into the crook of my right elbow this time, slashing about three quarters of the way down to my wrist. I moan in exasperation, my left hand too weak to make the full cut. Panic begins to set in as my head sways, the overwhelming feeling of sleep lulling my eyelids to flutter. I take the knife again, this time at my wrist horizontally, trying to make that second cut, but as I press the blade deep into my flesh my left arm gives out, slipping off the handle. I gasp, vomit working its way up my throat as the blade stays stuck in my right wrist. Before I can try again, a pang of dizziness hits me hard and I collapse flat onto my back, the hot water spraying over my mutilated wrists and quickly paling face.

I lie there, feeling more exhausted than I ever have in my life. Water fills the crimson canyons in my forearms, spilling out watery blood onto those soaked towels. I shiver, my teeth chattering.

Water so hot… yet still so damn cold…

I hear the faint pinging of my phone, but it sounds so far away now.

When I was twelve my parents took me to the eye doctor. I’d begged them not to, told them repeatedly through angry tears that I was FINE. I just saw things differently. They never liked that answer, and after years of me going to sit in chairs and ending up on the floor and going to walk through doorways and slamming face-first into walls they brought me in for an appointment.

The doctor ran a series of tests, all of which gave inconclusive results that only made my parents more concerned than before. When asked to read the letters projected up on the wall I could do that just fine. When I told the doctor that the projected image was also upside down underneath the first one on the wall like a mirror copy she’d give me a concerned look and mark little notes on her clipboard with a red pen. When she asked if I’d ever experienced any double vision I told her that I saw everything with a mirror image beneath it. Finally she removed the glasses from the tip of her nose and asked me what I saw when I looked at my parents. I told her that they each had mirror images connected to them by their feet, moving when they moved like 3-dimensional shadows.

A few days later I found myself admitted to the psychiatric facility.

I was diagnosed with schizophrenia not too long after and was kept on a constant, strict regimen of medications that made my body feel like it was dissolving into human applesauce. My parents visited me less as I grew older and the company of the caretakers didn’t make the ward feel any more comfortable. After years of being told that I was ill (in front of my parents) and disturbed and unfixable (behind closed doors) I began to resort to spending the majority of my time staring at my blank ceiling, the one space where I couldn’t see double of anything. It was the one place where I couldn’t look down at my feet and see my own copy of myself staring eerily back with a sinister inhuman expression. I knew that whoever was looking back wasn’t me; I couldn’t shake the thought that these copies would come for me someday.

Now it is 2048, I am 23 years old and all I have to say now is that I knew I was right all along. I always knew I wasn’t mentally ill. I’m writing this letter to explain the circumstances to whomever comes across the carnage that has sadly been left behind. All of this time I wasn’t seeing double: I was seeing a flipside to our own world. Everything is exactly the same there; we control what’s created and destroyed there through our movements, we control who moves. The only thing we couldn’t understand how to control until it was too late was the bloodlust They had. And they found their way here to ravage our world.

I’ve watched the nation and state flags be brought down to half mast on multiple days each year. During these days the high school student body and the staff take a small allotted amount of time to commemorate whatever tragedy, death, or sacrifice is being acknowledged; it’s during these days that I wail the most.

My voice echoes through the halls, down the stairwells and into the courtyards yet no one hears my cries. Though my body can no longer cry, I still feel as though I can feel hot tears streaming down my cheeks. I know it’s just a memory that I can’t shake. Phantom pain.

No one hears me or sees me. No one acknowledges my tragedy because it’s been kept hidden. The entirety of my existence has been forgotten, just another cold case added to the files that people curl up on their couches to watch just for the suspense.

It’s been almost twenty eight years since the principal of this high school committed that horrendous crime, the one I’d caught him in the act of doing while on my way out of the building after a track-and-field practice. If I’d just taken a different stairwell to the parking lot or hadn’t turned back when I did to look for my water bottle I never would have seen him handing over those bags of white powdered narcotics to the supposed janitor, taking a wad of cash into his pocket in return. Running didn’t get me far that day. All it took was the prick of a needle and the firm grasp of crazed masculine hands; I’ve been trapped in here ever since then, ever since he knew that his career would be done for unless he got rid of me.

