KILL

BEGINNINGS

Memory is deceptive because it is coloured by today's events.

- Albert Einstein

Slowly, the darkness lifted as the slow, graceful hand of awareness gently plucked me from my dark haven. The abstract swirls I'd gotten used to were replaced with a door.

The door seemed large, something I'd assume from a door that seemed to stretch up indefinitely. Slowly, I started recognizing the intruder. The little chip on the right side where I threw myself at it in an attempt to get out. The discolouration from when I tripped and spilled syrup on it. I looked around.

My old bedroom looked the same since I'd left it years ago.

The tiny bed nestled in the corner. The dream catcher above the window I'd made in an attempt to stop my nightmares. The view of the dull red houses lower on the hill.

I looked at the door. I didn't want to open it. I didn't want to see what I knew would lie metres away from me.

I would not walk through. Never.

Suddenly, the walls started to change. Paint peeled off the walls, revealing grimy concrete. The windowsill was rotting off as I watched, and the bedsheets started crawling towards me. Red slime oozed through cracks in the ceiling. The fan started whirring as the edges of the blades turned razor sharp.

My room was transforming into a scene from a horror movie.

Whoever wanted me to step through that door knew how to put on a good show.

I looked at my only escape. The door had stayed the same. I didn't want to go through. Even through the horrors of what I was seeing, I didn't want to reopen a wound time barely healed.

Tuxedo-clad hands sprung from the ground and pulled me downwards.

Okay. Fine.

I reached for the metal doorknob. Unlike the freezing atmosphere of the room, the metal knob was warm to the touch. The moment I grasped it, the hands shrunk back, the walls reformed, the fan stopped whirring. My room transformed back from the scene. Whatever illusion it was, it was realistic. The razors on the ceiling fan looked so sharp, I could've killed myself just glancing at them.

Kill...

Death. I felt dizzy.

The whole room seemed to look a little more artificial. My dresser's colour was off. My window was hazy. My closet's hinge was broken. This was barely my old room. I surveyed the space and hoped I'd never see it again.

I turned back to the door. It stared me down, waiting as if to reclaim me.

With newfound passion, I turned the knob and walked through.