Remember To Feel Real

I didn't know there was a door until it opened. Everything blends into everything else, here in this stark white room. There is one rectangular window behind me, high above the cot I spend most of my time on, and even its glass is frosted. Sometimes I can see spiderwebs on it.

The woman that enters my room almost disappears against the walls herself. She is wearing ivory-colored slacks and an ivory-colored blouse, only a shade lighter than the backdrop of my room. She has curly red hair, shocking next to the blandness, and that reminds me of my old friend Alicia from school. I wonder who Alicia is going out with now.

I shift over from my warm spot on the cot, closer to the steel-wire headboard wrought with vines. I don't understand where these grew from, but maybe they were here when I moved in. To be truthful, I don't remember much of any day. They all seem to fade into one another.

There is a loud, sudden scraping as the metal stool from the corner is dragged next to me by the woman. I flinch back violently; I have not heard noise or voice in a while and it sounds as if the clangs are jumping off the walls, vaulting off the ceiling. The woman clears her throat kindly, barely audible over the echoes.

"Good morning, Molly-Anne," she says after they've died down. She folds her hands together in her lap. Is it really morning? I glance at the window. A dark shadow flickers back and forth behind the pane, as if something large is waving to me.

"Good..." I have to clear my throat, my voice is dry and hardly coherent. "Good morning," I try again.

"How are you? Doing well, I hope?" The woman looks as though there is nothing more captivating in the world than to sit and watch my attempts at speaking.

"Yes," I say blankly. The door has just opened again, distracting me, though the woman is either ignoring it or doesn't hear. Entering the room with a chilly draft is a horrendous creature - a faerie of sorts with a short human-like figure. Except the skin is partially hanging off its bones, which are visible and grey, and its feathered white wings are matted in congealed blood. It floats about a foot off the floor, making a whistling sound as air rattles through its torn lungs. I gaze back into its empty eyes unblinkingly. To me, it is like an old friend I thought I'd lost long ago. Now, I suppose, wherever I may be, I cannot escape.

The woman is saying something but seems to notice I am not listening. She breaks off and watches me evenly.

"Molly...Anne?" she says slowly.

"Yes," I reply. The faerie is completely still, save for its exposed stomach, a misshapen sphere of sorts that is ballooning and deflating obscenely.

There is a pause. "Do you know why you are here?" asks the woman.

I don't answer right away. Instead, my breath catches slightly in my throat: without looking at the window, I can see that the huge figure is pacing impatiently now, by watching the pendulum-like shadow cast upon the room's walls, submerging us in omnipresent darkness. There are sniffing sounds from beyond the door. The vines that had been at the ends of the bed are now suddenly inches from either side of me.

"No," I whisper, edging slowly backwards on the cot's thin sheets, unsure if I'm talking to myself or answering the woman's question. Back up against the wall, I stop.

"Can you tell me what you see?" Her face reveals no emotion.

"They're here." Just like before, every time before. No one can hide me from them forever. My fingers subconsciously grab at the sheets as I catch more whistling sounds, more wings beating the air like heartbeats.

The woman must've seen my movement. "Now?"

"Now we wait to die."