Chapter One

 It’s over.

I am running. I can’t feel my legs, can’t feel my arms, though I can see both stretching in front of me, throwing everything into this one last chance of escape.
 

I am cold. So cold. It doesn’t matter anymore, and I know that, but winter presses on regardless. And it’s so cold. It bites my nerves, slithers up and down my bare arms and legs, yet another obstacle in the way of escape.
 

But I will never escape. Maybe it would be better if I accepted this, but something in me refuses to let go. The yearning for survival that has been an asset all my life now hinders me. No matter how much pain it causes, my mind won’t let me give in. I am more afraid of death than the pain.
 

I can feel him behind me, though I can’t hear him. Like a snake, he oozes without a sound. He’s fast, but I’ve always loved to run.
 

Hope rises in me, such an odd sensation that I don’t recognize it initially. I can outrun him. I know I can. I’m faster. I can survive this. I will.
 

But then my mind whirls away, back to the clearing I just left. To a little girl who’s only seven years old and all alone. Little Emily, with her dark curls and bright smile. Little Emily, who will never have the chance to grow up if I manage to escape.
 

Suddenly I’m running towards my pursuer, my face a blazing mask of pain. He leers at me and reaches out to snatch me, holding fast to the back collar of my shirt. I let him, letting my muscles go limp in his arms. I glare into the face that I have abhorred for weeks, the face that lingers in my nightmares when I awake. This man goes beyond the natural evil in humans, bringing it to the level of a demon. His heart has been burned black all the way to the core. Maybe he had a hard life. I don’t know. But somehow, I can’t find it in my heart to pity him. Not at all.
 

He drags me along like a child pulls a blanket, covering my back in the muddy slush of snow. The neck of my shirt cuts off my windpipe, but my body scarcely reacts. It’s grown resilient to abuse in the past few weeks. I am dumped on the ground next to Emily, whose mouth trembles as she pushes it into a smile when our eyes meet. I don’t know how she does it. She’s so strong. And she never fails to smile.
 

She doesn’t say a word, but I can feel the child’s silent question in her huge eyes. Why did I come back? I look away, refusing to answer her. She doesn’t need to know.
 

Our captor turns his back and rifles through his bag, and I inch closer to the little girl. “Listen to me,” I breathe, keeping my gaze on the monster’s back. “I want you to run. Do you hear me? When I nod, I want you to run in that direction as fast as you can, do you understand, Emily? Keep running until you leave the woods, and go to the nearest house. And don’t look back. Don’t ever look back.”
 

She understands better than I want her to. “No, you can’t! I won’t let you, Mellie . I need you!”
 

It is bitterly ironic. Emily needs me, but she doesn’t comprehend that for her to live, I must die. I barely know this girl, this young spirit, but already I’m willing to give up my life for her. Already this ordeal has transformed us into sisters. “I need for you to do this, Emily. Don’t you see? I don’t know why, but he wants me. If I can run far enough...if I can distract him...you can escape."
 

I know the truth now. I will never truly be rid of him, even if I run far enough and fast enough. He will never rest until I am dead. But Emily is merely an amusement. He enjoys hearing a little girl scream in pain. But he won’t go to the trouble of tracking her down. Either both of us will die, or I will go down fighting while Emily lives on. It really isn’t a choice. It never had been.
 

The man turns around then at our murmurings. “Go, Emily! Run!” I scream and pull away from her in a last embrace. I am running again. I can’t feel my feet anymore, but maybe that’s a good thing. The falling snow whites out my vision and stings my eyes, but I don’t care. I ignore, too, the malicious arms of the trees that reach out to stop me. Nothing can stop me now.
 

All I know is me, and my thoughts, and the knowledge of my approaching death. A death I freely choose.


They said I was schizophrenic, that paranoia was what haunted me.
 

They lied.

I really don’t know where they got the schizophrenia part, but the paranoia came as no surprise to me. Had I been viewing myself objectively, from another point of view, I might have agreed. Being me, I didn’t.
 

Because my suspicions were true. I had proof, unlike the rest of the hospital’s patients. But people don’t like to acknowledge anything that alters their routine. They see what they want to see.
 

When the entire world was finally corrupted, I would be able to laugh in their faces, declare “I told you so” until I was blue in the face. No one would be there to acknowledge it, of course, and somehow, I didn’t think being right would bring me any pleasure. Just this once.
 

While I contemplated this- not for the first time- my routine nurse banged her way into my room. “well, now, how are we today, ladies?” She addressed the three occupants of the room. My roommates consisted of Laurel, my sister, who wasn’t the least bit unstable, and Caroline, a younger girl who truly was crazy, and suffered from Antisocial Personality Disorder.
 

At eighteen, Laurel was only a year my senior. Her sole fault was believing me. Guilt’s arrow pierced me every time I saw her in this dim, forsaken asylum, and I was reminded that she was here because of me.
 

Neither laurel nor Caroline answered the nurse, so my voice echoed alone. “As sane as always,” I said, a subtle reminder in my words. Not that the nurse would change her mind or anything, but this jab of rebellion gave me secret satisfaction.
 

“Of course, dear,” she agreed absentmindedly, not meaning a word she said. “How’s the dreams, Melanie?”
 

I smiled, delighted by the question. “I still have them. Despite the medication.” This was a measure of triumph on my part. If the medicine these quacks prescribed actually worked, my recurring dreams- like the one I’d woken up to this morning, when I’d been running through the woods- would be gone.
 

“Well, perhaps it’ll just take more time,” she reassured herself more than me.
 

“Is the doctor coming in soon?” I hated Dr. Corbin, the matter-of-fact psychiatrist assigned to me, hated the way her self-righteous sneer pulled across her fox face.
 

