The First Night At Will's
Welcome to the last sickening day of your life. This day will last for eons; it will rise and fall, but will not end. This is where your story fails.
There is a cloying desperation seeped into the crevices of every man here. A scream in the building, down the hall, next-door, in the room, coming from you, a domino effect of horror. This is where the stories come to die. There are no windows, there are no doors, there are only rooms rooms rooms and long corridors at the connections.
There is a face at the end of the hallway. It opens its mouth, but not to speak. You step back inside your little empty room, but you still see the face, though it hasn’t moved. It is as though your eyes have stayed out in the hall, but your body moves away, sinks to the mattress, the floor, curls up, you’re gone. There is an icicle traveling through your veins, you can feel your blood melt it, it just keeps freezing.
The face has a name, you know it does. You recognize it. But when you try to think the name, you can’t, as though your mind is keeping secrets from yourself. The floor is cold as eyes, your skin as hot as blame. There is no escape, but there is freedom, no movement, but fleeing. You close your lids that are still in the hall and they float back to your head with the face attached to the retinas like a plastered poster on a billboard.
You wake in a sweat. There is no air in this room you wake to, no light, no sound. There is silence that deafens until you notice the ticking of your heart. You gasp for breath, but the tightness remains. There is a deep clawing etching in your chest, in the tips of your fingers, in the roots of your teeth. You blink and tears from dry eyes fall immediately to the bed and soak into the cotton of your pillow. There is no light.
You cannot move. Reason states there is no monster in the room, but you know that these are monsters telling you this and so you stay as stock still as you can so they won’t know you’re not dead. A bead of sweat intermingles with the tears and in one fell sweep, you spring out of bed and run run run to the end of a new hall. There is no face in this hall but there is a bathroom and when you reach it your stomach turns inside out until there’s nothing to release save for tension. You cling to the toilet with your white as white knuckles and press your scarred knees into the tiles beneath them so hard you can feel the bruises forming. You feel the acid burning cigarette holes in the muscles of your arms your neck your thighs and for a moment it is breathless relief.
You fall sideways to the sink. You pull yourself up by the tap and your twist the knobs until they creak. The water that enters your mouth when you rinse is filled with infinitesimal diseases so horrible your mind won’t let you notice you have them. You spit and the red that runs down the pale porcelain basin is familiar enough to let you relax the jaw wired tight. The second rinse has more red, you can feel it dripping from the back of your throat, you can smell it on your tongue. Your fingertips turn purple, still gripping the tap. Letting go is cutting the wire tethering you to the face of a cliff.
This hallway has doors. You stumble through one, a new one, to soft shag carpet that you feel entangling your toes in its treacherous grip. There is light in this room, red as the blood in the sink, humming from an electric clock that sends numbers to your brain. The numbers have so little meaning.
In this room, there is a bed. It is large enough for three people and blocks off the second half of the room like a guard of treasure and secrets. In the bed, there is a shape, stocky and bent, wrapped infinitely in black sheets the shade of death. You wonder if you’ve ever woken up, if this is just a new floor in the madhouse of dreams, if this figure is a monster or a messiah. You freeze, the suffocating tightness of your chest making your vision blur. The figure moves and you gasp out a breath sob cry. The figure stops moving.
“Lanie?” The figure says your name. Its rough voice sets your hair on edge, makes you a statue in the dark. “Lanie?” It twists in the sheets, a torso reveals itself and a head, dark in the night with two glints for eyes. When it sits up, it blocks the light and you doubt if there ever was one. Your toes stop curling so close you can’t walk. You take a step, stop, step, stop. Your muscles have failed you, your mind deserts you, all you can remember is the face of the madhouse, with its gaping mouth and empty eyes.
“Come here.” You stop gripping your fist and the rush of blood to your fingers burns like the licks of a candle. The figure holds out a hand to the darkness, its fingers rough and long, the skin on the palm dry and firm. Your mind screams at your hand that reaches towards it. When it pulls you forward, your heart stops beating. When your knee dips onto the death colored sheets, you lose control of the buzzing fear that flows through your head and it falls out of you in a whispered sigh.
The figure has strong arms. You wonder if they will smother you crush you batter you, when they circle around you, you sob, waiting for the restricting pain. The arms stop when the hands they’re attached to meet behind your back. “Lanie.” The figure says. The voice makes you shiver, shaking until your teeth begin to bang against one another. The arms the chest the legs are warm when they press against you. “You’re freezing.”
The death-sheets lift up, swallow your form, leaving your head free. You wonder if you’ll suffocate in their embrace. The long rough fingers touch your hair, brush your ears, stroke your shoulders until you’re too weak to keep resisting. “It’s okay,” the figure says even though you know it is lying, “go back to sleep.” You press your hand against the figure’s shoulder, feeling the shift of muscle and bone under softly scarred skin. “It’s okay.”
You close your eyes against the darkness, breathe out against the fear, relax your body in defiance of your mind. The arms are warm. The voice is fading. You slip past the boundary to oblivion and pray for a dead night, bereft of the madhouse, a leaving behind of the screams. Silence.
