Comatose

Chapter 14: Rack of Reflections

                                                                            Hani's POV

 My mind mushes and scrabbles in an unbearable cycle of self-doubt and confusion. Countless whispers of varieties of voices tickle through my ears, driving to a corner of madness. Part of me lingers to find the identity of myself, the other is overcome with jumbled words from the breeze of sentences that are barely coherent to me. The mirrors center around me, trapping me in a snug space that is almost the size of my form itself. Each mirror is a frame to a different image of the same face with various colored locks and appearances, they all circle around me like vultures to a rabbit that they expect to die soon, waiting to feast on my corpse's flesh. All had the same face that I can barely recognize, a face with flooding, glassy crystal blue ocean eyes, all with fair, pale skin that glows from the anonymous light sources that beam down upon them. Their bodies differentiating in weight appearance as well; the one with long ash blonde hair seems thicker than the one with lengthy dirt brown hair, who seems almost completely bone. And yet, they all appear to be one girl. All a girl that had shifted personality and physical appearance so frequently, that her complete identity changed with it, I can see it in her eyes as she stares back at me with watered lens...she didn't even know who she was anymore.  

   Gyrating on my toes, I fall short, only to meet her. The one that shatters me to millions of individual pieces. Just as the rest of them, sharing the exact same face, hair, but not the same outfit, her curves hide in a powder blue sweater that is torn at the hip, splatters of scarlet red along with torn navy blue jeans and worn black timberland boots that appear heavy against her thin legs. The scarlet liquid trickling down either side of her pink lips, trailing their ways down her pointed chin, leaving a trail behind to lead more droplets of the metallic tasting liquid, mixing in with a thick coat of sweat that shines against her skin, leaving the speckles of dirt to stick to her, along with a salty front layer of tears that run to meet the blood, but also taking sweat along with it.  Her clothes, caked with blood and mud, along with her face and hair. A wide gash rests on the side of her cheek, running all the way a good four inches away from her ear, her other cheek carrying a bruise that traveled from her eyes, down to her upper cheek area. They all shout at me, each practically screaming something different, which causes my head to pound and anxiety to bubble. "Wake-!", "Now-! Leave-", Stop. "Help me-!" Please. "Wake up-dead!" Stop it. "Empty-!" No. "Shell-" I can't take it, my mind whirls, a full view of each female, but suddenly, all of their shrieking words replace with a horrid unison of shrills that bring me to my knees. 

    "Stop! Please!" I beg, helplessly, but they continue to cry and release their bloodcurdling shrills that drives my own to emit from my throat, but as a cry for mercy. "STOP!! PLEASE!!" I choke out, crying, curling myself into a fetal position. My long legs curl to my chest, hooked with my trembling arms. Transparent liquid flows from my eyes and on to the ground, sending ripples throughout the opaque waters. I don't understand why I am here longer than the other worlds, but this one was even more miserable and terrifying to be in than the one with the horrifying humanoid that I had run into. 

  Once they abruptly halt their deadly vibrations, all that fills my ears is nothing but a long, steady ring that makes me feel as if a bomb had detonated right by my side, but it didn't matter. All that matters is that they finally stopped. Tilting my head up, slightly, unwinding myself, the legs that I see are not from the disheveled woman, this wasn't even a woman, but instead was a young male. A vertically gifted young male with jet-black hair that's brushed off to one side, shielding off the view of one of his eyes, looking down upon me with his piercing onyx eyes. Next to him was another male, slightly shorter, but with more of wet-haired look, but still black with caramel highlights. One thing all the men in front of me share is their jet-black hair that brings upon even more of a mysterious appearance as they stare down at me. One of them having a messy mullet, another having vibrant violet streaks in his black hair, one of them having tamer, kempt hair, whilst the other had more of a chaotic edgy look. One thing is for sure though, they seem far too familiar for me not to know them. I know the girls too, one with long ash blonde hair and milk chocolate orbs, slightly shorter than the other girls, another one with long, dark brown hair that almost appears black, aside from the girl next to her who actually has long black hair. 