Students and teachers alike walk past me every day but they cannot see me. My body now has receded to a dusty, empty skeleton nailed between the lockers of the second floor and the wall of the building. My teeth have fallen out of my jaw and litter the floor like dead flies. My wrists, now receded to brittle twigs, are still crossed in the same position that they were bound in behind me. The needles he used to pump my blood full of drugs lay rusted near my decayed right hip. My last memory before the overdose stopped my heart is the view from here. The small pocket my strangled and drugged body was dragged into and trapped in has a tiny crack in the wall that looks out to the courtyard. I can still see the flags from here, shifting in the wind. I can’t remember what the wind feels like anymore; I was fourteen years old when I “went missing.” All I feel now is the dark, empty cold that comes with being alone forever.

There’s something so sad about being forgotten.

I bet there’s something even more sinister about never being able to walk through this place without me trapped here, always watching.

Needed, not wanted.

I always grew up with my ‘friends’ telling me that I was needed by my family, not wanted by my parents.

When I was young I thought they loved me.

Each time they stuck needles in my arm or laid me on a cold metal table and told me to “hold still sweetie, the doctor is going to make you feel better!” I believed them. I’d cry then, not because each pinch of lidocaine burned my flesh or the scalpel glinted closer with each labored breath, but because my parents would leave me in the room by myself with the doctor and the nurses.

At five years old, I used to cry when they’d leave me back then.

Now, I don’t cry.

At least not for them.

At eight years old, my parents had me taking a cap-full of chalky pills each morning and night.

“You need these, they’ll help you get better!”

Fake smiles.

Still, I took the damn pills, allowed the drowsiness to overcome me, to numb my emotions, dull my awareness.

They love me, they’re doing this because they love me. They want me. I’d tell myself with each gulp.

At ten years old, I had my kidney removed along with some bone marrow. The pain was excruciating. I was hospitalized for weeks, stuck sucking on ice chips while my father drank away his own pain out of the water bottle we all knew wasn’t water from the corner of the hospital room.

My parents told me I’d gotten too sick and one of my kidneys had to be taken out in order to make me feel better. As for the marrow surgery, I didn’t know what it was for. Mom just told me that the doctors needed to run tests.

My friends kept urging me each day while I was in the hospital to see what their parents had told them was going on.

“You’re needed, not wanted, Kenz. You need to see it.”

I cut off all relationships after that; the only friends I had from then on were the characters on the TV screen from the corner of my room.

Over the years, the doctors removed more parts of me, injected more medicines, told me I was too sick to live without the treatments.

Little did they know that I was learning.

I didn’t want to learn.

I needed to.

Now, at seventeen, I’m writing this log from the janitor’s closet of DCMU hospital. Whoever finds this, call the number I’ve left on the back of this letter. I know the truth now; I want freedom from this. I know now my parents only conceived me to be my sister's donor, the sister I never knew I had. I was never the sick one. She was. All of those meds over the years, just sedatives to keep me in the dark. I have to go, but please tell my parents I know the truth. I was never wanted.

I was needed.

First, the sensation of her head resting on her palm. Then, the softest whisper of a sleepy breeze lifting the light wisps of hair from her face. Next, a warmth across her cheek that made her still-closed eyes squint with a curious confusion. All of these sensations invited Lina to wake.

She sat up slowly, fluttered open her eyes and inhaled sharply with amazed wonder. The door to her small enclosed closet in which she sat inside was wide open, revealing a large window that was, too, open to the world beyond; a sight she’d never seen before. Reaching an arm out to the room beyond the closet, she found that there was no barrier between her and it. She stood in amazement and spotted the large oak door to The Bedroom swung wide open like the one to the closet. Without a second thought or question in mind, she flew through the doorway.

