Lion statues are everywhere; beside the sweeping stairs. On the way to the entrance. Near the tall French windows.
Everywhere.
I shudder at the image.
No matter how much I blink, the red doesn’t disappear. With careful steps, I approach one of the tall windows from which the red light comes inside.
I freeze in front of it. It smells of something… burning? Flesh burning?
When I glimpse through the window, a large garden with unkempt trees and withering flowers comes into view.
It’s also red — if not redder than the inside of the house. Even the sun is projecting red light.
A lake glints in the distance. It’s dark and inky. Even the red light doesn’t reduce from its pitch-black darkness.
A shudder goes through my spine and I avert my gaze elsewhere.
I don’t want to look at that lake.
Across from me, a blonde-haired woman sits on a swing. Her frail pale arms are wrapped around a child who’s sitting on her lap as she rocks back and forth. The child is giving me its back and is completely hidden in the woman’s lap, so I can’t make them out.
The woman, however, is in complete view. She’s wearing a white dress that stops under her knees. Her pale skin and white-blonde hair make her appear like an angel.
A heartbreakingly beautiful angel.
She stares in the distance with a vacant expression. It’s like she isn’t seeing anything at all.
A sob catches in my throat and I block the sound with a hand to my mouth.
Ma.
It’s my ma.
I resemble her so much, it’s haunting.
“M-ma…” My voice catches no matter how much I want to call her name.
But that’s not all of it.
I also want her to call my name back.
My eyes stray to the child sitting on her lap, carefully tucked into her chest.
Her polka-dot dress reaches her knees. Her blonde hair is gathered in neat braids that fall down her back.
My heart beats louder as Ma strokes her hair and says something I can’t hear.
Is that… me?
Am I seeing a memory?
I open the window with trembling fingers. My heart beats so fast, it’s threatening to cripple me.
Thump.
T-thump.
Thump…
The moment the outside air hits me, I fight the urge to throw up.
The air is asphyxiating with something rotten.
I block my nose with both my hands as I stare at Ma. She doesn’t seem bothered by the smell as if she’s not detecting it.
How could she not? The rotten air is so potent like a fucking morgue.
Wait.
A morgue?
“Hush little baby don’t you cry…”
No.
Ma continues stroking the little child’s hair. “Everything is going to be alright.”
No. Shut up, Ma.
I block both my ears with my hands.
It’s useless.
The sound continues barging through my head like a symphony gone wrong.
The scratching of nails against a chalkboard.
The monsters’ slow haunting murmurs.
“Hush little baby… hush little baby…”
Her voice grows in volume and intensity. It’s the only thing I hear.
It possesses me and flows under my skin.
I can’t even make out my own breathing.
I can’t even hear my own heartbeat.
“Hush…”
“Hush…”
“Shut up!” I scream, but no words come out. “Shut up, Ma!”
The little girl raises her head.
I freeze.
Slowly, too slowly, her head turns in my direction. My heartbeat nearly stops when I meet those blue eyes.
The same eyes as mine.
Me.
The girl is me.
I looked like a little monster at that time, too. I was a monster just like them.
Tears run down her cheeks. Black, inky tears.
A chill crawls down my abdomen and straight to my ribcage as she mouths something.
I squint, trying to make out what she’s saying.
“Help. Me.” She mouths over and over again.
My heart jolts in its cavity, but before I can do anything, a dark figure snatches her from Ma’s arms.
Ma shrieks and I shriek, too, when the dark figure throws little Elsa in the lake’s water.
The dark, murky water swallows her whole.
“Help me!” The voice screams in my head.
I wake up with a hoarse cry, tears streaming down my cheeks.
For a second,I’m screaming so loud, I can’t recognise what’s in my surroundings. For a second, I feel like I’m in that water, hauled in its inky depth.
I’m floating. My lungs burn with the need for air, but the hand won’t let me be up.
I can’t breathe.
My name will be forgotten, too.
It takes me some time for other voices to filter back into my consciousness.
A soothing calming voice.
A familiar non-threatening voice.
I blink twice and Dr Khan’s blurry image comes into view.
I swallow past the ball in my throat and my choked breaths.
“I’m not in the lake,” I say, searching my surroundings.
“No, you’re not.” He offers me a glass of water.
I gulp it down in one go letting it soothe my scratchy throat.
However, I’m still searching for the lake.
For the little girl who asked me for help.
Dr Khan sits opposite me, watching me intently the way I imagine a researcher would watch his lab rats. “How do you feel?”
“I don’t know,” I choke out.
“Do you feel like you got anything out of your subconsciousness?”
“Yes.” I meet his gaze through blurry eyes. “I think I’m not normal.”
“Not normal how?”
“I’m just abnormal, Dr Khan.”
“How did you come to that conclusion?”
“I want to go back again.” I bite down the fear and terror clawing at my chest. “I need to know why I’m not normal.”
10
Elsa
Kim and I walk through the hall as she tells me about her latest Korean soap opera.
I nod along, but I’m not hearing a word she’s saying. Since my appointment with Dr Khan yesterday, I’ve been in this haze of my own making.
Last night, I relived the same memory. When I woke up, I found myself still trapped in the nightmare. It took me a few fake wake-up cycles to come back to the world of the living.
I had to watch that dark figure drowning the child version of me over and over again.
I had to listen to her gurgles and cries for help.
I drowned with her, too.
Black water swallowed me whole and I couldn’t scream or come out, no matter how much I tried to.
It was like my own custom hell.
For some reason, I didn’t scream when I finally opened my eyes to find myself sweating in my bed.
I didn’t wake Aunt and Uncle. I just washed my hands over and over. At that moment, when I looked in the mirror, I contemplated breaking it to pieces.
It took everything in me not to confront Aunt and Uncle and ask them what the hell they’re hiding from me.
This is my life. Mine. How can they keep me in the dark about it?