Somnia (Dream Corp.)

CHAPTER TWO

                                                                                            

The human mind is truly the scariest thing of all. B3x never imagined that an insane idea like that would ever be considered, not to mention accepted. She was laying in her bed now, only barely in time for the curfew. She and Triah had walked back in a hurry not to miss the lights-out, having no actual chance to talk, but Triah had stopped to hug her tightly before letting her get in her room and she herself hurrying to hers. B3x would have found that strange on any other day, but this day was different. This day it was goodbye.

Her room was resting in darkness now and she kept her eyes open, staring at something she couldn't see yet. The Agent's words tumbled through her mind, confusing and yet exciting, marking the beginning of the end of the whole plan. She knew she was done here, and despite her hate for the bed she laid on and the floors she walked and the faces she saw every day, there were things she would miss. There were things that made her afraid to let go. Not only Triah-the woman she would have been calling Mother is they chanced living in the outside world, or Agent Elle-the woman who spent years to build up freedom for someone she was supposed to supervise and report, but she would miss this small room-the only thing she could call hers besides the number she carried for a name. There were memories in this room. Nothing had really happened inside it, but of all the rules in this place "decorating" was not one of them. The walls and all the furniture were unchanged from the moment she was given the room, but over the years, B3x managed to bring something of her into it. The countless appointments she had with Agent Elle always ended with her letting B3x choose a few of the flowers she kept around the office that given week, and B3x would bring them back and go through hell to press them under the weight of her desk so she can later laminate them. One of the walls, as a result, was neatly covered with all sizes if clear paper and all sizes of colourful flowers.

She turned to look at them, wondering for a moment what would become of her efforts, and her mind conjured an image of a clear room just like this one was the first moments she had stepped into it all those years ago. That is what would become of her, she would be erased. Like the woman who occupied this room before her had been erased. Just like the woman they had taken earlier that day was being erased this very moment while everyone else slept. Tomorrow she will be forgotten.

B3x stood up from the bed, and walked silently to the wall, her eyes already adjusted to the darkness. She started to take off the flowers one by one, leaving only a few behind. The others she started rolling up in one tube and looped a hair tie around them, leaving a white rose behind. She sat on her desk chair, pulled out a pen and a piece of paper and started writing in the dark.

~I am Trix, but the name they gave me is B3x.

I have stayed in this room for 19 years and this

is my last night. Today, while everyone else sleeps

they will take me away. But it's alright, I was never

much for this place anyways.

I leave you something, you who will replace me, and I

hope you use it well. Because there is no way out if

you do as they say, and there is no way out if you don't.

But there is an in between, and you have to find it.

Don't trust the system.

Trust L.~

She folded the piece of paper and rolled it together with the laminated rose, using the last tie that had been holding her hair together. She rolled the papers as tightly as she could, making it the size of a small cigar. Standing out of the chair, she walked to the door and carefully balanced the paper cigar on top of the bulky frame. She had read in books of characters hiding keys to precious locks and treasures on the frames of doors and so she knew, nobody would look there.

The only thing left now was the wait. B3x walked back to her bed, laid herself neatly between the covers and closed her eyes. You will go to bed like any normal night, Elle's voice repeated in her memories, then they will come to take you. She did not want to sleep, she was numb and afraid, but her tired mind needed to. And perhaps it was better that way.