Both Worlds

Chapter Three

There is light above. And a noise. The sound of wheels on the floor, tile, I think. I am lying down, face up. On a cot, with wheels, going somewhere.

To fix my health problem.

One by one, the details figure themselves in a situation, which I am in. I have to struggle to stay present. Whatever emotion hit me before, whatever feeling that had almost like... like Existence, it's gone.

The situation isn't clear enough though, and that not completely my fault. I don't know the details. Searching for more clarity to keep myself here, I move. Just my head, angling to the side, until I see a hand.

Resting at someone's side as they walk next to me. In a doctor's coat, this is the person who's going to help me. Make me able to exist. I want to exist.

Then the squeak of the wheels stops, and I'm inside a room, there's a bed in the center. Clean and white, and there's a paper on a table in the corner. The doctor's instructions. I'll be able to exist soon, so soon, so so soon.

"Is she awake?" I hear the doctor (a male?) ask someone. Most likely the person pushing the cot.

I don't hear anything, but the doctor says "good." So I suppose the person pushing me nodded.

"It's time to get out, then." He says in a gentle voice, and I sit up, then stand. The person who had pushed the cot, a female, takes it away. When I look back at the doctor, he has a look of concern.

Is it because I was unconscious? Because I didn't open the door? Because I'm here at all? I don't know, but it's gone before I'm sure it was there.

"So," he starts, "I'm going to ask a few questions. You'll answer them, they're not hard. I need to do this to figure out how to help you."

I nod. This is standard. A nonexistent can't get hurt, but the dangers of the worlds above and below need to watched, and a nonexistent must remain stable. The questions begin.

"What color is your hair?"

Blonde, an interesting word, to think about it. "It's blonde." I respond.

"Where do you rest?"

"At the seventh rest area."

The answers satisfy him, they prove that I'm not losing things. A sign that could have meant I was falling into void.

Those who start to fall into void, don't come back, ever. You can see early signs, barely noticeable and it will develop into something that destroys a nonexistent, turning that nonexistent to ruin. The word I'm looking for is... is insane. It drives them insane.

But that's not me. Still thinking about it happening at all, that someone could know that they're going to lose all they had that even resembled a form of Existence, humanity, it makes me sad.

Sad.

I'm not supposed to be sad. I can be happy. Unhappy. I can be satisfied and unsatisfied. Things can be pleasant and unpleasant. But not sad.

I should be lifting into the works now, but something holds me here, as if it pulls me... within myself. Like a seed in my heart, with roots in my chest.

He's looking at me. I've been lost in thought. I shouldn't be lost in thought. Did he ask me a question?

Apparently, he did, he's asking it again. "I'll ask once more, what's your name?"

That's easy. "My name i-" Katherine

What? "My name is Ka- K." Something about this displeases him. What is Katherine? It sounds familiar. Like, like someone has said that before, but what does it mean? Katherine. It really is a beautiful word.

The testing goes on, and nothing else odd happens, I'm just holding my breath for the diagnoses. It's something else, another emotion I shouldn't feel, but it's not anxiety. Nonexistents get mild versions of that. It's much, much worse, but I have no name for it.

Finally, it arrives. The diagnoses. "K, I think your problem is your, uh, your mind attempting to replicate emotion. Now, we don't feel emotion, so it's normal that your brain would, um... struggle to understand the works of it, and would give you um, uh... headaches." He manages, speaking in an odd way.

It takes me a whole minute as he watches my reaction to realize why that is. He is lying. I've never seen it before, but the same way I know that something is Katherine, I know that this is lying. And what I felt, it was, was... fear.

The diagnoses moves on to how it's going to be fixed. He explains, in a calmer voice. "The problem is that you could be, well, be pulled into the Works, so all you have to do is let us clear your identity out some. It will only take a minute or so. You can sit in the waiting room until we're ready."

I nod, and head off to the waiting area, but I am interrupted. "Wait!" He called, "You have your own waiting area."

Again, I nod, and let him show the way to the place where I wait for them to prepare.

We walk down a hallway, in a room, and he leaves. There are two couches and a mirror. I sit in the nearest couch and think, and search for the word that matches my newest emotion. It comes almost instantly. Confusion. There is something about this that I don't like. I don't want to lose myself.

I want to hold onto what I've become. And that is something that a nonexistent never wants. A nonexistent wants to exist, a nonexistent cannot be content. But, I want to stay as I am. Something has changed, and I search desperately for it. Standing up and staring into the mirror, I hope it will help.

It where I heard the words, from, from, something.

I look straight into my own eyes in the mirror, and it is as if someone stares back at me. But when I touch the mirror, her hands raise up, as if to block me.

"Who am I?" I ask, staring at her. Then I sit down again, and she does, too.

Then her eyes turn brown and her hair darkens a bit and she grows taller and her lips grow fuller. I don't move. She stands. I am sitting.

"Katherine." She whispers. And her name, I know it, I think. "Mary?" I respond, unsure. But I'm right.

She claps her hands and smiles. "It's you! You heard me!"

That was her? The whispers? Then, we must be sisters. But what is a sister? But as I wonder, the answers flow into me.

I move to the mirror, as if I could join her, but then I hear the door. Rapidly, I turn, as if I was just standing. "It's time to go." The doctor says. I glance briefly back at the mirror. Whoever Mary was, she is now gone. But I am not.

I am Katherine.

To my readers
I apologize for taking so long to get this up! Especially when I said I would get it up, and I didn't until a while after. But, it's here. I hope to update more frequently, but, I'm trying my best. Have a great day!