Black Labyrinth

Lullaby

I remember it still, the transformation. The man my mom loved after my father, the one who cared for us. Broken, sitting in the middle of our dark living room. In his chair I could hear him mumble to himself under his breath.

"If we're not real, are my choices real?"

He was incapable of sleeping and spent most nights circling around the living room in the dark. Whispering, hoping maybe that the more he asked himself the question, the better the answer would eventually be. Yet he kept on, whispering into the dark, starving us both of the things we needed.

"We're not real, we don't exist. We live in a simulation. We only exist as information. A decoration. We live in a snowglobe."

As he mumbled on, losing himself to the night. I wondered if this was a result of my mother's passing, or an inevitable transformation.

I can still remember the day we laid her out to rest. By that time there wasn't enough space for her to be buried, so we burned what was left of her. It was by this open field her husband and I had picked out. Her body laid out, facing this small body of water that sat somewhere in the center of this massive park. In the center was this perfect little stone bridge that ran across both sides of the water.

I'm sure she would have loved it.

As the fire swayed and grew larger, out from the crackling noise I swear I could hear her words. A whisper in my ear.

"There's nothing to be afraid of."

A comfort had washed over me. Attached to her gentle whisper was a memory, bottled and carefully preserved in a perfect pocket in my mind.

She burst open my blue closet door, shining the flashlight at the clothes that were hanging from the rack.

"See Olive, there's nothing there. There are no such thing as monsters.", she said as she moved toward me and sat at the edge of my bed.

"Let me tell you a little secret,"my mom said as she tucked some of my hair behind my ear.

"Monsters are just a way we attach our fears to things. We create these creatures that are larger than life, but they're just fears. A fear of things we don't know, of things we don't understand."

She stood up, walking toward the closet once more.

"We create these massive monsters out of nothing but some shadow. Tiny little lies we tell ourselves about the reasons we're afraid. With just a little light..." With the flashlight she had on her she shined a light at the strange shadow formation that existed in my closet.

"Nine out of ten times that monster you were so afraid of, will turn out to just be a shirt."

I watched as the fire that consumed my mother shrunk, taking shape on top of an object I held in my hand. A lantern I placed on my bedroom night stand.

The power had gone out across four city blocks. One of the few jumpers in our neighborhood landed on the power-line.

We decorated the house with candles. A collection of small lights littered around the house, protecting us from what hid in the dark. And as I slept, I could see the living room from my doorway. I felt the eyes of wolves hiding beneath my couch.

"Olivia!" A voice called out behind me. A memory that followed me like a curse.

Two armored vehicles approached the entrance to the junkyard. Pushing past the forming crowd, I saw Lane. Out from the vehicles I could see the Southern Guard. A private military organization formed to execute the will of those who lived on the southernmost part of the Island. Hiding under the guise of law enforcement, but we were beyond laws now.