Me & Her

Her

The punch knocks him sideways, bowls him completely out of the chair.

Strike!

He hits the floor with a hard smack. The force sends the cream curtains flapping beside us. He puts a hand to his jaw. There's that scowl.

"Ah, I've been wanting to do that for ages". I stretch my arms above my head, as if my whole body is a taught spring, needing to be released. Waiting to snap.

'Stop! Don't hurt him,' Alice cries. I shove her away, to the other side of our mind. This time she shoves back.

Stumbling, I brace myself against the wall. Greasy fingerprints stare at me until I find the will to look away.

"Tell me the truth". Luckily, I analysed the weight and force of the punch, so it doesn't draw blood. No evidence. No suspicion. Which gets me thinking. Dr. Light had his doubts about our mental state before – it was why he was able to find those files – but he didn't alert the Foundation.

Why didn't he say anything?

'Please. Let me talk to him'. Oh, I know.

"Let me talk to Alice," Light coughs. "I'll tell her everything".

"Don't try to be smart with me, Harvard".

I'm not stupid. Trying to subdue poor little Alice so he can win the game. The game. The game.

Oh, great.

Another memory slams into me. I'm running, panting down a wooden staircase. This staircase, in this house. They're coming. They're right behind me.

Coming close. Coming closer.

Breath of burning Hell hounds at my heels.

I pick up a chair, throw it through a window. Climb. Climb out, climb fast. The glass licks red onto my bare skin. Red. Shards of misbegotten sunlight trapped in glass pools. Glass. Red.

The memory breaks.

I dart to the window of the therapy room, smash my fist right through the glass. A piece, perfectly jagged, breaks off into my hand.

Facing him, I employ my best smile.

"If you don't tell me the truth," I begin. "If you don't cooperate or if you refuse to keep quiet...".

Raising the glass to our throat makes our point clearer.

"I'll kill Alice".

At first, he doesn't think I'm serious.

For a minute, I don't think I am.

But my – our – screams were real enough and those chafing straps of the gurneys were real enough too. If death becomes part of my plan, then I have no choice.

No one else is going to help me.

Even though I've spent hours mentally preparing for something like this, I don't want to die. I've come too far to be erased, to be forgotten. What would Mum say?

I refuse to let Doc' see my hands shake. It's a long shot, really. I don't know why someone like him would care. He's a blank slate of a person. No wants or hopes or dreams. No desires. Unlike us.

I really don't want to die.

Dr. Light lowers himself back onto the chair, where I can sense he's gearing up to use his patronising grown-up voice.

"You're not going to do it". Without answering him, I answer. The horror in his eyes as I draw blood is enough to dull the pain. The glass is pinned to my skin, the blood stitched around my throat in red droplets.

I wonder, does he believe me now?