Writers and the Muse

Aliya gulped the knot in her throat as she stumbled inside the dark marble coated hallway. Her fingertips lightly tugged on the book before the shelves reanimated themselves and without a single warning to the poor, already shaken up girl. The two shelves to her sides exploded in a growth and quickly sealed her in; the shelf she faced flung forward at a break-neck speed, revealing the marble hallway. The black shimmering walls were lit by two endless rows of candles that seemed to venture deep inside. The hallway itself was breaking laws of physics by spanning so deep, her sight eventually only saw a black spec.

“Forget this!” Aliya spun around to the enclosing shelves and aggressively hurled the books to the floor and looked through the now empty section of the shelf. She saw only the same marble wall that the hallway was coated with, “No.. No, no, no, no!” Her hands began tearing the books from the shelves, revealing only what the fist attempt proved, she was trapped within the shelves, and the only potential way out was the hallway. But even with this realization, Aliya was reluctant. She wasn't adventurous, she wasn't brave, she was just a girl. She left the fake people in stories take the risks, now she was trapped and in a situations that was utterly impossible. Nothing about the whole situation made any sense to her, and even as she tried to calm her panicked breathing and jittery nerves, there was no shred of hope to explain what was happening.

After a few seconds of having a small episode of panic stricken retardation, Aliya snapped her fingers, “Of course!” She reached into her small side bag and fumbled through her things. She shuffled past her notebook full of stories she never finished, past the countless of heavy inked pens, past her colorful hair bands, past two thing books, and snatched up her cell phone. She flipped it open and punched in the buttons before slapping it against her ear. Before the phone could ring in her ear, it beeped, so she dropped it down to see why is had; what she saw almost broke her into tears instantly. Her last resort, the only chance she had to get out, it all died as soon as the phone not only indicate that there was no signal, but died before her astonished eyes. The battery drained away within seconds, not even giving the phone the chance to give its off screen before the screen shut down. Even after it died, even after her hope was stricken down, Aliya didn't give up on the little hope she had;she desperately punched at the buttons, growing more aggressively with even press of her thumb. Tears began to sprout in her lids too while she tapped away; eventually giving into the truth, “Why? Why me?”

There was no answer, not a sound other than her whimpering echos; which reminded her of the hallway. She dropped her phone back into the bag, and with teary eyes, glared into the endless path, easily surpassing the length of the library itself. She had realized there was no way out, the path was the only chance she had now. With a reluctant sigh and a swift wipe of her tears, Aliya started off into the hallway.

She walked for hours, humming songs to herself to pass the time and to keep herself from the silence that threatened her already weakened mental stability. The first few minutes, she walked quietly and learned the silence in the hallway was unlike any other silence she had experienced. It wasn't like in the night time silence, it wasn't even like the silence that the library implied as a law; it was like the proof that she was all alone. Not just momentarily, she felt as if the silence was picking at her, whispering into her mind that she was always along, she always had been. That is what Aliya hate the most in the entire world, she hated the silence, she hated the inaudible proof of no one but her existing. She already felt alone in the world, she already had no one to turn to and now one to trust; but with voices, with sounds, at least she could fool herself into believing she wasn't alone. In the silence, and especially this new crushing silence, she was so alone. Aliya hummed, she snapped her fingers, she sang, she even talked to herself into a conversation. That is when she made the stupid mistake of asking herself, “Who far have you walked Aliya?”

She glanced around her back for the first time she had the entire walk, it froze her blood white. She meant to glance, but she stared, she meant to keep walking, but she stopped, she forced herself to stop crying, but all the tears came right back. She had walked for hours, she knew she had, she had hummed twelve songs, sand ten, and have a conversation for well over half an hour; she did all of it while she walked on. And yet, despite how long she walked and how sore her heels were from the walking, Aliya could still very easily see the enclosed shelves; as is she had merely walked into the hallway for the first time. She had gained absolutely no ground. She dropped to her knees before slumping her skirt down to the heels of her feet, her hands clasped her cheeks before her tears trickled down their seems. She cried weakly as she wobbled back and forth, “I just want to go home, I just want to go home.”

An hour passed with her hands tightly grasping her cheeks before she sniffled away her final tears. The silence was closing in on her now that she stopped crying, so she started mumbling to herself, “Okay Aliya, okay.. Go back, maybe there's a way out.. Go back.” the whimpering girl staggered to her feet before turning to face the endless black marble hallway. She realized she was facing the wrong way, having been crying and hyperventilating for too long had caused her to get disoriented. She turned the other way and found an endless pathway. Once again she paused, once again her mind began to panic along side her heaving chest; she glanced back again, then the other way. She shifted directions countless times, seeing only an endless path both ways.

“Okay... Okay, think Aliya.. Think.” She was all dried out of tears, she knew she wanted to cry, her body was gasping and whimpering, but the tears weren't flowing. She cried in dry tears while she glanced both ways, hoping that eventually her sight would renew itself and show the entrance. She hadn't moved and inch since she broke down feet from the entrance; now she was so far in, the candles couldn't dig deep into the black to see the entrance. “I haven't eaten, or drank any water.. I must be hallucinating.. That's it!” with an eager swiftness, Aliya dug into her bag and pulled out her notebook. She flipped to a blank page and tore it out before she began to cut it to pieces. She tore out one more piece of paper and dropped it to the marble floor before she took off one way. Every ten steps, Aliya knelt down and placed a piece of the torn paper on the floor, then continued on. “Perfect, I'll go one way, if I don't find the exit, I'll just go.....”

Once again, her hopes were impaled by another manipulation of her mind. All the pieces of paper fell form her hands as she walked forward a few more paces. While she walked, the watery tears returned to her lids, no effort was placed to try and stop them. Aliya just cried as she came up to the whole piece of paper she had left behind, countless of little pieces of paper still leading a path forward. She knelt down again, tear dropped onto the whole paper as she picked it up and crumpled it up in anger, “Damn it!” She spun back around the way she came and hurled it at what she believed would have been a path. Instead the paper tapped against a marble wall before flinging to the floor. The terrified girl hadn't expected the paper to come back at her, it didn't hurt or even hit her, but just the fact that the paper hit a wall and came back was enough to make Aliya stumble back a few steps. Her body vibrated when her back was embraced by another way behind her. A yelp escaped her lips before she spun on her heels and slammed the wall with both hands. She was in a box now, a black, marble coated, dim lit box. Only for candles flickered in the box, one on each wall. Her chest began to puff up and down as she heaved for air, “Let me go, let me out! Please!”

Shock turned to fear, fear turned to panic, and now, panic turned into desperation. While her cracked voice screamed and cried and begged for help, her tiny frame slammed against every wall in a frantic and uncontrollable surge of desperate strikes to the wall. Her shoulders, her back, her palms, all violently punched and slammed into the walls while she cried louder than she ever had before. The air started to become think, her lungs struggled to take in air as she hyperventilated; even the candles began to dim with the lack of oxygen. And eventually, even her body gave into the conditions, she gave out one final strike with her right foot; slamming a kick into a wall. She lost her balance and flung back with the force of the kick, causing the poor tired girl to crash her back against the opposite wall and slide down to her skirt.

“Please let me go, please... I don't want to be here, I don't...”

“I just want to go home, I want to go home...”

“Please... Let me out....”

“Please...”

The candles died out, leaving the whimpering girl alone in the pitch black box; once again the silence enclosed her.