Before Your Eyes

Mystery Of The Missing

They've locked us in a room. Not guarded or chained, just a simple key was our blockade. The room had one way in or out. Where there had seemed to have once been windows, took refuge to new stone which stood distinguished among its counterparts. Previous wallpaper had been torn into obscure rags, barely hanging on the particion. Most of us locked in here kept to ourselves, suffering in silence. Torment's tranquillity was all we had in familiarity. There are a few of us out currently. Two, Twelve, Eight and Nine.We only knew each other as the numbers branded to us. My first tattoo, a memorial of my mind. "013", that was my sentence, that was my identity. I had a name, I knew what it was, but that wasn't me. Lilia Dyer was a vessel. She had no friends, no family, life or past. She was human, but she lacked the foundation of being a person. If those around me now were asked, they'd agree. There was more life in the door handle, than to the likes of us. In this chamber, death was welcomed. Two sat at the table and that was it. His strings of hair had lost all spring and curl they once owned, covering his face. Twelve was not seen often, as he resided in a padded cell due to his impulse to smash his head against whatever he could find. Eight was a younger child. He had another number, but his mother was Eight when she was born here. Her mother passed in labour, so the doctors named the baby Eight. She watched the television, wishing for life beyond the wire. She is too young to realise.Dreams don't come true. Nine, ironically, was the odd one out. He was an extroverted idealist, who tried to birth hope in those who had lost touch. He succeeded only in Eight, with stories of Peter Pan and Cinderella. Still he tried to encourage everyone else. To no revolution, he failed. I placed myself into a sense of safety. The corner of the room, away from all the others. I stared at the ceiling fan almost like it stared back at me. That's when there was a crash. The instinct to dart your sight at an abrupt noise took its toll.

That is when it happened.

I was in a familiar foreboding place which loitered my mind. This time in a hall. I panicked and it drew nearer. I rushed to the dim light of hope, to find a vanishing flame on a silver candlestick. I wrapped my fingers around it and swung it like a broadsword. The creaking of floor boards marked my fate. The dust falling from above me swept closer with each passing second. Closer and closer and closer. It's above me, I know it. The vast double doors of oak threw open, letting the painful gusts blow in. My candle was extinguished. My coffin was illuminated by the night before me. I turned my heels and took a final breath. Then I ran. But I did not move. The room moved with the closing of my eyes. I was now in front of a boarded door. My only escape. I lifted the candlestick above my head like a great axe and dropped it like a guillotine. Again and again I struck the board, beating it to death. The board flaked away. All I had to do was open the door and I was free. Blood. Blood started to drip from the cracks and scratches of the door, then my head. My vision became clouded in red and I collapsed to the floor.

I hear the growls again. Behind me this time. My dreaded beast had found his food. I couldn't make a sound. I couldn't even cry. I sank to my knees. I accepted my fate.

When I came back to my grim senses, I was back in my room. My private asylum. Through the vent, I tuned in a new voice. A young gentleman, in his twenties. "A new trainee perhaps?" I pondered. No, this person already had an occupation. An occupation which made the head doctor nervous. My door was bypassed, but I did not turn to see the man. I heard the jingle of keys as he approached me, slowing his pace as he got closer, eventually coming to a stop. "Excuse me ma'am." He was rather polite while working here. The curiosity was gnawing at me, I had to turn my head. To my surprise, beside me sat a light skinned Japanese man wearing a smile which implicated severity. He was a police officer, dressed in a dark navy uniform. He took off his helmet and laid it next to him. His badge reflected whispers of light onto my face as I tried to read his name tag. 'Off. Ward' was what my eye read, but I have lost trust in them. He waited for my response, but I was not one for talking. I haven't muttered a single word for the past decade. I can't even remember what my own voice sounds like.

He raised one of his thick eyebrows and jotted down some notes. Clicking off his pen, he turned back to me. "Know Why I'm Here?" My body filled with guilt in those few words, yet I did not have a clue why. I shook my head. He took a deep breath and focused my attention on the TV the nurse had dragged in on a cart. He switched it on and a tape began to play. I could tell by the bad quality that it was a CCTV tape. I recognised the room and the people in it. Apart from one. I saw myself, but I did not recognise the girl in her place. I had no memory of any of this happening. I wish I hadn't. As the video continued, the horrors unfolded before me. The all too distant familiar girl walked up into the middle of the room, panting in fear. She looked around the ceiling and when her face locked on to the camera, I saw nothing. It was emotionless, empty. She quickly turned and grabbed a vase on the table. Swinging it round, the crinkled flowers slipped away. She started to slowly walk to the other side of the room towards a guard who had just walked in. His simple actions caused him his life. She lifted the vase above her head and it came flying down to his head. As it shattered, knocking the guard out, I felt a sharp sting on my hand. It had been stitched up. I flinched time and time again after every strike collided on the poor man, who lay there motionless as the floorboards around him. I felt remorse, pity and mercy in those closing moments. I only wished I shared those feelings earlier.Even if I wasn't in control of my own body, why couldn't I just feel something! Anything! But alas, I could not change what happened. I must live with this embedded in my consciousness.

The officer turned off the screen, leaving a monster's face in the reflection. He turned to me. watching me tear up, he felt the remorse I wish I had. "I understand that you have schizophrenia and that makes you see things. May I ask what you saw? What you felt?" I looked at him dead in the eyes and then retracted my gaze. He ordered the nurse to release my hands from their restraints and she swiftly did so. Passing me his notepad and pen, he nodded his head at me passing over a simple instruction.

I did not write a single word. My hands took their easel and drew a nightmare. Some of the paper could not withstand the force I applied with the pen, tearing it apart. My grip got tighter and my face filled with rage as I drew what killed a man. The violent shrieks of the pen came to halt. I held the picture up to give it one last spiteful glance. The officer reached out his hand and I gave him the drawing. He spoke not a word, but his face said it all. He knew something or at least somewhere in his mind thought he recognised what I drew. It baffled me. "How can he share a piece of mind with a place that only lives inside my head?" I pondered this question numerous times. Unless it is real. It is just a tale of some past memory of life before. But if that is true, what about the executioner taking shelter there? Is it real? If so, how did I escape? The officer thanked me for my time and left with haste. No one entered after that. My door was not fully closed letting the secrets from the outside in. The clicking of heels on the floor awoke my intrigue. Two pairs of feet hitting the ground in synchrony, one crashed with bear-like strength the other merely waddled alongside. But the waddles shifted with confrontation to Walruses throwing their body with each step. Nothing. Silence. Not even the sound of a fly's wings was to be heard. For a moment the world stood still. Like a flash, everything came back in an instant. Including a crowing to the ear.

"What were you thinking!?" The voice arose, gaining the might of anger. "You brought a cop here!" Another baritone interrupted, "Everything's fine.what is your issue Densor?"

"What is my problem! He could have raised suspicion to us!" I could tell by his voice that his chest was pumping the rage to his head.

"How could he suspect anything? The case ended a decade off! If luck was in our hand, he would have taken our waste of space to the slammer!" The deep pitch of the man rose to agitation. "When someone went missing they searched to find a grave. You should hold on to hope that the Chairman doesn't put you into the same position." Agitation led to fury. "You told the chairman! How could you! I'm your superior! What I say goes!" His fist clenched as boulders ready to tumble on the other fellow. A voice that was shattering in each sentence, fearing it was his last. The echoes of heavy boots rang across the hospital forming a storm from their thunder. "We will see what the Chairman says about that" His expression rose a cunning smirk to his jaw, the kind that folded skin. "Farewell..."

"...Doctor"