    They take the places of the same-faced-banshees that brought torture to me, providing me with a warm presence that I can't describe. It isn't until I find my way back to my feet, approaching the two males that were the first ones I notice, that they all share the same distraught state that the ones before them. Only, they stay silent, not even parting their lips to attempt a word or phrase. I stare into the deep onyx irises of the male with the parted hair as he gnaws on his bottom lip with his enlarged front teeth, choking back a mournful sob. The shorter male, who still towers above me, exchanges glassy stares with me. I know these faces, but their names and personalities have gone with the wind. They were faces that I can no longer connect to names. And the fact that these individuals, I knew, were part of my life, and now, they were nothing but strangers; it causes my heart to twinge, suffocating at the sight of their racked features that glance back at me through a glass field. I transfix myself into his lifeless eyes, wondering who he was and how was I connected to him, how was I connected to any of these people? The others all sharing the same distraught expressions that tear me apart from the inside out, churning my stomach into an oblivion. Deciding not to hold in one spot for too long, my legs maneuver themselves down the circle of racked reflections. Eight males and four females, one of them having a similar appearance to the females of whom they replace. I have no tears to cry because unlike them, they know who they are, they know each other...I have not the slightest clue what anything or anyone was anymore. It's like the memories that I once cherished so dearly, have vanished with every known thing about myself as well. Halting at the nearest male, the one that is right next to the one I approached first, the one with the caramel highlights and transfixing his cold glare into my own pit of confusion. My brain strains to identify his name and personality, but I can't. 

    The longer I stare at him, the more his identity becomes more abstract. My memory is shattered into thousands of pieces that are so microscopic that I can't grasp them. 

    Without any warning, his head, along with the others', all shift to left side of me, no longer fixated on me, but following their gaze, I am taken back by the sight. The same girl that I had seen before. Their heads snap into her direction, filling her with sorrowful eyes and pouted lips, distressed by the sight of her state, alone.  Curious about what she was doing here, I leave behind the male that caused me to scrap my brain; navigating myself to her instead. Just like the beat up version, same face, same injuries, same hair, same body, but different state. This girl is actually in front of me, laying flat and stiff against a plastic, navy blue bed that I had no idea was even here. She's, for sure, in a cleaner state than the one in the mirror before; her skin is flushed, deprived of color and life, her ocean eyes sealed away from the world from the wall of flesh, tamed hair that seems as if it's being brushed, faithfully, every day, no blood, no sweat, no tears, just a stoic expression. Her lips are not as pink as the other ones', but instead are just as sickly as the rest of her blanched skin, but between her thin lips, rosy, as if she chugs a pint of blood on a daily bases. The girl's frame also appears to be slightly thinner, but in the unconscious state, I can only assume that her skeletal form is caused by malnourishment; her fingers are nimble and thin, matching with her fragile hands and wrists. Instead of wearing the busted clothes I had seen before, a white and navy blue, polka-dotted down falls down her body but considering her fairly long legs, they only stretch to her mid-thighs. Although she and the other 'banshees' I run into, all share my same appearance, just like the case with the current vague figures in the mirrors, I can't match a face to a name. Who are these people? What are their names? What relation did they have with me? How are they connected to me? Why can't I remember them? Why am I here? Are they here? How did I get here? Did they come before all this atrocity? Did I meet them here? What am I to them? What was my role in their lives?

    I can't answer any of those questions because...I don't know what my life was like anymore. I don't know these people, my previous life, and most heart shattering of all...I don't know myself. No matter how much I wrench myself to come about pieces of my memories, it's all nothing but a colored blur that is coated with fog. I can't see anything. I'm lost, trapped in my own mind, with not a clue to get myself out, and not a hint of the life I lived beyond this place. This place is a demon with wings painted white, disguising itself to give a heavenly bliss but in reality, it was a rotting prison. I have fallen into its spell, captivated. In front of me, the same girl who stands before her, me. We both slipped into an endless hallway of helplessness with no way out. The girl before me, laying unmoving and completely detached from her surroundings; a wilting rose, withering away by the second, her petals slipping off with every minute and her once sleek texture, desiccating before my eyes, and before theirs. 

    I know that she is me, but at the same time...I don't know who either of us are...