Black and White

Chapter 25

My mother stares at me for a moment, face frozen in a cold stone statue of indifference. "Go on," She whispers, leaning back, resting her head on her fists.
"Mama, did you not hear me?" I shout, tears spilling down my face, my words do not stop, they cannot stop.

"Mama I killed people, there were other people there," My voice cracks, falling into a whisper.

"There were so many of us and somehow I'm the one who survived!" Every that leaves my mouth adds a new knife to my stomach, twisting the flesh and mangling my insides.

"Those people had lives, families, friends, and for some reason I got to survive, it isn't fair." Another knife finds its way into my skin. "You wouldn't understand, you think I could just go on?" Every fiber in my being begs to shrivel up, to hide away, to die in peaceful silence.

"Life isn't fair mama, and now I have to go on when I can't!" My voice cracks, breaking into sobs, I realize I'm screaming at her, my muscles burning with effort.

"I'm going to let you sit on that for a little bit," She rises, walking out of the room and shutting the door quietly. Her footsteps rattle inside my mind.

"Mama wa-" I try to reach for her, but it's too late, and my head drops into my hands as my sobbing becomes silent, my body shaking as freezing tears burn into my hands.

Every slight breath of air tears apart my lungs, the knives in my stomach spinning with each shaking inhale and exhale. The room is stained blue and gray, colors mixing together under the haze of watery, unfocused eyes.

As if a clock has been implanted in my brain, I hear the tick of each passing second. The clock seems to pay no mind to whether or not it is even close to accurate, speeding up and slowing apparently of its own free will. Gradually, slowly and painfully the tears stop falling, mama absent the entire time.

Swinging myself over the side of the bed, I ignore the pins and needles that claw their way up my legs as I sit there. My feet are filled with more static than an old TV tuned in to a station that has long since been taken off the market. It pulses through my body, rising up with each inhale and retreating back to my ankles with every exhale

A blanket goes sprawling across the floor as it falls, knocked off the bed on my erratic quest to stand. Pain spreads across my side, the icy hot touch of blood trickling from my wound forcing me to lower myself back down.

I lift up my shirt hesitantly, gritting my teeth against the bright burst of white heat that flares over my torso. The bandage has a new, fast growing spot of blood interrupting the crisp, clean, white appearance. It joins the long, still-growing, list of things sullied by my existence.

Taking a deep breath I brace myself to stand once more, reaching out my hand and supporting myself with the wall as I rise so slow that if one was to watch the race between the tortoise and the hare both would finish before I have risen completely.

After a bit of doing, I manage to take a step, hot light flashing across my entire body. I force myself to keep moving though my entire body protests, trying to get me to stop.

When I finally reach the door, every inch of my skin is covered in sweat. I try to open it, but it's locked from the outside. Slumping to the floor in defeat, I try to remember where anything was in this room.

Blurred images of days long past saunter through my head. They smile wickedly at me, eyes alight with glee at my horrid memory. The house I'm in might as well be yet another over-decadent room from that horrid castle, just as foreign, just as unknown, just as odd.

Everything in this house seems to have shifted ever so slightly to the right, without physically moving an inch. The space feels like it should be correct, but it's as though nothing truly is. Sure the colors seem to be the same as I left them, given they're a bit more dusty, and the furniture remains in all the correct places, but it still, somehow, feels so essentially incorrect.