And she was free, free from the hell that had kept her closed in for years. There were no chains on the doors, no rules printed and plastered on the walls, nothing of the sort. Just open doors and windows, all inviting her to step out to the world. As she passed through hallways and rooms, making her way to the front door, a tugging sensation at the base of her head tingled in her mind, and she slowed. A recollection. A memory. Who was she supposed to be? Where was she supposed to be? Just as soon as it came it evaded her thoughts, and she shrugged it away, cheering joyfully and skipping out of the open front door and onto the sidewalk.

Lina twirled and danced through the unfamiliar sunlight she had never had the chance to feel before. The amber leaves below her feet crunched with every step, and smells unknown to her gathered her in their embraces, guiding her towards the small town down the street. She laughed and sang with the birds in the trees above as her legs carried her farther and farther away from the house.

The town was marvelous to Lina. The people, dressed in a beautiful array of clothes she’d never worn, all living their lives. She skipped amongst them, tracing the uneven cobblestones with her bare feet. She marveled at the street musicians as they became one with their instruments, the melodies they created lapping at her ears like warm ocean waves, waves that she;d never touched before.

After some time, Lina sat on a bench in the shade of a small tree of which she did not know the name and took a moment to watch the people go by. She smiled at couples walking hand in hand as they chatted with one another, often sharing fond glances. She admired the beautiful hat of one woman walking alone through the crowds, humming to herself and waving one hand gracefully as if conducting the beautiful harmony of the world beyond her fingertips. Then Lina lay her eyes on a joyful family of four: a mother, father and two young daughters. The eldest daughter was playfully twirling her sister's hair while the younger complained to their cheerful mother. Once again, that tugging sensation in Lina’s mind grasped her thoughts, and the foggy memory of a young girl swam into her consciousness. Lina tried to shake it away, to stay in this precious moment of the world she’d escaped to, but her recollections only clutched her tighter. The house, dark, dim, closed doors, shut windows. Muffled cries, follow the rules, follow them! Pain, a blow to the head, to the back, to the chest, to the leg, to the heart.

Lina looked down at her arms to see massive bruising, cuts gaping across her forearms and hands, raw skin, swollen.

Could never hide. Never scream. Sit straight. Take it like a champ. The pain won’t last. Just be good, and he won’t hurt you. He, him, Thomas. Thomas was his name. Be an example. For her. Her. Her name. What is it? Her name? Mari.

And she was snapped from the memories. From the blissful world she’d allowed to obscure her eyes, a world she had never experienced before this day and would never experience again. Mari, her sister. Her poor, poor little sister, still at the house. Left to Thomas, alone, to his rules, his regimen, his torment, his greed, his pleasure, him. Tears coated her cheeks, the cheeks that had earlier welcomed the sunlight, now guilty for soaking in its lulling nectar.

She rose from the bench and began to run up to the people on those uneven cobblestone streets, begging for help, for forgiveness, for anything. Not a single person stopped, or even took a glance in her direction. She shrieked to the sky, like a hatchling fallen from her mother’s nest, yet not a single person took notice. Lina grabbed one man’s arm, but he continued on his way without a word. Fear replaced her prior joy. She sobbed and began to run back to the house. The leaves below the soles of her feet scraped at her skin, the birds now screeched in a dissonant chorus. Her toes caught on a crack in the asphalt, and she stumbled to her already mutilated knees. With cries of terror, she rose to her feet and sprinted back to the house.

She followed the maze of rooms and hallways, all the while screaming one name, the name she had sworn to never forget. Mari. Her little sister did not come running to her, did not cry out. Lina wailed as she came to a halt in The Bedroom, and there she discovered her sister, knelt on the dirty floor alone. Lina approached her slowly and registered that the floorboards were soaked in thick blood.

“M-Mari?” Her voice wavered and broke with trepidation. Her sister did not respond. Lina advanced until she was just behind her sister. That was when she saw her.

The body lay in front of Mari, cold, pale, drained, dead. It was covered head to toe in bruises and cuts, and its head was caved in from a heavy blow. Its eyes were open, staring blankly up at the ceiling, the lips gently parted, revealing broken teeth. Lina fell to her knees in horror and wailed in dread. It was her, lying lifeless upon the cold ground, her own perished body. She was dead.

