Liberated

=== TRIGGER WARNING: mentions of suicide, sickness, amnesia, and other psychological aspects. If these topics trigger you, it is advised that you do not read the following passage. ===
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You run your hand against cheap, mono-yellow wallpaper as you wander down yet another hallway. It is identical to the last hallway, and the one before that, and every hallway you can remember. The moist beige carpet squelches under your shoes, filling your nose with the faint stench of mildew. You try to breathe through your mouth to avoid the smell.
You talk to yourself as you walk, having to speak up a bit to hear yourself over the endless buzz of fluorescent lighting. 
Didn’t I just pass this room? Should I double back? Or will that just land me somewhere completely new, with no way to return? 
You do this quite a lot now, narrating your thoughts in absence of another human being to talk to. When was the last time you had Almond Water?
I can’t fucking remember, you mutter, pushing it from your brain. Not like it matters. No one’s coming to save me— I might as well just be dead already.
You’ve almost done it several times. Every attempt ends in the same outcome: you come out alive, berating yourself for your failure. 
This time, you say and unfold a pocket knife you’d been carrying when you fell into this hell. You bring the point of the blade to your neck and take a deep breath, willing yourself to follow through. You pause, with the knife against your throat, then lower it. 
You coward! you tell yourself accusingly, why can’t you just end your own misery? You fling the knife across the hallway, causing the blade to stick into what you assume to be drywall. You fume at yourself and your situation. Why can’t you just end it?
You shake your head angrily and pull the knife from the wall before walking off.
|.+\^/+.|
You continue your endless pacing, keeping close to the maddeningly cheerful walls of your prison. It’s been several weeks since your last attempt at suicide; you’ve all but forgotten your frustration when you find a can of milky-colored liquid. Almond Water, you realize, thinking aloud again.
You open it and greedily tip back the bottle, not stopping to consider if it was another, more dangerous substance. It smells like vanilla. Only after you’ve chugged half the bottle do you think to save and ration the rest. Reluctantly, you screw the cap back on and continue walking.
It isn’t until a few hours later that the full scope of your stupidity comes into clear focus. Why would you end your own life? you say coldly. How is that mercy? 
Your own words hurt, as you consider how close you came to death by your own hand. The endless hum and isolation had taken its toll. Lucky I found the Water when I did, you say. At least now I can know I have some sanity left.
You roam with no explicit plan or destination for several hours? Weeks? Months? Time is so muddled… During that time, you think. You think about several things: your family, your life before, how you plan on escaping. 
Oh, how you long to see your family, your friends, even your boss at work, who was never particularly nice to you. No, screw that, you’d settle for any random Joe, as long as you could finally hear another human being.
But didn’t you always wish to be alone? Your own voice catches you off guard. You’re in such a habit of narrating your thoughts that it’s even not a conscious choice anymore. Didn’t you always hate having to deal with other people? Wouldn’t you be better off by yourself?
What? No, I’d give anything to be back home, shut up! says another part of your brain.
Things were always so… messy back home though, remember? The politics, the conflict, the order… Wouldn’t you be better off in chaos? No one telling you what to do… no one screwing everything up but yourself.
That doesn’t make sense.
Humanity is evil, that much is too obvious for you to deny. Why else would people exploit the innocent and clueless for their own gains? Humanity revolves around pointless technology to distract from the reality of real life. Here, you have meaning and purpose.
I’m going insane, you groan and quiet the internal argument.
|.+\^/+.|
You lay on the floor, sweat rolling down your back and contributing to the existing moisture from the ground. The Almond Water you found was a few days beyond its expiration, but you’re lucky it wasn’t more. For now at least, the only side effect you experience is the sickness.
Your immune system was always relatively strong; you got that from your father. This however, was something else entirely. Nausea rises in your throat, and you expel the sparse contents of your stomach onto the carpet. You curse and try to summon the energy to move away from your own puke, but you’re just too drained. Instead you just roll over so you don’t have to smell it.
Salty droplets slide down your forehead and into your eyes. You close them, wishing it all would stop. What did I do that led me to deserve this? you pant. From there, you drift in and out of consciousness. Your dreams are snapshots of moments back home:
You’re seven years old in your grandmother’s living room, sitting by a large fake tree. Several boxes, all carefully wrapped in colorful paper, rest beneath it. You open one and realize with delight that it’s a new gaming console. You thank your grandmother with all your heart— it’s exactly what you wanted.
You’re at your first job at McDonald’s, and someone’s showing you how to work the ice cream machine. You’re holding the cone and moving it in a small circle while the ice cream comes out, as you were instructed, when the machine stops dispensing. You snicker a little. The memes were right.
You and your spouse are exchanging rings at your wedding. You look into their eyes and the part of your brain that’s conscious wishes you were with them. That jolts you back out of slumber and into miserable reality.
|.+\^/+.|
The fever has burned off, but you’re left with what seems like a sinus infection and more nausea. You’ve expelled the majority of your stomach’s contents, so now you just heave until a small amount of bile works its way up from the depths of your digestive tract. 
You reach into your pocket and pull out your knife. You hold it to your neck and press inward. You’ve barely pierced skin when you’re once again sent to your knees by a hacking cough. More bile comes up with it. The blade slips through your trembling fingers.
I can’t live like this, you say, trapped in a haze. What did you do to deserve being imprisoned in this place? You wish for death, knowing you’re too cowardly for it to be by your own hand. Even true hell, in your mind, would be better than this sick purgatory. 
