2.0 The Chronicles of Us - Shame & Blame

Chapter one

•★ Tex ★•

Hmmm this is nice, comfortable and black. I like black. It's my favorite color. Although, it's not really a color. It's the absence of light. A reflection of my life, I suppose.

Anyhoo ... Anyhoo? Are these even my thoughts? Yeah, I think so. I'm doing a mental dairy. Why? Good question. Something ain't right. How about the fact that I'm surrounded by a thick darkness? It's not like I'm lying in bed with the lights out. There's no shimmer of moonlight creeping through the blinds. No, this blackness is all-consuming.

Should I be petrified right now? Maybe, but an unusual calmness comforts me. Letting go would be easy. Like drifting off to a permanent pain-free slumber. I've been searching for this absolute peacefulness for a long time. It almost feels like the loving embrace of my Mom. What's holding me back?

"I love you, Tex."

I love you too, Birdie.

Wait ... I meant to say that out loud. I try again, but nothing happens. Do I even have a mouth? Am I even a person? What are the qualifications for being a human? A body, I would think. I'm not even sure I have one. Perhaps, I'm a floating head.

The fuck?

Ellie's faraway voice speaks to me again. "You will survive this, Tex. I'll make sure nothing gets in your way. Your life will be beautiful. Promise me, you won't let go."

Her sad sobs echo, like I'm at the bottom of a wishing well. She's telling me I can't let go. Of course not. I need to be by her side, she sounds so somber. But where is she? Where am I?

Of fuck. Is this Limbo? That can't be it. I would plummet straight down to hell and land in the arms of the Devil. Whatever the fuck's going on, I must find a way out.

What about that dim light miles above me? Like a dumb salmon swimming upstream, I struggle my way toward it. It's exhausting. This darkness has its claws in me, trying to drag me further down. It's not comforting anymore. It feels cold and ... definite. Can't let it take me under.

My laborious fight pays off. As twilight closes in, a strange rhythmic beeping sound enters the scene. The fuck's that? It gets louder and louder until it's all I can hear. Without a warning, the world—or wherever the fuck I am—flips upside down and I plunge into a pool of luminous white.

Shit.

Did I just die for real?

No, the thumping sound of my heart is back. Also, the muscles in my limbs seem to be working again. In search of Ellie, I pat the space next to me, but I only find the edge of the bed. Strange, I always sleep on the left side.

I check my other side as well. Again, no one. The mattress feels different and the metal doesn't do that squeaky thing when I move. This is definitely not my bed.

My heart skips a beat. Am I in some random girl's bed? Did Ellie find out and knock the light outta me? No, I would never cheat on her. Something more sinister is going on.

Well, then, open your goddamn eyes.

Light stabs me in the eyeballs when I snap my lids open. Christ! That hurt. I screw them shut again. Very fucking carefully, I squint until I'm used to the brightness.

The room I'm in is unfamiliar. The walls are painted a sterile kinda white and the furniture looks generic. A small, turned-off television screen hangs from the ceiling. What is this? A nursing home? Did I go through a Donny Darko-style wormhole and am now geriatric? Maybe my life turned out to be a science-fiction story instead of a tragedy.