Her sister did not cry, did not yell, did nothing but stare with wide enlarged eyes, like a small bluebird being squeezed so hard the eyes were bursting from the head. Yet Mari did not take flight out of those open doors. She remained there, just watching with young eyes that aged too quickly while Lina, still screaming, faded to nothing. Away went her short lived life beyond The Bedroom, the hell she’d survived for so long. In the end, it couldn’t be real, for in the end, even she no longer was.

Solemn chords of resonation wafting through the chilled air.

Our music wraps its gentle arms around the fearful passengers of this great ship one by one, pulling them into a soft embrace momentarily before releasing them to their final resting place below the water's surface.

A fragile, temporary grasp on life that soothes them ever so gently.

We are fearful as well of our own fates as the steel arms of our mother creak and crack beneath the pressure of tons of icy water.

We feel the temptation of the tremble of a lip gnawing at our mouths, the urge to scream and wail for our misfortune as we sink lower into this freezing hell,

Yet we have a duty to the people, to try and keep some calm within the storm.

So we guide our bows over these tender strings and inhale our sweet melodies with each breath.

Though our impact is small and the effects of our sweet harmonies is brief, the provision of momentary solice from the horror unfolding is enough to keep us playing 'till the end.

'Till we end.

-The Institute= Stephen King

-Wings= Aprilynne Pike

-Where the Mountain Meets the Moon= Grace Lin

-The Thing With Feathers= McCall Hoyle

-The Stars at Oktober Bend= Glenda Millard

-The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe= C. S. Lewis

-Their Names are Mine= Rajnii Eddins

First, the sensation of her head resting on her palm. Then, the softest whisper of a sleepy breeze lifting the light wisps of hair from her face. Next, a warmth across her cheek that made her still-closed eyes squint with a curious confusion. All of these sensations invited Lina to wake.

She sat up slowly, fluttered open her eyes and inhaled sharply with amazed wonder. The door to her small enclosed closet in which she sat inside was wide open, revealing a large window that was, too, open to the world beyond; a sight she’d never seen before. Reaching an arm out to the room beyond the closet, she found that there was no barrier between her and it. She stood in amazement and spotted the large oak door to The Bedroom swung wide open like the one to the closet. Without a second thought or question in mind, she flew through the doorway.

And she was free, free from the hell that had kept her closed in for years. There were no chains on the doors, no rules printed and plastered on the walls, nothing of the sort. Just open doors and windows, all inviting her to step out to the world. As she passed through hallways and rooms, making her way to the front door, a tugging sensation at the base of her head tingled in her mind, and she slowed. A recollection. A memory. Who was she supposed to be? Where was she supposed to be? Just as soon as it came it evaded her thoughts, and she shrugged it away, cheering joyfully and skipping out of the open front door and onto the sidewalk.

Lina twirled and danced through the unfamiliar sunlight she had never had the chance to feel before. The amber leaves below her feet crunched with every step, and smells unknown to her gathered her in their embraces, guiding her towards the small town down the street. She laughed and sang with the birds in the trees above as her legs carried her farther and farther away from the house.

The town was marvelous to Lina. The people, dressed in a beautiful array of clothes she’d never worn, all living their lives. She skipped amongst them, tracing the uneven cobblestones with her bare feet. She marveled at the street musicians as they became one with their instruments, the melodies they created lapping at her ears like warm ocean waves, waves that she;d never touched before.

After some time, Lina sat on a bench in the shade of a small tree of which she did not know the name and took a moment to watch the people go by. She smiled at couples walking hand in hand as they chatted with one another, often sharing fond glances. She admired the beautiful hat of one woman walking alone through the crowds, humming to herself and waving one hand gracefully as if conducting the beautiful harmony of the world beyond her fingertips. Then Lina lay her eyes on a joyful family of four: a mother, father and two young daughters. The eldest daughter was playfully twirling her sister's hair while the younger complained to their cheerful mother. Once again, that tugging sensation in Lina’s mind grasped her thoughts, and the foggy memory of a young girl swam into her consciousness. Lina tried to shake it away, to stay in this precious moment of the world she’d escaped to, but her recollections only clutched her tighter. The house, dark, dim, closed doors, shut windows. Muffled cries, follow the rules, follow them! Pain, a blow to the head, to the back, to the chest, to the leg, to the heart.

