THE UNBREAKABLE PIECE (FIRST BOOK OF THE HIDDEN WORLD) English version

CHAPTER ELEVEN: CLOSED EYELIDS

My eyelids were sealed shut; I believed that if I kept them closed long enough, I would become invisible. My legs still trembled, everything around me spun like a carousel, centrifuging me toward the center of the Earth, calling me. Lloyd had accompanied me to a huge wooden door that seemed to have been decorated by a small child and their colorful crayons.

Once inside, I let all my weight rest against the wall; I didn't know if I was capable of taking another step.

"Remember, Amy, you have to run very fast to catch me."

Chris was agile, always had been. Images came to my mind, not clear, as if projected behind a damp mirror. Chris's smile, his gray eyes, and his cheeks always reddened from running. He ran, and he always ran. And I could have followed him for the rest of my life if he were still here, because he was the kind of person worth chasing.

"If you were here, you'd be better at this than me."

I opened my eyes and let the ground take me. It was the first time I had been alone since I woke up in the infirmary. Silence and solitude were all I had yearned for in the last few hours, and now that they were mine and in the palm of my hand, I didn't know what to do with them. I wanted to scream; my knees and hands touched the cold tiles. If I lifted my face, I would see my childhood room, the first place that had watched me play and dream. Now, everything that I had been and everything that I am now was collided here. It imploded inside me and settled in my chest with great weight.

I told myself I had to be brave, face everything gradually; it was the only way I would find myself at the end of the road.

My mother's freckles, my brother's smile, and my father's gray eyes were the first things that greeted me. A wall of a springtime pink color hid me from the rest of my room, and on it, a photograph of the happy family we used to be, in black and white, representing the past we had left behind. To my left, a huge bed awaited me. Just a few steps from where I was, a table of white marble, as icy as snow, held a tiny box full of peppermints. I took one into my mouth, savoring the mint, trying to get rid of the lingering plum taste on my palate.

The air smelled of fruits and roses. The place had a salmon-colored armchair that seemed quite comfortable and a weathered white wooden table with some books on the history of Alba. Next to them were some welcome red roses, according to their inscription. I supposed they must be the only red roses in this immaculate white palace, and they probably arrived toward me through the work of my grandmother. I caressed their petals, fresh and still full of life despite being cut from the branch.

I walked, absorbing my surroundings, trying to grasp something that would help me remember my past here. However, I couldn't perceive anything, absolutely nothing. Being in this place was like experiencing that emptiness that lingers in your body after waking up from a good dream, hoping to reestablish the connection somehow without having anything to hold onto.

A large chandelier with embedded diamonds descended from the ceiling in the middle of the room, making the rest of the lamps seem useless in their function. My bed was twice the size of the one I had in New York, with soft and shiny white silk sheets, and at least ten pillows of different sizes that matched the sofa. Another chaise lounge, this time in baby pink, had been placed at the foot of my bed, and on it was my black daisy-patterned pajamas. Undoubtedly, it was my father who had sent them to fetch it.

While my entire room seemed to have been assembled in an Ikea from two centuries ago, I could confidently say that the best part of the place was the closet. It was so large that probably a truck could fit in it. It had two mirrors that reached up to the ceiling, and its cabinets were filled with jewelry, workout clothes, and dresses. So many of them that I could choose one in every color of the rainbow, even those colors I didn't know existed. I took one of the fabrics in my hands, caressing it with my fingers, the rough sequins under my fingertips reminding me once again that I wasn't dreaming. I stood there, petrified. The royal family had waited for my return for years, with my room ready to be used; they knew I would come back to them, somehow or another. And these dresses had been frozen in time until this morning when I involuntarily returned to them.