Unfathomable

Enigma Girl

Riley's head spun with confusion as she lost herself in the corner of the room. She hadn't realized she had been biting her nails until she tasted that crimson red liquid as she ripped her way through her skin.

Her heartbeat was the equivalent of a rabbit, quick and fearful. She couldn't place the voice in her head anymore, it was just a haze memory floating around in her subconscious mind. It didn't have a home and it was wandering the vast forest of her mind emptily as she sat in the quiet cell.

I don't understand what's happening. Why do these things keep happening to me, my hallucinations haven't ever been this bad before. Sure I would think that I saw a shadow or heard a noise but never to the extent of seeing things in mirrors or sinking into the fucking floor!

Okay. Okay Riley, the last thing you can do right now is panic. Just calm down and get a level head. You can get through this, you just have to know what is real and what is not. The sinkhole, not real. Dr. Hardass, sadly he is very real.

She chuckled a little bit at the nickname that couldn't have been original.

The voice in your head who claims to be Roger...

'Hiya Riley'

Roger's voice floated back into her mind like it had never left.

'Can't decide whether or not I am real? Let me give you a little hint, you're never gonna be able to know. So, you might as well get used to the idea of me being around because I lost you once Riley. I refuse to do it again.'

Riley let a tear fall down her face. She realized that since she has been here in this building, in this underworld, she has slowly been losing the very little amount of mind that she had left.

The tears fell faster as she pulled herself into the corner more. She stared at the vent and started counting the individual diamond marks that created the blockade to the next room.

1...2...3...4...22...23..24

Her breathing calmed and was starting to sound normal again. She kept counting but slowly lost track as she drifted in and out of consciousness. Her eyes lolled back and forth and her eyelids wouldn't be open for much longer. She was a victim of exhaustion and soon it was going to come and finish off the job. Soon she would safely retreat into her own mind, her and whatever is lying in wait there.

Riley was leaning against the vent with her chin touching her chest. Her lungs filled with air and then let it go. She looked peaceful this way, vulnerable and small. Her arm had been healing very slowly and started to act up. Riley was barely pulled out of sleep by the urge to scratch her arm. Before she could get a chance to fully become aware of herself there was yelling outside, she looked up and saw a nurse run by, one more followed behind her this time a male, and he was big.

What could be happening that requires them to bring the muscle out?

She stood up slowly, feeling her knees pop as her joints extended from their crumpled position. Her cold feet dragged across the floor making soft scraping sounds. She started hearing a commotion and screaming from outside. She pressed her face against the scratched and smudged glass on the door. The glass was at least 4 inches thick so her view down the hallway was distorted. She looked to the right and saw nothing the=en looked to the left and saw nurses shuffling around something. The male nurse pushed past the others to the center of the circle.

Riley's heart beat a little faster.

Her breath fogged up the window and she wiped it away with the back of her hand, leaving an uncomfortable moist spot where she wiped it away. With her face pressed up against the glass she saw a flicker of something. It was a face, contorted with rage and fear, but that didn't make it any less beautiful.

Another girl.

Riley had yet to see another patient in her that was a female. At least one that wasn't older that dirt and was abandoned here by their own children all because they're senile.

She stared more intently out the window this time getting a more clear view of the girl. She looked like she was 17 or 18 but was also short. It was the look in her eyes that gave her this age in Riley's head.

Those eyes, she has the same eyes that I do. The eyes that are scared of everything but will fight for survival at all costs. It just appears that her way of surviving is with brute force while mine is obeying every order that has been given to me.

'That just shows how cowardly you are' Roger decided to add to her inner dialogue.

She ignored him and watched the scene longer trying to understand what was happening. The girl's face only showed rage and hatred. She struggled against the nurses, her short dark blue hair gently falling in front of her eyes, her hair was shorter but not as short as Riley's, who's hair didn't even go past her eyes.

This girl has piercings too, one on her lip on the left side and one in her nose. Not to mention her ears which are decorated with studs and hoop earrings and her bottom lobes are gauged big enough to fit my finger through.

Riley could feel a small sense of butterflies in her stomach as she watched the girl struggle. The male nurse grabbed a hold of her and stabbed a needle into her neck, Riley watched in horror as the girl slowly stopped fighting against the nurses. Her legs folded in and she collapsed into the male nurses hands. He shouted something to the female nurse on his left thaat Riley couldn't quite make out. She watched as the nurse opened up the door next to Riley's room.

She could hear what they were saying now but the sound was traveling through the vent. She backed away from the door and over to the vent again, wanting another look at this new character in her world. She looked through the vent and saw the nurse drag her to the bed and throw her on it.

He turned around and faced the nurse that followed him. "Make sure you are careful with her Janet, she looks like she might be a biter." He said amused.

Why did he sound so amused by that. Riley asked herself as she watched the male nurse leave the room leaving the nurse Janet alone with the mystery girl. Janet took the girls' vitals and all the same things that Kenny had done to Riley.

Riley looked away bashful as the nurse undressed the girl to put her into the same type of clothes that Riley was in, except her sweater was blue and the mystery girl was black. Her stomach was full of butterflies as she looked at the girl.

I don't want to admit it to myself but I am really glad that her bed is facing my vent. She thought to herself as she watched the girl's chest fall up and down. The heat rushed up to her cheeks as she looked at her, letting her mind wander and daydream things that she wished could happen, but knew all too well that in real life those dreams are just as they are, dreams.

She didn't really notice when the nurse left, she was too concentrated on the girl. For some reason she had the urge to look out for her and protect her, even though she assumed that it would probably be the opposite. The girl had a fire in her heart that Riley no longer held, a will to fight back.

She watched the girl for what felt like hours until she felt herself nodding off on the floor.

I should probably go to bed but I want her to be able to see a friendly face when she wakes up. At least I wish I had, instead, I got a disembodied voice.

Well if it's the same stuff they gave me then she should be out until the morning.

Riley stood up and walked over to her bed, she thought about it for a minute and moved her bed so it was facing the vent. The metal legs scratched and screamed against the floor but eventually she had it set up so she could see the vent, and the girl's hand hanging over the side of her bed. For the first time in a long time, Riley went to bed with a smile on her face and an absence in fear.