Daisies

I look down at the pretty little bouquet of daisies. There is nothing special about them. They are a pure white color, matching the walls of this world. The plastic wrapper surrounding their stems is clear with no designs. They are plain. But they are my only comfort in this place. I continue to clutch them to my chest, every now and then looking up at the ceiling to let the water pour into my eyes and then overflow to give the gentle flowers a drink. I finger the plastic wrapping in my bony pale fingers, listening carefully as it crinkles. It is somewhat comforting, knowing that I am responsible for the only other living thing in this eternal white room.

I've counted them, there are four daisies. Four and a half. One is still in a tiny little bud, not yet blossomed. Sometimes I glance down at them and the little bud is slightly bigger. But I'm not sure if it's not just my imagination. My imagination tends to run out of control quite often. I do wish there were five. It is a much better number than four.

What is that sound?

I look up from the bouquet and my eyes widen in surprise. I must be having another dream.

I am in what appears to be a garden. There is a neat yellowish fence surrounding the garden, freshly built and smelling of sawdust. There are flowers everywhere, their aromas so sweet that they are almost real. They are all daisies. There are hundreds of them, scattered around in rows and clusters. They are beautiful. I look down at the thin bouquet in my hand and drop it on the moist earth. Sickly petals fall in silence.

The sun is beating down on me. I am naked, and it burns. I let my long hair cover my face, hiding me from the harm that this dream world could cause. Permanent pain.

Then the sound echoes softly again. It is music, the music of nature. I begin to wonder why it stood out to me so much in the first place. A wave of depression crashes onto me. I am sick, I am dying. Nature is foreign to me now.

I peer out my curtain of hair and catch a glimpse of another person. It appears to be a girl, slightly younger than me, sitting on a bench next to the exit of the garden, an old wooden door with a rusted locked latch.

She smiles slightly and waves at me.

I spin around, hoping that maybe the boy had come up behind me again, but there is no one there.

I hear faint laughter, the laughter of insanity. I slowly turn and look at the girl again. Her eyes are surrounded with eerie black shadows and her lips are stretched into a wide grin, showing yellow teeth. I reach up a hand to finger my own teeth. They feel rotten.

She continues to cackle to herself. "Do I look familiar Libby?"

Libby?

I think that is my name.

I stare closely at the girl. She does not look familiar at all.

Then the girl pulls out a little case from the pocket of her apron, opening it and gesturing at me to come closer. I look around myself nervously before walking over to sit on the small bench next to her, no longer conscious of my nakedness. It is shadowy here, and the sun does not burn me.

The girl hands me the little case, and I look down at it nervously. I open it with fumbling fingers and stare into the little silver screen it has to offer.

Staring back up at me are a pair of gray eyes. They are empty, dead. They belong to an equally dead face, with sunken cheekbones and a wrinkled forehead. Surrounding the ghostly pale skin is a frame of dry black hair, thin and tangled.

I look over at the younger girl. She is raising her eyebrows at me, her large eyes peering into my soul. And only then do I recognize her as Libby.