Escaping Her Mind

Chapter Eight: Fighting For Her Mind

"Lucas! Eleven! Steve!" Max yells as she rushes forwards. She gets to the staircase and begins to run up the stairs. She sees her friends at the top. Her real friends. Not memory friends. She just needs to make it a few more steps to them. 

Then, she slams into a wall. She falls to her butt on the ground, grabs her head, and then looks around at where she is. She's back in the white hallway. "No..." She whispers. She pushes herself off the ground. "They were there!" She yells, slamming her fists against the large steel door. "I saw them! They were there!" She yells, hitting the door more. 

"No, no, no!" Max screams, hitting the walls as she runs back and forth. She throws her shoulder into a door, hoping to slam through it, but she bounces right off of it. "No!" She screams, throwing herself at another door and getting the same result. She slams her hands against the walls. "I'm done with these stupid games!" She yells, rushing back over to the large steel door. "I went through the memories! I almost got all the keys! You didn't let me grab the last one! But they were there! I saw them!" She yells, slamming into the steel door once again, throwing her entire body at it. "What the hell kind of sick game is this!" She screams at the ceiling. 

Slowly, the fight is drained from her body. Her arms slow down, her punches are weak and sloppy, her screaming dies down and turns into sobs. Her legs wobble from underneath her and she presses her back against the steel door. Slowly and tearfully, she slides her back down the door until she is sitting on the ground with her knees pulled up to her chest.  

Max hugs her knees, burying her face in them. "I just wanna go home." She whispers through tears. "Why won't you let me go home?" 

"It is not I who won't let you go home, Maxine." A voice says from the side. Max whips her head up to see...to see herself standing there. The other her was in the same outfit but with one key difference: her eyes were cloudy gray. She was blind. Mind Max takes a few slow steps forwards as Max slowly inches herself up the wall once again, standing up cautiously. It was hard to look at her own self. But it was even harder to look at her own self blind. 

"What...what the hell is this?" Max breathes out in a trembling whisper. 

"It is not I who won't let you go home, Maxine." Mind Max repeats. 

"Yeah, I know, you said that before." Max counters quickly. 

"Ah, there it is." Mind Max says, shaking her head with a small laugh. "Those walls are right back up, aren't they?"

"I don't know what you're talking about." Max says. 

"Of course you do." Mind Max says. "We both know exactly what I'm talking about. The memories you've been through have all taught you something: you have your walls so high they could touch the sun." She snarks with a smirk. "Tsk, tsk, tsk, Maxine." She tsks, walking over to the wall and leaning her back against it with crossed arms. She shakes her head, looking at Max. "It seems you aren't ready to go home yet."

"I am!" Max yells forcefully, taking a step forward. "I can prove it to you."

"You wanting to prove it to me shows that you are not ready." Mind Max says.

"What the hell does that even mean?" Max questions. 

"If you stopped cutting me off every three seconds I would have a chance to tell you." Mind Max snaps and Max goes quiet. "As I was saying, your walls are high. Something you need to realize to get out of here is that you don't need those walls. Not around your friends, at least. It's okay to be vulnerable." Both girls are staring at each other, the silence between them deafening. 

"I...I just wanna go home." Max whispers once again. "Isn't that vulnerable enough?"

"You're getting there." Mind Max says. "But your most vulnerable moment...well, that was when you made a different request. Let's venture into that memory, shall we?" She questions. And with a snap of her fingers, the place goes dark.