All the Time in the World

The Weight of Fear

"Olive! Welcome home, honey!"

Oh God, I'm going to murder her.

Katrina smiles a bit too widely and walks into the vivid orange painted entryway right in front of me, blocking my path into the house. What game is she playing?

I look into her cheery, makeup-covered face, forcing my own to stay neutral and trying desperately to hold back the daggers my eyes are itching to throw. Be civil first.

"Excuse me," I address her, my voice monotone.

She doesn't move, only smiles wider, a feat I didn't realize was still possible. "Listen honey, I'm making Lemon Chicken for supper and I really need you to try the glaze because I feel like it's a tad too sweet..."

As more of Katrina's unimportant talk pelts itself at my ears, I attempt to get around her once more. I need to get into my room. I need to be alone. Maybe if I slip through the dining room door when she's looking at her prized chicken, I can get away.

Katrina, still babbling, turns around to open the oven across the kitchen and I sense my opportunity. Just as I push the wooden door open, I feel a movement behind me.

Katrina has moved across the kitchen.

"All you need is a finger-full..." She's holding a bowl full of thick, yellowish liquid and reaching down for something.

I realize too late what that something is.

Just as I start to whisk my hand away, I feel the warmth of Katrina's skin in my palm. I told myself I'd never touch her again, and now I'm being reminded why.

My breath is sucked from my lungs and all light decides to take a vacation. I try to speak, yell, make any kind of noise, but sound is somewhere out in the sea of black that is my vision, and I can't hear. I say nothing, do nothing as my mind is broken open, as cold fingers reach inside my skull and disconnect the wires within. I stand still, for that is all I can do. A voice echoes to life in the blackness, speaking words that feel more like memory than conversation, words I know but don't, can't, won't understand.

She's trying to upend everything we stand for! Already, we lost thirteen of our own to her. This could be the end of everything you've created here for us. We must take actions to prevent this uprising, ma'am.

I agree. She must be terminated.

Confusion dances through my brain, a petrified mist.

Knives bore holes into my bones that quickly fill with sorrow, sorrow so acute it takes my breath away. And then I feel the fear. It clings to my skin. Covers me. But it is unfamiliar fear, not mine. Mine is already there. I can feel it, pulsing in my stomach and holding its breath in my brain. An old friend that I've become accustomed to. I know its patterns, I understand its actions. But this terror that consumes me now? This is like nothing I've ever experienced.

My eyes flicker. Sound hums in my ears, sounding like dull, steady electricity.

Something snaps. My head. My mind. My neck.

I'm back in the kitchen, holding Katrina's hand. Nothing is different.

It happened again, yet it did not. There is no residual pain now, as there was before. No, only something much worse. Hysteria.

Horror, panic, alarm all concerning something I don't understand. The air is not entering my lungs correctly. My legs are weak, shaky, fragile sticks that shatter under the weight of this dread. Suddenly, the cyan floor tiles of the kitchen seem like a nice place to be.

The sadness I carry, the fears that should have left behind. I sag under the weight of regret, the chains of someone else's terror. My heart alone weighs a thousand pounds. I'm so heavy that I can no longer be lifted from the earth. I have no choice now but to become it. I'm so heavy, too heavy...

I exhale as I go down. My body slumps forward. Cold ceramic kisses my face, welcoming me home. The world swims.

I have to make a plan. I will survive this.

Survive what?