“No. Dr. Corbin is no longer your psychiatrist, as she’s got her hands full with patients at the moment. Poor thing.” The nurse clucked sympathetically.
 

Poor thing my foot. I’d never met a soul who deserved pity less than Dr. Corbin. I was ecstatic at the change. “And the new one?”
 

“Dr. Atra. He’ll be here shortly.” She turned and spoke to Caroline for a moment before closing the door behind her.
 

Idly, I resorted to my usual tricks for preventing boredom. I recited poetry in my head, ran through the plots of my favorite novels, even translated a few sentences into Chinese, the language I had been learning at my high school up until six months ago. When I’d been locked up here. I flipped through the book I was reading, a nonfiction about Greek mythology. That was a topic that had always intrigued me.
 

I didn’t have long to wait; a young man, maybe thirty, strode in; to anyone else, he might have been the ideal image of a handsome, successful doctor. White-blonde hair settled attractively on a broad, unlined forehead, where cool gray eyes were set wide. He carried a thick clipboard under his arm, undoubtedly of my file, and his tailored sports jacket was folded crisply over a shirt and tie. To me, though, he was yet another personification of my imprisonment. And I hated him, just like all the others.
 

“Hello. You must be Melanie.” He held out a hand to Laurel, telling me he hadn’t done his homework. My sister looked nothing like me, which he’d know if he had bothered to chat up the nurses.
 

Laurel glanced at me and grinned. I knew what she was thinking. Staring straight ahead, I didn’t meet her eyes but gave her a tiny, almost undetectable nod of encouragement. I focused on keeping a straight face.
 

“Yes. And you must be Dr. Atra,” she said, lying shamelessly. I wondered how long this would proceed before we were found out, but really, where was the harm? Sure, we’d probably be accused of an identity crisis or the like, but we were both already hospitalized. In for a dollar, in for a dime as my father always said- used to say.
 

“I am. Now, how long have your delusions been occurring?” He checked his notes before looking up at her again.
 

“My dreams, you mean,” she asserted. “I’ve had them all my life.” Laurel knew my story almost as well as I did. This might be interesting.
 

“And what do you perceive them to be?”
 

She pretended to consider this. “I don’t know. Not prophesies. It doesn’t feel like that. Memories, maybe? But I can’t imagine that I’ve ever experienced anything like them before, or I’d remember, you know?”
 

He took her hand and patted it, saying, “I do know. And don’t worry, I promise we’ll figure it out together. Sound good?” The gesture surprised me. The doctors here didn’t actually care about us patients. Sure, they pretended to for the sake of visitors, but no doctor or nurse would voluntarily touch a hand- insanity might be contagious, you see. “And what happens in these dreams, Melanie? What’s in them- anyone you might know?”
 

“No one I know, but I recognize them anyway.” My older sister shook her head in frustration to mimic the way I always did when describing this. “I can’t explain it, exactly. Only that sometimes, I dream that my dream-self can foretell the future. Only when I go to tell my family in the dreams, they never believe me. My dream-mother’s name was Katrina, the father was Eric. I had a brother named Mark and a little sister named Annaliese. They’re so real, doctor. And there was a man. Daniel.” She sighed. “Only I never actually see him, but I thought about him a lot in the dream. And when I wake up, I still miss him.” Laurel’s voice trailed off wistfully, and I grinned. My sister was a better actress than I gave her credit for. Dr. Atra ate it up.
 

“All right, Melanie. I’ve got to leave you now, but I will be seeing you tomorrow. I don’t want you dwelling on these…dream people. Stay in the present. Think of your parents, your sister.” He glanced between Caroline and I, clearly unsure which of us was ‘Laurel’. “Take care, all of you.” Dr. Atra gathered up his things, nodded once to her, and left us in peace.
 

The instant the door clicked shut, Laurel and I were clutching our stomachs with laughter. It felt like…old times. Before our world started sliding beneath our feet.
 

In the doctor’s absence, we each resorted to our usual diversions. Caroline sat on her bed, rocking back and forth, a vapid smile on her face. Laurel and I talked. We laughed about the doctors here, reminded each other what our friends- the friends that hadn’t visited us here- looked like, and smiled about memories. It seemed so long-ago, out of another dimension from our new world of fluorescent lights and linoleum floors.
 

I felt a sick relief in knowing that if I had to be here, Laurel was, too. She was the only thing that kept me from proving the doctors right and completely losing my head.
 

All our lives, Laurel and I shared a bond that went deeper than that of most sisters. We protected each other from everything. When there was a spider in the basement, I rushed to let it outside, where it couldn’t bother her. When the darkness hid the unknown from me, Laurel turned the light on. My eyes cried when her first boyfriend broke up with her, and her arms were my solace when I felt lonely. And most importantly, she alone believed me. Not for an instant did she think I was crazy- she heard me out and even agreed.
 

“Laurel?” I asked, my voice muffled against her shoulder as she hugged me. “What are we going to do?”
 

She understood what I meant. “I don’t know,” she answered honestly. “I don’t even know what they are.”
 

“And no one will believe anything an asylum patient claims,” I sighed. “Is it hopeless, then? Is everything over?”
 

Laurel bit her lip. “I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

 

 

Reviews

[Lyndie Bolt aka JustRac..]

Excellent write!

This sentence" The neck of my shirt cuts off my windpipe," change to " the pulling collar of my shirt chokes off my breath"

This paragraph doesn't fit the flow of the piece as well as the rest of the story "All our lives, Laurel and I shared a bond that went deeper than that of most sisters. We protected each other from everything. When there was a spider in the basement, I rushed to let it outside, where it couldn't bother her. When the darkness hid the unknown from me, Laurel turned the light on. My eyes cried when her first boyfriend broke up with her, and her arms were my solace when I felt lonely. " With a bit of re-working, you can fit these facts better into the narrative.

Good going!
Lyn