There is a cloying desperation seeped into the crevices of every man here. A scream in the building, down the hall, next-door, in the room, coming from you, a domino effect of horror. This is where the stories come to die. There are no windows, there are no doors, there are only rooms rooms rooms and long corridors at the connections.
There is a face at the end of the hallway. It opens its mouth, but not to speak. You step back inside your little empty room, but you still see the face, though it hasn’t moved. It is as though your eyes have stayed out in the hall, but your body moves away, sinks to the mattress, the floor, curls up, you’re gone. There is an icicle traveling through your veins, you can feel your blood melt it, it just keeps freezing.
The face has a name, you know it does. You recognize it. But when you try to think the name, you can’t, as though your mind is keeping secrets from yourself. The floor is cold as eyes, your skin as hot as blame. There is no escape, but there is freedom, no movement, but fleeing. You close your lids that are still in the hall and they float back to your head with the face attached to the retinas like a plastered poster on a billboard.
You wake in a sweat. There is no air in this room you wake to, no light, no sound. There is silence that deafens until you notice the ticking of your heart. You gasp for breath, but the tightness remains. There is a deep clawing etching in your chest, in the tips of your fingers, in the roots of your teeth. You blink and tears from dry eyes fall immediately to the bed and soak into the cotton of your pillow. There is no light.
You cannot move. Reason states there is no monster in the room, but you know that these are monsters telling you this and so you stay as stock still as you can so they won’t know you’re not dead. A bead of sweat intermingles with the tears and in one fell sweep, you spring out of bed and run run run to the end of a new hall. There is no face in this hall but there is a bathroom and when you reach it your stomach turns inside out until there’s nothing to release save for tension. You cling to the toilet with your white as white knuckles and press your scarred knees into the tiles beneath them so hard you can feel the bruises forming. You feel the acid burning cigarette holes in the muscles of your arms your neck your thighs and for a moment it is breathless relief.
You fall sideways to the sink. You pull yourself up by the tap and your twist the knobs until they creak. The water that enters your mouth when you rinse is filled with infinitesimal diseases so horrible your mind won’t let you notice you have them. You spit and the red that runs down the pale porcelain basin is familiar enough to let you relax the jaw wired tight. The second rinse has more red, you can feel it dripping from the back of your throat, you can smell it on your tongue. Your fingertips turn purple, still gripping the tap. Letting go is cutting the wire tethering you to the face of a cliff.
This hallway has doors. You stumble through one, a new one, to soft shag carpet that you feel entangling your toes in its treacherous grip. There is light in this room, red as the blood in the sink, humming from an electric clock that sends numbers to your brain. The numbers have so little meaning.
In this room, there is a bed. It is large enough for three people and blocks off the second half of the room like a guard of treasure and secrets. In the bed, there is a shape, stocky and bent, wrapped infinitely in black sheets the shade of death. You wonder if you’ve ever woken up, if this is just a new floor in the madhouse of dreams, if this figure is a monster or a messiah. You freeze, the suffocating tightness of your chest making your vision blur. The figure moves and you gasp out a breath sob cry. The figure stops moving.
“Lanie?” The figure says your name. Its rough voice sets your hair on edge, makes you a statue in the dark. “Lanie?” It twists in the sheets, a torso reveals itself and a head, dark in the night with two glints for eyes. When it sits up, it blocks the light and you doubt if there ever was one. Your toes stop curling so close you can’t walk. You take a step, stop, step, stop. Your muscles have failed you, your mind deserts you, all you can remember is the face of the madhouse, with its gaping mouth and empty eyes.
“Come here.” You stop gripping your fist and the rush of blood to your fingers burns like the licks of a candle. The figure holds out a hand to the darkness, its fingers rough and long, the skin on the palm dry and firm. Your mind screams at your hand that reaches towards it. When it pulls you forward, your heart stops beating. When your knee dips onto the death colored sheets, you lose control of the buzzing fear that flows through your head and it falls out of you in a whispered sigh.
The figure has strong arms. You wonder if they will smother you crush you batter you, when they circle around you, you sob, waiting for the restricting pain. The arms stop when the hands they’re attached to meet behind your back. “Lanie.” The figure says. The voice makes you shiver, shaking until your teeth begin to bang against one another. The arms the chest the legs are warm when they press against you. “You’re freezing.”
The death-sheets lift up, swallow your form, leaving your head free. You wonder if you’ll suffocate in their embrace. The long rough fingers touch your hair, brush your ears, stroke your shoulders until you’re too weak to keep resisting. “It’s okay,” the figure says even though you know it is lying, “go back to sleep.” You press your hand against the figure’s shoulder, feeling the shift of muscle and bone under softly scarred skin. “It’s okay.”
You close your eyes against the darkness, breathe out against the fear, relax your body in defiance of your mind. The arms are warm. The voice is fading. You slip past the boundary to oblivion and pray for a dead night, bereft of the madhouse, a leaving behind of the screams. Silence.