X-Marks: Rising Shadows

Glass

My hand hovered above the inside lock of my dorm. I hated myself every second I waited.

I'm not afraid of anything. Let's make that one clear.

Not anything, except for what was behind that door.

"Hello," I heard Macie's muted voice say, "I'm sorry if I have the wrong room. If you could just let me know, and I'll be on my way."

Her frail voice, so much like my own, sent another chill of dread through my bones.

This was guilt.

"For god's sake, Macie, it's only your first day," Macie continued to talk to herself.

I heard the sound of her shoes scrape against the carpet outside as she walked away. In haste, I loosed my sleeve from my bracelet and forced the steel band against the black pad of the door.

A click of the latch released the door.

"Wait," I said and hurried out and into the hall.

Macie turned towards me, her worried face melted into a smile.

"Thank goodness," she said, "I thought I had the wrong -"

"Ah - yeah, sorry about that. I was - in the shower, washing my - um hair."

Macie looked me up and down and then last on my hair.

My dark, curly, bone-dry damn hair.

I felt flushed. I wasn't used to lying and wasn't about to start. I could count the number of times I had. All for good reasons, of course. But, this was different. This was the kind of lie I couldn't explain. Why did I say it in the first place? Whose feelings was I trying to protect?

It was this uncertainty that made me want to turn back and forget this ever happened.

We stood between the stark white walls and numbered plaques of the hall and stared each other down.

I knew her face, I didn't have to look there for too long. The same doe-brown eyes, button nose and wild dark curls I had remembered from when we were kids. The same brown face, like my own.

They dressed her for the job much like the nurses back at the center. Plain white dress, hair pinned back above the ears and shoes so sensible and flat they looked more like white socks. Her uniform was well put together but not a touch more striking that the plain white walls of that surrounded us. Just what they wanted, I had always assumed.

Her sleeves were long except for one. Here it was rolled to where her elbow would have been if she had one. I pulled my eyes away from her missing arm as every nasty thought, and feeling I had towards her came barreling through. It pattered against my insides like drops of freezing rain on hot skin.

"Should we go in?" Macie said in a low voice.

"Yeah," I said and walked back in silence to my door, taking quick steps the whole way.