Mother Knows Best

She had been trying to figure out, for the better part of a year now, why her 'mother' wouldn't let her leave the house. The collection of rooms had been Viva's entire existence for as long as her memory could go back. A living room, a bedroom, a bathroom.

No bathroom. The heavy stonewalls were draped with old tapestries and decorated in aged art depicting faraway places. Stories that Viva could recall with near perfection because she'd heard them so many times as a child. To the point she no longer asked. The fairy tales were just that. Something to amuse her when she'd been younger.

When she was a child.

As an adult, she wanted out. Wanted to know what was beyond the gates. Why did her Mother get to leave?

Without even having to ask, Viva knew what her mother would say. What she always said. It's not safe. Then why did she go out? How did her mother survive? Where did she go to get their food, the fabric for their clothes, the blankets? Where were the people who had wrote the books on the shelves and wove the rugs on the floor?

Why wouldn't her mother answer any of those questions? Instead, Viva was told to stay because it was safe here. Safe from what? Why? Beyond the fairy tale monsters in the books her mother said were real… But if those horrors were well and truly so, why was it her mother left? How did she survive?

None of it made sense to Viva.

The Gate to the outside was a heavy metal door. It could only be opened from the inside, for a reason, her mother said. It was the only responsibility that Viva had beyond keeping herself fed, cleaned, and the house maintained.

When her mother came home, there would be a heavy series of knocks in a very particular order. Thump-thump-thump…. Thump… Thump-thump. The sound resonated in the house and echoed in the stone walls, ensuring that even if Viva were asleep, nestled in the thick blankets, she would hear.

No one, or nothing else, had ever knocked. Just the same thump-thump-thump…. Thump… Thump-thump from her mother every couple of days or so. Then Viva would have to pull the chain that hung next to it that would, slowly, allow the heavy metal slab to swing open. Mother always closed it.

This meant that Viva didn't even know that the outside looked like. She was always on the other side of the door, where it swung toward her, blocking her view. When her mother shut the door, Viva was meant to stand with her. Right next to her. No light ever poured in, no noise, but that didn't keep Viva from being curious.

Where did her mother go? What was beyond the Gate? Why couldn't she go?

Viva found herself staring at the metal gate when her mother was away. Willing herself to see beyond it, to know more than the fairy tales in the books on her shelf that she had near memorized. They seemed whimsical when her reality was three rooms encased in stone. They spoke on an endless sky overhead that lit up with a vast, burning daylight that gave way to a dark, black night like when she blew out all the oil lamps of her home. Viva tried to imagine the scale of mountains that jut into the heavens, that would make her home seem a tomb.

That's what she'd started to equate the rooms too. That was the closest comparison in the stories. Weighted walls that encased her. A prison without bars but a prison where the gate was the only way in our out. And her mother? The Warden. A consistent authority that would keep her in this cage until one of them died, where the thump-thump-thump…. Thump… Thump-thump mocked her every time the Warden entered of her own will.

Why didn't she just leave while the Warden was away? Viva could. She was the one to open the door, after all.

Or better yet, just a peek. She would open the Gate just a little. Crack it just enough to look. The Warden wasn't around. There was no reason not to. No reason at all.

Viva pushed herself up from the chair she'd stuck in front of the Gate. Every step seemed a chore, a mental conversation and reassurance. Her mother, the Warden she reminded, would never know. How could she? She wasn't there.

Viva would only open the door a little. Just to finally see what was on the other side. If anything, so many years of good behavior meant she should as a reward. Viva was owed this.

The cold metal chain seemed thicker this time. Weighted and sluggish to move, but Viva was convinced that was just because she was hesitant. Nervous. She gave a sharp tug and the grating of metal rang throughout the livingroom as the Gate started to open. It was always a slow process, but this time it seemed an eternity to the beat of her rapid heart.

Every pull of the chain through the pulley system meant to open the door wrenched in her chest but instilled a sense of rebellious bravery. Viva was defying the Warden! She was freeing herself of this prison! She would see what was beyond the Gate for herself!

In her elation, perhaps Viva opened it too wide, but she cared not! A peek seemed too small an act, too unsatisfactory now that she'd actually opened the Gate on her own. By herself!

Timidly, for all her previous bravado and mental cheer, she approached the opened Gate as though it truly were the thresh hold between her and the monsters in the stories. A moment of doubt plagued her as her feet carried her closer. What if, on the other side, was some manner of indescribable horror?

But no. Her mother went out all the time.

Resolved, Viva planted herself in front of the open Gate and faced the outside world for the first time.

She was met with darkness. As though someone had blown out all the oil lamps in her rooms, there was just nothing beyond. Nothing to see, nothing to greet her.

Nothing.

Her disappointment was short lived before it turned into indignant frustration. After all this, after so much… This inky black nothingness was what her mother, the Warden, had been saving her from? There was nothing there!

Anger fueled her bravery as Viva went to the nearest oil lamp, snatched it up, before she marched out into the darkness.

The indignant fueled courage lasted only a handful of steps into the darkness before she was looking around curiously. The chiseled stone block of her rooms had given way to rough, natural stone and some odd, clumpy black vegetation. It reminded her of the drawings in her books, even the color. The jagged lines of bent twigs and splotchy, inky leaves were a welcome relief from the flat expanse of the ground but it still felt wrong.

The air was colder outside the Gate, but she hadn't realized it right away. Looking up, there were no stars. She'd read that at night, the sky was dotted with dazzling diamonds and glittering lights but there was just nothing. No moon, whose light should've given her something to go off of. Instead, it was just Viva, the oil lamp, and the light of her rooms at her back.

Viva was tempted to go further, to find something worth all this build up, she felt something brush against her lower back. A feather light touch like when her mother would guide her to bed.

Viva spun in place, looking back toward the Gate. The welcoming light cast a seemingly safe halo around Viva where there was only here and the inky black plants and the darkness surrounding. No one, or nothing…

"What a bright light, sweetheart," he said, just behind her. The rasping voice shot a chill up her spine and had her spinning again, where the light of her oil lamp spilled on a black creature that was bowed over her.

Too close. His skin split and glistening like it was wet with an impossibly wide mouth filled with too many teeth in a too wide grin. The smell of decay and old books filled her. Viva should run, she wanted to move, but his white eyes held her in place as black, pointed fingers peeled away from the slender shape of his body and gingerly, as though she were a delicate flower, gripped the wrist holding the lamp. "Thank you, Viva."

She should've run but his mouth was so wide.