Hide and Seek

I curled in a ball in the corner of my bedroom. The room was dark as the night sky with a glow from the moon outside that allowed me to see the shapes of the objects in the room. I could make out my dresser which stood against the wall opposite my bed. In the dark, with me curled in the corner, it looked massive. I hoped the way it towered over the bed keeping me masked in it’s shadow I would be safe. 

Noises I tried to explain to myself as shuffling of feet or the moving of furniture. I could here a whisper. It was someone calling my name, at least that’s what I thought. I closed my eyes, wrapped my arms around my legs and began to rock. 

I reminded myself of the last time I had tried to hide. She had become angry. I had never heard her voice sound so deep and strong before. When I first saw her she would speak to me in the voice of an angel. Her arms would envelop me and I had never wanted her to let me go. When things would happen she would tell me to go and hide, that she would take care of everything. Now, she is the one I am hiding from.  

I would play chess with myself, eyes closed, imagining every possible move I could make. By the time I had finished the game, the arguing and fighting had stopped and she would come in. Her voice almost sounded as if she was always singing her words to me. She would sit in front of me, in the corner I had chosen and draw a Tic-Tac-Toe board. She would mark an X in the center through the dust that had collected on the floor and I would place my circle, always looking at all the ways I could possibly beat her. We would laugh, and I would climb out of the corner and wrap my arms around her. I hugged her so tight, thinking she would get mad but she never did. She let me hug her for as long as I needed, never complaining. 

The dust had covered the board we had made to play our game. My nose would tickle and I could feel a sneeze coming. I pinched my nose, doing my best to hold it back. I had seen something I knew I shouldn’t have. I was supposed to of went and played in my room but it wasn’t the others that I had always heard arguing, it was my angel. 

There had been a smell. I wasn’t quite sure what it was and couldn’t describe it. Something red was creeping under my bedroom door. I got on all fours and crawled across the floor. I took my finger and ever so lightly touched it. It was sticky and I knew it there was something wrong. I slid backwards, looking like a crab scrambling across the sand at the ocean, back into my corner. 

She knew where I was and I knew that. Her voice no longer something I longed to hear. The way she called at me sounded more like a game she was playing. Perhaps hide and seek. All I knew was that I didn’t want to play with her anymore. There weren’t any other voices anymore, only hers. She called out to me. At first in a whisper and then it grew into a growl. I shook, feeling an evil I thought I had escaped once before when she had come to save me.

The door was locked. I looked around the room again. My bed seemed smaller than I remembered it. My teddy bear on top. I wondered if I could make it across the room to grab it without her hearing me. I got up on my knees and took care to stay as quiet as I could as I placed one hand in front of me and then the other. I thought about the turtles I had seen on the National Geographic channel. That’s what I wanted to be right now. My head poking out of my shell, made of armor, moving slow, no one noticing I am even there. 

I could hear her just outside the door. The sound of the doorknob turning and then a violent tug at the door followed by a frustrated growl. I pictured two lions in a fight for dominance over the tribe. Being silent no longer concerned me. I grabbed my teddy bear and retreated into the opposite corner I had been in before. Dust flew into the air and I let out a sneeze. I could hear a laugh behind the door and the image of a hyena came to mind. 

She had probably been right, that I was watching too many horrific pictures of animals in the wild. I couldn’t escape her and it had become obvious. I stood in the corner and scanned the room. It was as if everything that had once been there was disappearing. The toy box where I kept my dolls. The doll house that sat beside it had just vanished. She hadn’t come in, so how? Was it while I slept? I became dizzy as my eyes went around the room, over and over again, each time something else would be gone. 

The drawings she had helped me with were suddenly no longer there. We had sat in that room for hours just drawing anything that had come to mind. She had drawn a castle for me and I had added a princess up in the tower. We had made up countless stories both taking turns adding to the picture each time. There had been a field of flowers, yellow ones and pink ones. At the top of the wall she had drawn a huge sun for me. I hadn’t seen the sun in a long time. There had been clouds with a rainbow that reached down into the field of flowers. All of it was gone. 

The rattle of the door stopped and was replaced with the shuffle of feet. I could hear the sound of something being dragged along the floor. The red stuff flowing in under my door replacing the dust that had caused the sneeze. I scurried over to the bed and climbed on top. I squeezed my bear so tight. If it had been real there wouldn’t have been a breath left in it. The eyes would have popped right out. Tears rolled down my face. I could taste the salt from them as they ran down my lips. I didn’t dare scream out. 

There was nothing left in the room, only me, my bed and my bear that I used to wipe my face. I looked up and the walls that had turned black as mold began to crumble before me. The ceiling above me which had once been white as snow, crumbled and fell into the redness below me. My heart raced and my stomach tightened. I felt sick. My throat felt as if it would close at any moment. I closed my eyes. This had to be a dream. I was in my bed. My toys were there where they should be and my pictures were hovering above me waiting for a story to be told. 

When I opened my eyes, there she stood. Nothing around me, no pictures, no bed, not even the corner she and I played Tic-Tac-Toe in. Her arm reached out to me, her hand beckoning me to grab it. I didn’t speak. I grabbed her hand and we walked through a door. I could see a woman lying on the floor. I thought I recognized her, although I hadn’t seen her face in a long time. She was covered in the red stuff. Her eyes open staring at me. I watched her chest. There wasn’t any movement. 

She pulled me past the red stuff and this woman lying on the floor. We walked down a long hall. There was a bright light coming from the room at the end of the hall. It seemed as if the hall would go on forever and we would never reach the room. I wanted that light so much. I wanted to feel the heat on my face. She hummed a song as we walked and the sound of the angel had returned. I felt at peace and happy although everything around me had suddenly changed. 

We walked into the room with the bright light. In front of me was a sink. I watched as she turned the knobs on and water poured from the spout. The smell of the red stuff was replaced with a clean sweet smell. I put my hands under the water and closed my eyes. I splashed the cold water in my face. When I opened my eyes and looked they weren’t my hands but hers. Confusion set in and I took a deep breath. 

I raised my head and looked into the mirror that hung above the sink. It was her face I stared at in the mirror, not my own. I banged against the mirror and a smile formed across her face. I let out a scream but she only straightened her shirt, ran her fingers through her hair and turned the light off as she turned and left the room. I turned away from the mirror and disappeared into the blackness.