I'm Hollie

Parity

The smell of sterile walls and floors are what greet me upon my awakening, and Eleanore's tired eyes scanning me so meticulously. I show a weak smile as I see her eyes exhibiting signs of crying, the puffiness very prominent to me.

"You're an idiot." She whimpers out, clenching her sweater tightly. "You're so beautiful and you chop off your ears, what would that even prove?"

Her voice was so full of anger and contempt, I wanted to jolt out of the room she has me locked up in. The chemicals stinging my nose drive me insane.

"I thought it would quell the laughter." I mutter, ending my sentence with a giggle of my own. Eleanore bites her lips and sighs.

"You can still hear without ears, Hollie." Eleanore informed, stepping up from her seat and traveling to the bed where she has restrained me down. Her fingers trail through my curled tresses of hair, pulling and getting stuck often due to the way my hair locks around her thin digits.

"I know that now!" I exclaim. Eleanore shakes her head.

"I have to find out what is wrong with you." She says. "I'm going to help you."

The way she says that is so heart shattering. Not a thing is wrong with me, right?

"I'm going to give you something that will make you sleep. I want to study your sleeping patterns first." Eleanore grumbled. I'm not sure what that could possibly help, but I nod excitedly anyways.

Before I knew it, I was going back where I started.

Though this time, it's a house.

Inside the house reside a woman and a girl, the young girl's songs filled the older woman with much euphoria and splendor. Their bodies delicately danced around the house in joy, and I feel tears dot my eyes noting how happy they seemed. When I looked at the little girl, her emerald green eyes strike a fear into my heart.

Soon everything fades back to black, but the two people appear again. The man from earlier dreams is seen, casting spells, almost as if he were... controlling the woman. Her hands dug into her child's chest with repulsion. The mother did not want this to continue, and I could see it spelled out on her horrified face. Against her will; the child dies, the mother cries, and the monster cares not. The deep, trickling crimson color paints the gorgeous pearl walls of the house, each wall soaked with a beam of sunlight giving the illusion that peace and tranquility is all that this house is made of.

"Do you understand now?" The oh-so familiar voice asks me from behind. I turn to see the little girl from my other dreams standing there, and when I look back at the other vision the resemblance is uncanny.

"You're... her..." I mutter. The little girl nods, taking my hand in her tiny fingers and pointing at the woman in front of us, mind unraveling at the seams at the loss of her dear child. When I hear the mother cooing her daughter's name over and over, whimpering the word 'Hollie', I begin to understand.

"I'm Hollie." The little girl informs me, pointing to herself and to the corpse of what was once a gorgeous young child.

"But I'm Hollie." I insist, clenching onto my dress and staring at the ground.

"No." The little girl continues, pointing now to the woman rocking back and forth, muttering unintelligible phrases to herself. "You're her."

I clench my teeth tightly, the little girl's finger unmoving as she accuses me of being such a wreckage of a being. I clench my fists tightly for the last time, before I swing forward, fist launching towards the girl who taunted me so for all these years. Finally she would be gone. Finally I would be rid of this horrid little girl.

"Shut up!" I command, fist connecting with the young girl, launching her withered and petite body backward onto the ground of my dream land. She rubs her face with her hand, and smiles up at me.

"You're not Hollie." She tells me. I bring my hands to my head, squeezing so tightly that migraines begin to assault my poor cranium. I fall to my knees, shaking my head. I'm Hollie, I really am! Could it be true that I'm not? When I look towards the young girl crawling towards me, small arms wrapping me in the largest embrace they can muster, it all unravels and embeds into my brain.

I'm not Hollie. I have never been Hollie.

"Mother, your mind sent you into shock afterwards..." The girl whispers. "It repressed the memories and practically turned you into me... to cope..."

I hug her back, unable to control the wracking sobs and tears that were soon to flow.

When I awaken, Eleanore is penning several notes. Her smile is faked. It's so easy to tell. Eleanore turns towards me, cerulean eyes scanning me as she takes note on every little behavior or mannerism I express. It's very sickening, to be such an experiment. Hours pass. Eleanore commands me to do certain things and to analyze my reaction. I can't take it. In protest, I close my eyes again to rest.

The beautiful sky is dotted with cotton-like clouds that stream across the infinite space. The gorgeous blue color is deep, one that makes you feel at peace with the world. I find myself in the fields, with no fauna to be found, nor any other life around me. I notice all the flora had died, the flowers withered and the trees dead. Their limbs breaking and leaves turning a crisp brown and the grass only showing up in patches. It's all a masquerade, the sky is, it's a façade, to try and hide something so hideous and untrue.

Then she appears, and I feel even more hideous as her green eyes travel my body, smile wide and she seemed even more chipper than usual.

"Who are you?" I ask. Her smile fades, her face contorts into one of horror and heartbreak. She falls to the ground, body shaking and convulsing due to the heart-wrenching sobs she unleashes. A few dead leaves drift past my head, somewhere a lone wolf howls in the distance letting me know life exists in this barren landscape after all.

"I'm Hollie." She informs me, face snapping up to look at me, eyes full of nothing but rage now, nothing but hatred for me and I wasn't even sure what for.

"That's impossible," I begin. It's too late, her body crumbles and becomes one with the cracked and dusty earth of this land. She will be nothing more than a memory forever, and as the sun quickly begins setting, I let out one last breath before I am forced back into the world of the awake.

"I'm Hollie."