Lina looked down at her arms to see massive bruising, cuts gaping across her forearms and hands, raw skin, swollen.

Could never hide. Never scream. Sit straight. Take it like a champ. The pain won’t last. Just be good, and he won’t hurt you. He, him, Thomas. Thomas was his name. Be an example. For her. Her. Her name. What is it? Her name? Mari.

And she was snapped from the memories. From the blissful world she’d allowed to obscure her eyes, a world she had never experienced before this day and would never experience again. Mari, her sister. Her poor, poor little sister, still at the house. Left to Thomas, alone, to his rules, his regimen, his torment, his greed, his pleasure, him. Tears coated her cheeks, the cheeks that had earlier welcomed the sunlight, now guilty for soaking in its lulling nectar.

She rose from the bench and began to run up to the people on those uneven cobblestone streets, begging for help, for forgiveness, for anything. Not a single person stopped, or even took a glance in her direction. She shrieked to the sky, like a hatchling fallen from her mother’s nest, yet not a single person took notice. Lina grabbed one man’s arm, but he continued on his way without a word. Fear replaced her prior joy. She sobbed and began to run back to the house. The leaves below the soles of her feet scraped at her skin, the birds now screeched in a dissonant chorus. Her toes caught on a crack in the asphalt, and she stumbled to her already mutilated knees. With cries of terror, she rose to her feet and sprinted back to the house.

She followed the maze of rooms and hallways, all the while screaming one name, the name she had sworn to never forget. Mari. Her little sister did not come running to her, did not cry out. Lina wailed as she came to a halt in The Bedroom, and there she discovered her sister, knelt on the dirty floor alone. Lina approached her slowly and registered that the floorboards were soaked in thick blood.

“M-Mari?” Her voice wavered and broke with trepidation. Her sister did not respond. Lina advanced until she was just behind her sister. That was when she saw her.

The body lay in front of Mari, cold, pale, drained, dead. It was covered head to toe in bruises and cuts, and its head was caved in from a heavy blow. Its eyes were open, staring blankly up at the ceiling, the lips gently parted, revealing broken teeth. Lina fell to her knees in horror and wailed in dread. It was her, lying lifeless upon the cold ground, her own perished body. She was dead.

Her sister did not cry, did not yell, did nothing but stare with wide enlarged eyes, like a small bluebird being squeezed so hard the eyes were bursting from the head. Yet Mari did not take flight out of those open doors. She remained there, just watching with young eyes that aged too quickly while Lina, still screaming, faded to nothing. Away went her short lived life beyond The Bedroom, the hell she’d survived for so long. In the end, it couldn’t be real, for in the end, even she no longer was.

First, the sensation of her head resting on her palm. Then, the softest whisper of a sleepy breeze lifting the light wisps of hair from her face. Next, a warmth across her cheek that made her still-closed eyes squint with a curious confusion. All of these sensations invited Lina to wake.

She sat up slowly, fluttered open her eyes and inhaled sharply with amazed wonder. The door to her small enclosed closet in which she sat inside was wide open, revealing a large window that was, too, open to the world beyond; a sight she’d never seen before. Reaching an arm out to the room beyond the closet, she found that there was no barrier between her and it. She stood in amazement and spotted the large oak door to The Bedroom swung wide open like the one to the closet. Without a second thought or question in mind, she flew through the doorway.

And she was free, free from the hell that had kept her closed in for years. There were no chains on the doors, no rules printed and plastered on the walls, nothing of the sort. Just open doors and windows, all inviting her to step out to the world. As she passed through hallways and rooms, making her way to the front door, a tugging sensation at the base of her head tingled in her mind, and she slowed. A recollection. A memory. Who was she supposed to be? Where was she supposed to be? Just as soon as it came it evaded her thoughts, and she shrugged it away, cheering joyfully and skipping out of the open front door and onto the sidewalk.

