Split

Rude Awakening

I had been dreaming about my father and I on a camping trip when I was disturbed from my nap, making me squint into the darkness. At first I couldn't understand why I'd woken up, not seeing anything in the dim light, but then I heard shallow breaths behind me. I reached out for Dennis, not finding him there, and I slowly rolled over on my bed, dreading what I might find standing over me. I saw a shiloette of a person sitting at the end of my bed so I sat up, trying to get a better look at who it was. A match struck loudly and made me flinch. The fire lit the entire room for a second before dwindling to a small ball of yellow light, and a candle was lit. I saw that it was Patricia and my stomach knotted.
"Tell me, Casey... do you fear me?"

"W-why?" I stumbled over my words, "you're not... you aren't supposed to be here..."

"Do you fear me?"

"Yes," I admitted, "I do."
Her expression didn't change as she set the candle on the table next to my bed, "are the lights not working?"

"Yes, they work... I just think that candles are calming... more intimate, they give things more meaning."

"What are you talking about?"

"When we brought you here I didn't know anything about you. You were unplanned and I didn't think to check that you were right for us. I kept you here anyway, thinking that I could get away with it. You see that's where I went wrong, I thought you were the same as those girls. I expected you to be a silly child who was going to get themselves killed without me having to do it, I thought you were stupid. I let you walk about the building, I let you eat my food and I let you survive."

"Where are you going with this?" I asked warily, feeling like I wanted to run away.

"I made mistakes. But I won't make them again."
She stood quickly, facing me, and I leapt back against the wall. She had a large knife-the one I remembered her threatening Marcia with-and was holding it out towards me.

"Stop," I squeaked, standing up and backing away.

"I also let the beast kill those girls."

"What? What do you mean? What are you doing?"

"Something that should have been done a long time ago," she looked me dead in the eye and I turned to flee... but I saw something in her face... it wasn't anger or hate... it was regret, sadness and fear. I frowned, about to question her, when she put the knife against her wrist. I realised that I'd completely misread the signals that she wasn't talking about killing me, I'd even thought she was holding the knife at me, but thinking about it there had been no threat in her body language.

"Stop!" I yelped, not only thinking of her, but of everyone else she was about to take away from me.

"We need to die, it's too late now. We've done terrible things and we need to pay."

"No, you've done terrible things, everyone else is innocent. You're going to kill them all for your mistakes."

"We are a mistake, Casey. We don't belong in this world... we never did."

"What about everything you said about being stronger than us?"

"I was wrong. How can we be stronger when we aren't even taken seroiusly? Maybe we are more advanced than everyone else, but how can we live when no one will accept us?"

"Just put the knife down, we can talk about this... we all can."

"No... you talk too much."

"Please, Patricia, just stop and think about this. I know you're upset, but you can't do this. If you're really sorry then you wouldn't want to kill anyone else"