Shattered

“...soon.”

Impact. I wake up. I’m sweating, my hair pulled tightly into a bun. The bed under my back feels hard, harder than it did when I fell asleep last...night? I can’t recall. I need some water, my throat feels dry. I stand up, making my way to the kitchen. I walk out of the room, into a hallway with five doors across the brown-grey walls. Which one leads to the kitchen? Surely I should know my way around my own house, I’ve been living here since--huh. Probably just tired, maybe hungover. I feel an instinctual pull to a certain room. This must be the kitchen. See, I’m just tired. I open the door, but what I see is clearly not a kitchen. A bed is made, the sheets, pillows and blanket all baby blue. The walls have been painted a lush green. This culminates to give the room an airy feel, yet the air within the room smells of dread. A picture of a young blonde woman lays at the foot of the night table, the glass of the frame shattered. I feel the pain of that shattering, the cracks slowly forming, extending from the point of affliction, reaching out desperately for the edges of the foundation, the solid ground. Reaching, but never touching. I see my face reflecting in the broken glass. It is the face of the girl in the picture, but my expression is of sorrow and confusion rather than two-dimensional joy. Captured by destruction rather than the press of a button and a flash of light. Suddenly I feel intrusive in this room, as if it holds a stranger’s darkest secrets. I back out slowly, on the tips of my toes, careful not to make any noise, not to wake the beast that waits, unseen, in the hidden depths of the perilous expanse. A word comes to my mind, seemingly emerging from the dark abyss in front of me, the very space I am now cautiously retreating.

Deceptive.

This single word erupts fear in me, and I dive into the hallway, abandoning my past wariness. I hit the ground with a thud, and I tense up, afraid it will alert someone--or something--of my presence. Slowly I rise, determining this is not worth a glass of water. I turn to the door of my bedroom, the only door of which I know what lays behind. I slink towards it, only to see a scratch mark on it...this is the wrong door. I spin in a slow circle, observing I have no clue as to which leads to my bed, or even the room I just exited. I hear a creak above my head, and I hold my breath as I look around for something to defend myself with. 

Stop. Why do I need to defend myself? An eerie feeling creeps down from the nape of my neck, through my arm, to my fingers. I close my eyes, try to shake the feeling away. But the darkness that should greet me there does not come. I see one of the doors opening slowly, a dark figure coming through it. I feel myself running away, at least in this waking nightmare. I reach up, search for my eyes with my hands, so I can pry them open, only I don’t remember where they are. I’m running, and the figure is chasing me, and it grabs me and pulls me to the ground (I finally find my eyes) and it starts beating down, hitting me over and over (I start pulling at my lids, but they seem glued together) and I can feel the pain in real life, and my ribs are breaking, and my head is burning (Pulling the eyes open is a losing battle, but I don’t have any other ideas, so I continue on) and agony sears up and down my back, and I’m clawing at the figure on top of me, and--

My eyes open. I am lying on the floor, sweating, the pain gone. I stand up, shaking violently, trying to stop for fear of the beast I just saw. My hands feel numb, but I can still feel the cold. My legs buckle, and I fall back down, gasping for breath, sucking it in so I won’t be heard. Another creak, this time below me. I shiver. A strong wind pushes into the room, ruffling the Victorian drapes. I walk over to them, push them aside to look into the outside world. All that is there is a brick wall, dark. Looming. Solid. I sit down on the green, fraying carpet, my eyelids heavy, my mind racing. It takes all my strength not to close my eyes, not to rest. I strain my ears, searching for another creak. Instead, I hear a sentence, in no particular voice I can discern.

You will lose your life with your heart beating.

My breath catches in my throat. I hear a thud from behind a door. I scurry away into the room opposite that which omitted the noise to find myself in the kitchen, at last. It feels like hours since I left the bedroom, trying to find the kitchen for a...it’s gone. I’ve lost it. My memories are fleeting, and the worst thing is, I don’t know how long this has gone on for. Today could be my first experience or my hundredth. Will I wake up tomorrow morning with the same questions, stuck in this insidious loop of confusion? Or will I wake up tomorrow at all? I hear a door open. I feel the footsteps beneath my feet, hear them growing louder every second. Before I can hide, a figure walks into the room. I am so terribly frightened, until I look at her and feel relief. I know instantly I love this woman. But my relief falls short at the sight of her icy gaze. Deadlocks frame her plump face, and her rosy red cheeks are contrasted by the paleness of her skin. Her light blue eyes are a welcome distraction from the mascara running beneath them. Her mouth is contorted into a grimace, an expression her eyebrows mirror.

“I’m sorry.”

I don’t know what makes me say it. I simply feel the need to apologize, to comfort. But the moment it emerges from my lips, she begins to cry.

“How could you do this?!” She yells through the tears, the pain and emotion in her words more distinct than that of the liquid pouring from her eyes.

“I don’t know,” I respond, choosing my words carefully, “but I hope I’ll find out soon.”

Suddenly, she runs up to me, pounding her fists against my chest and screaming at me in anger and sadness. Something inside me breaks. I’m filled up with loneliness and despair. The world around me crumbles. I feel nothing but her two fists against me. I still love her, though I may not know who she is.

I love her.

She’s beating me to the ground as tears silently form in my eyes.

Beating.

The pain I feel from her blows is nothing, nothing compared to the nothingness I feel inside.

Heart.

She was my life force. She was keeping my upright.

Lose your life.

She’s gone from my life. So my life does not want to be.

You will lose your life with your heart beating.

She is my heart. And I have lost my life.

I close my eyes and give in to the pain.