Panacea

Prologue

The whining got louder still. And then, a voice which sounded like a feather dipped in concrete spoke.

"Drink the potion, drink the potion. Drink... the... potion."

The more she refused to obey the inexplicable being, the louder it spoke, until it was yelling into her ears. Feeling a burning pain, she looked down at her hands. They began to sizzle, the skin bubbling up before her large brown eyes. Horrified, she thought to wipe her hands on the carpet. She thought this must have been her imagination.

Once she removed her rug-burned palms from the carpet, the rug was set ablaze. Little flecks of her skin were scorched atop the fuzzy fabric. The demand of the outlandish voice had gotten so loud that she couldn't even hear herself scream.

She fled to the door, turning the knob frantically as the table ignited. 

The door would not budge.

"Come on! Open!" she sobbed, pulling and pulling with every ounce of strength she had left in her tiny frame. 

After a while, she quickly learned that she was trapped. She knew the only thing she could do to make it out was to drink the potion. 

What if it's poison? What if after you drink it, everything will remain the same? What if this is all just a dream? But it wasn't a dream, for she could feel pain and panic filling her lungs, drowning her in dismay. 

Now, where was that goddamn potion? She began to hyperventilate and uncontrollably weep. Through her tears, she could see the glass bottle through the flames. She steeled herself for the burning she was to feel as she reached into the fire to retrieve the drink. 

Appallingly, she felt no pain as she effortlessly grabbed the bottle. She barely noticed until after the fact, swiftly gulping down the mystery fluid. 

She almost gagged, but swallowed it quickly. It tasted like gasoline and soap, and it was a cloudy gray, hinted with brown. The smell? A bit too graphic for accurate description.

The voice and whining abruptly cut off, and she watched as the flames went out and the house looked the same as it was before all of this. The table was restored, and the carpet looked good as new. Even the skin on her hands looked normal once again. The tears that once wet her cheeks were dry, and the bottle she gripped in her hands seconds ago was gone without a trace.

The thing that she was especially grateful for was that the repulsive taste in her mouth was absent. She smiled involuntarily because of this.

It was as if nothing had happened, and there was no proof that anything had occurred except her suddenly vivid memory. Her recollection was so realistic that she could have sworn she'd felt the slightest pain as she visualized her boiling hands. 

Then, the voice rung through her head again, making her blood run cold. 

"We would like to thank you for drinking our potion. Hello, Juliet. My name is Henna. Welcome to Panacea."