DYING MOURNINGS, original

six : an old truth

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𝐒𝐈𝐗 : 𝐀𝐍 𝐎𝐋𝐃 𝐓𝐑𝐔𝐓𝐇

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I woke up in the gray.

I had been sure it was all one horrible dream until I opened my eyes and saw the cement ceiling staring down at me, mocking me. And the gray, the chilling, lifeless gray was all everywhere. It was like I was stuck in a black and white movie, forced to speak through subtitles. I held my hand out in front of me and my skin was duller, the color leeched out of me. It was the same with my clothes and my hair, all pale and gray and sickly.

This can still be a dream, this can still be all in my head.

I sat up, reaching into my back pocket for my phone and frowning at the time, waiting for the next minute to move on the digital clock, to tell me this was me just suddenly and drastically going colorblind. It never came. Time was frozen in the gray.

I got to my feet, using the wall to help me stand. The back of my head stung from where it had smacked against the ground and there was a familiar pain behind my eyes as I searched the new world around me.

"Good, you're awake."

The voice came from behind me and I whirled around, coming face to face with the woman. She had her arms crossed lazily and she eyed me suspiciously, looking me up and down. Judging me.

I opened my mouth to speak but found no works could come out. I swallowed, feeling her judgmental eyes. "Who-who are you?" I asked, finally, in disbelief because she didn't look real. Her body was almost completely transparent, her feet mere inches above the ground. She was floating, like a projection.

The woman had long hair that went past her shoulders and I couldn't tell if it was brown or a dark blonde with the gray warping my vision. She wore a long dress that ended above her dirty bare feet, the material torn and muddy around the ends like she had been running through the woods. The sleeves went to her elbows and besides the fact that she appeared to me in a world I was pretty sure I was hallucinating, she didn't look frightening. She didn't look like she wanted to kill me.

"I'm happy you and your little friend got my message," she said, looking at her nails for a moment before looking up at me. She was talking about the noises Pandora and I had heard, the noises that drove us down here with morbid curiosity and I still didn't know if what we did was a good thing or not.

"What is going on?" I breathed because this wasn't right. None of this seemed right. "Where am I? Who are you?"

"They said you'd know what you were doing," she told me, walking forward and giving me a good look over and frowning at my appearance. "And we certainly didn't think you would be a girl, at least not a teenage girl."

I gaped at her, offended. Why did it matter if I was a girl? Or a teenager for that fact? I shook my head, thinking to myself, you're still dreaming, Blaire. None of this is real, this woman isn't real.

"Is this your first time?" She suddenly smiled, it crept across her face, showing me a slightly crooked grin. "Am I your first?"

"Excuse me?"

I could barely think much less understand what she was talking about because it felt like she knew me, she knew of me at least. But how would she know about me or about any of this? How did any of this make any sense?