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My fingertips brushed the swell of it gently, but when the memories crawled over my skin, anger slammed the mirror closed.
I’ve never written before. Watching the ink spread over the page is somewhat therapeutic. The trust implicit. I wasn’t sure if I liked it. This might only end up being one entry.
I hated this place. I wanted the buildings to turn to rubble and to run.
But I could never.
Every day was exactly as the last. The same routine. Tediously repetitive. The sun would set, and the sun would rise. In between that, we would cook, feed, and then clean. None of those were the worst of what we’d do that day. My hands ache so terribly by the end of the day that I’m barely able to continue writing this paragraph.
Today, I sat and watched as the clock in the common room ticked by as we all sat around the common table during lunch. We were always dressed in white, hence washing them seemingly tedious. There were twelve right now. Not including the soldiers, and others that I would see walking around every now and then, but for us cloth wearers, there were twelve.
I knew exactly how many people were here because I counted. I was never sure if there were more, and I never asked. We weren’t to speak unless spoken to.
Heavy footsteps pounded against the wooden floor and my body froze.
“Holy day to thou.” His voice was hard. Rougher than usual, and I was sure this was a warning. He was never in a good mood, but no one wanted him in a bad one either. “Sit. Eat.”
We all lowered ourselves to the wooden bench, awaiting his next command. The material of my robe was extra itchy today, and my skin burned, as if it knew I did not belong here. No one damn well belongs here, yet even when my oldest memories were hazy, others would tell me that I needed to obey.
He was evil.
Pure evil.
At first, they thought I was naturally rebellious. I always felt as though I didn’t belong. Like my legs wanted to run to a place that didn’t exist. A world that didn’t exist. Maybe even a time that didn’t exist yet.
We drew pictures as kids of what the world looked like. The sound of strange flying objects in the air.
The pictures stopped long after that.
Long after, we were told who we were and why we were here. At that time, there were only three of us… there were now twelve.
But there has always been me. And him.
And I hated him.
“Eat.” His words were soft around the sound of meat being torn from bone. Dried white meat and withered green leaves. I pushed my food around and my stomach grumbled. I found it hard to believe that this was the only thing humans could eat. Surely there were other things you could do with a potato.
We all ate in silence.
We drank in silence.
The lights flickered up ahead and I stared up at the concrete ceiling. Acid burned my throat the longer I stared.
Sweat dripped down my palms and I released my fork.
I didn’t want to be here anymore. I wanted to live in a world that I knew didn’t exist.
At least maybe not yet.
I felt his eyes crawl over my body the longer I sat here. Exposed to whatever pain he wished to inflict on me. He wasn’t the man I thought he was… and he wasn’t always like this.
I reread over the words, then fly back to the start with my own stomach rolling. I don’t even realize I’ve stopped breathing until my lungs burn. What was this doing in the guy’s car? Did he know this girl?
I pause a moment, retracking that night. I knew who he was. And I knew what had changed and why they had come to Perdita—it was because of me. Everything was because of me.
The time flashed over my phone screen. 1:32 p.m. I have a while to go before the dinner party, so I peddle through the page. There doesn’t seem to be too much writing.
My fingers graze the torn pieces near the spine. Or at least there isn’t any more.
