I just stare at the windowpane, watch the raindrops inch their way down, blurring my view of the grey sky. Everything is always grey. Colour has seemed to seep away with my knowledge of what is real and what is fantasy.
Some days I stand. Today I sit. A sharp rap on the door indicates that someone is outside. I do nothing. They’ll enter whether I protest or not. I hear the door open behind me, Nurse Lupus’ thick voice as he enters and places something on the table at my side. The smell of rancid meat chokes the air around me. It’s happening again.
A low growl sends icy shivers through my skin as I close my eyes tight and attempt to will everything back to normal. If I stay here it’ll go away I repeat to myself. I can hear the sounds grow louder, sense the hot breath of a large beast on the back of my neck.
Still I sit.
Still I wait.
My heart is hammering in my chest, flitting around like a bird in a cage, desperate to escape. It’s then that I feel a fierce burning on my back as claws tear into my flesh. Letting out a cry, I snatch the plate from beside me, turn and smash it down on the monster’s thick skull.
Lying at my feet is a large black wolf, barely conscious, blood pooling around its heaving body.
I try to walk away; only finding my way is blocked in all directions. Looking about me I see I’m no longer standing in the whitewashed room it was before. Instead, dark, crooked trees tower over me; a forest so high it grips the night sky in a deathly embrace, offering no glimpse to the world beyond.
It’s then that violent whispers fill the air, promising danger, promising death. In blind panic my fists lambaste across the twisted walls, searching for an inconsistency in my makeshift cage. After a series of desperate thrashings, I find myself falling forwards into the cold ground as part of the thicket gives way. The gashes on my back have weakened me and I struggle to rise, straining against the ground in impetuosity.
The whispers grow ever louder; a cacophony of distorted sounds, indistinguishable and yet so infiltrating that they seem to infuse my very soul with a fathomless terror. Immense sobs wrack my body and blinded by tears I scramble forwards. I no longer care where I’m heading, only that I need to run. The air I breathe is glazed with darkness, a poison that binds my mind ever tighter until I fall unconscious.
I wake in unfamiliar surroundings, veiled in the shallow glow from an overhead lamppost. The once white hospital gown now clings to me like tired rags, exposing patches of dirty skin to the cold night air. Lost and afraid I falter backwards into an alley, my hands grasping blindly behind me for anything that will offer some kind of protection from my current vulnerability. Shards of broken glass from smashed beer bottles cover the floor and they cut into my bare soles, causing me to stumble into something. Strong arms catch me and keep me upright. Too weak to resist, I let myself be turned to face the owner. Black eyes peer at me through an inky fringe, pearls of rain reposing on jet lashes then plummeting down pallid cheeks like tears.
Are you lost, princess?
His voice is gentle, compassionate, and the only outward source of warmth in the cold alley. I let no
sound escape my lips as he takes my hand and leads me back to the roadside where a ghostly stallion stands, pale as death.
I’ll take you somewhere safe.
With one smooth motion he mounts the animal and reaches down a steady hand, which I take in mine. Upon doing so I find myself lifted and seated behind him on the creature, which is startlingly cold beneath me. I jolt forwards and cling to the stranger’s waist as we take off, hooves thundering against the ground like the roar of an engine. We tear past the soaring brick buildings of what I now recognise as the darkest parts of Hamburg, far away from Barmbek Clinic, where I’ve spent the past year. The roads we travel down become narrower and narrower; the sight of passers by becoming all the more rare until we are alone in the darkness.
An old warehouse - rather than a palace- stands silhouetted against the night sky, blocking any starlight and cloaking us in dark shadow. My unknown rescuer is almost invisible to me but I feel a firm hand lift me by the waist and set me on the ground. The touch is not gentle, nor particularly caring, but forced and necessary. Despite this I trust him. He is not dangerous, he is my prince, my protector, and I am safer here with him than I ever was with any of the doctors.
He leads me, strong fingers pressed on my shoulder blade, to a pair of rotting wooden doors. Dead vines twist through the cracks and over the panelling, seemingly pulsing with ethereal caliginosity. I reach out a hand towards the writhing entanglement, watch the vines now trail around my fingertips and into my wrist. They follow the trail of my veins, throb and sigh with the beat of my heart, whisper things to me that I can’t quite fathom. I take a step forward and lean my cheek against the door, wanting to understand. Instead it shudders open and when I open my eyes the vines have disappeared and the message is lost.
I stumble forwards into the room that is not home. Cold blue light spills from cold blue orbs that hang like dying stars from the ceiling. The air smells damp and empty packets skitter across the dusty concrete floor, moved by an invisible draught. Blinking, I look to my feet, where crimson and dirt mingle sickeningly on a pale palette. Bile rises to my throat and I bend to a crouch as I remember my pain and fatigue, but something grabs a handful of my hair, yanking vigorously so that I’m back in standing position. I hear taunting laughter; feel foul breath on my neck.
I’m too weak to move.
I’m too weak to run.
The man who holds me no longer possesses the voice of a prince, but my father.
Hold still.
He grips a blush apple in front of my face. When his nail pierces the skin a single bead of blood trickles down its gleaming surface. I clamp my mouth shut and twist my head to the side, whimpering as he pulls my hair tighter.
Just hold still and you’ll like it.
The stench of rotting flesh fills my lungs as he brings the fruit closer and I gag, my eyes stinging with tears. Relentless whispers drown out my thoughts; the same voices I heard at the door. But this time they jeer and mock me, pound at my skull from the inside, trying to break out. They grow louder and louder until they are screaming at me.
I still don’t understand! I yell back, I don’t understand!
The screaming has stopped
And I’m lying on the floor.
My mouth is full of poison and my head is full of lies,
But I step aside to let him pass as he drags me to the corner.