Lina twirled and danced through the unfamiliar sunlight she had never had the chance to feel before. The amber leaves below her feet crunched with every step, and smells unknown to her gathered her in their embraces, guiding her towards the small town down the street. She laughed and sang with the birds in the trees above as her legs carried her farther and farther away from the house.

The town was marvelous to Lina. The people, dressed in a beautiful array of clothes she’d never worn, all living their lives. She skipped amongst them, tracing the uneven cobblestones with her bare feet. She marveled at the street musicians as they became one with their instruments, the melodies they created lapping at her ears like warm ocean waves, waves that she;d never touched before.

After some time, Lina sat on a bench in the shade of a small tree of which she did not know the name and took a moment to watch the people go by. She smiled at couples walking hand in hand as they chatted with one another, often sharing fond glances. She admired the beautiful hat of one woman walking alone through the crowds, humming to herself and waving one hand gracefully as if conducting the beautiful harmony of the world beyond her fingertips. Then Lina lay her eyes on a joyful family of four: a mother, father and two young daughters. The eldest daughter was playfully twirling her sister's hair while the younger complained to their cheerful mother. Once again, that tugging sensation in Lina’s mind grasped her thoughts, and the foggy memory of a young girl swam into her consciousness. Lina tried to shake it away, to stay in this precious moment of the world she’d escaped to, but her recollections only clutched her tighter. The house, dark, dim, closed doors, shut windows. Muffled cries, follow the rules, follow them! Pain, a blow to the head, to the back, to the chest, to the leg, to the heart.

Lina looked down at her arms to see massive bruising, cuts gaping across her forearms and hands, raw skin, swollen.

Could never hide. Never scream. Sit straight. Take it like a champ. The pain won’t last. Just be good, and he won’t hurt you. He, him, Thomas. Thomas was his name. Be an example. For her. Her. Her name. What is it? Her name? Mari.

And she was snapped from the memories. From the blissful world she’d allowed to obscure her eyes, a world she had never experienced before this day and would never experience again. Mari, her sister. Her poor, poor little sister, still at the house. Left to Thomas, alone, to his rules, his regimen, his torment, his greed, his pleasure, him. Tears coated her cheeks, the cheeks that had earlier welcomed the sunlight, now guilty for soaking in its lulling nectar.

She rose from the bench and began to run up to the people on those uneven cobblestone streets, begging for help, for forgiveness, for anything. Not a single person stopped, or even took a glance in her direction. She shrieked to the sky, like a hatchling fallen from her mother’s nest, yet not a single person took notice. Lina grabbed one man’s arm, but he continued on his way without a word. Fear replaced her prior joy. She sobbed and began to run back to the house. The leaves below the soles of her feet scraped at her skin, the birds now screeched in a dissonant chorus. Her toes caught on a crack in the asphalt, and she stumbled to her already mutilated knees. With cries of terror, she rose to her feet and sprinted back to the house.

She followed the maze of rooms and hallways, all the while screaming one name, the name she had sworn to never forget. Mari. Her little sister did not come running to her, did not cry out. Lina wailed as she came to a halt in The Bedroom, and there she discovered her sister, knelt on the dirty floor alone. Lina approached her slowly and registered that the floorboards were soaked in thick blood.

“M-Mari?” Her voice wavered and broke with trepidation. Her sister did not respond. Lina advanced until she was just behind her sister. That was when she saw her.

The body lay in front of Mari, cold, pale, drained, dead. It was covered head to toe in bruises and cuts, and its head was caved in from a heavy blow. Its eyes were open, staring blankly up at the ceiling, the lips gently parted, revealing broken teeth. Lina fell to her knees in horror and wailed in dread. It was her, lying lifeless upon the cold ground, her own perished body. She was dead.

Her sister did not cry, did not yell, did nothing but stare with wide enlarged eyes, like a small bluebird being squeezed so hard the eyes were bursting from the head. Yet Mari did not take flight out of those open doors. She remained there, just watching with young eyes that aged too quickly while Lina, still screaming, faded to nothing. Away went her short lived life beyond The Bedroom, the hell she’d survived for so long. In the end, it couldn’t be real, for in the end, even she no longer was.