Just kill me, because I’m living like I already died. What do I have to live for when I have no life? Who can save me, when I am the only one around to do it? 
Learn to live with it, because you have no home anymore anyway.
You don’t mean that.
So what if I do? I’m trapped here anyway. I’ve been here so long… it’s all I can remember.
That much was true. You can’t remember the faces of your family, nor the scent of fresh air you once enjoyed so much. Any attempt came out fuzzy and artificial.
I might as well have been born here.
The very thought horrifies you. Born in this hell? You try once again to conjure an image of your mother. Surely you’d be able to recall the one who brought you into this world? A skin-colored oval is visible in your mind’s eye. A mouth, shiny black hair, brown eyes… or were they blue? 
A tear runs down your face. How about your brother? What was his name? Connor… no, that’s not right… Carson? Calvin?
Did I even have a brother?
|.+\^/+.|
When you finally encounter another human being, the relief is immense. Her name is Sarah, and she seems to have noclipped much more recently than you.
Where did you live before this? you ask, in a feeble attempt to make conversation.
Florida, she answers with a smile.
Must’ve been nice, getting to go to the beach every other weekend.
Sarah laughs. Nah, I was farther inland. Nearest beach was— is— several hours away.
There was a moment of awkward silence. How was your family? you ask.
They were alright, I guess. Not that I have anything to compare them to. How about you?
You pause, trying to remember something, anything. All that you can conjure is blankness. I… can’t remember.
Oh.
|.+\^/+.|
Your company was short-lived. You’re walking down another hallway when a black, doglike creature rounds the corner. It’s covered in shaggy fur and looks almost humanoid, though it walks on all fours. The thing looks at you and growls, white foam dripping from its mouth.
What the hell is that?! Sarah says.
You act on impulse. You spin on your heels and take off in the other direction, propelled by adrenaline. You run for a long time before your body loses energy and you slow in the absence of sound behind you.  Sarah, I think we lost— You turn around, but she’s not there. Sarah?
Then you hear a scream.
It’s feminine, a cry of terror. Then several more shouts, these leaning towards agony. Your eyes go wide, but there’s nothing you can do, so you force yourself to keep walking. That’s all you do now, isn’t it? 
The reality of it all is too dizzying to explore that thought further. Instead you just place one foot in front of the other, a few wet droplets welling in the corners of your eyes as you attempt to put distance between you and whatever monster killed Sarah.
|.+\^/+.|
Step, step, step. Your footfalls are muffled by the carpet. Your eyes have become blurry and sensitive to the light from lack of sleep, so you keep your eyes on the ground. You’ve walked for an indeterminable amount of time when you see bright red splotches all over the floor.
You should have turned around. You never should have lifted your gaze, but you do. A body lays face-down on the floor, blood pooling beneath it. It looks like whoever it was died a while ago, though not too long.
You roll the corpse over, attempting to identify them. A mess of pinkish tubes half-falls out with a wet squishing sound. You take a step back and are overtaken by nausea, but there’s nothing to throw up. You heave until bile rises in your throat and your body ceases its convulsions. 
You gather the courage to look back. Wicked-looking claw marks were slashed across the corpse’s head. Under the blood, however, you catch a brief glimpse of facial features, before they fade out to smooth skin. Against the wall leans a bright pink backpack, also covered in red stains. You suddenly realize who lies dead on the floor.
A single tear trickles down from your closed eyelids as you try desperately to remember Sarah’s face, her voice, anything. You’d seen her only a few days ago, why was it so hard?
She’s gone. That doesn’t bother you as much as the fact that you can’t remember her face. You stand there for a long moment, dwelling on your own misery. Then you experience the sort of sensation one feels when they get distracted after entering a room and forget what they came for. 
Who’s gone?
|.+\^/+.|
A week later, the bottoms of your shoes grow thin and break from walking. Deciding you’re better off without them, you throw them into a corner and continue the endless walking. Who wears shoes at home anyway? is your reasoning.
You quickly catch yourself. This prison isn’t my home.
Then what is?
Not here! Besides, I have family back there. They’re probably worried. What kind of person would I be if I left them?
What family?
You pause. You must have one right? How else did you exist? You hadn’t been here since birth, had you? What if you’re delusional, hallucinating memories of another reality? NO. Pull it together, that isn’t true.
How do you know?
You can’t answer that. All you can do is attempt to silence your doubts. You fail.
You don’t know. You can’t even remember the faces of this so-called ‘family.’
You pause for a long moment, and then that brain fog creeps again into your consciousness— that feeling of having a purpose, but forgetting it. Whatever you were about to argue slips your mind. Recalling the internal conflict of a few seconds prior, you are suddenly confused.
What family?
|.+\^/+.|
You run your hand across the mono-yellow wallpaper of your birthplace. During your delusions, you thought this place hell. Now you see them once again for what they are: home.
The flourescent lights above create a near-deafening buzz, but you hardly notice. They’re nothing more than background noise to your travels. Your bare feet squelch on the moist carpet, the shade of which is somewhere between beige and a darker off-white. An odor of mold rises from it, but you are, as a comercial in the Frontrooms would say, “noseblind” to it.
How do I know that? you wonder briefly. You hadn’t encountered any wanderers, at least not that you can remember.
Except Sarah, a small voice buried deep in your conscience says. 
Who the hell is Sarah? You shake your head, dismissing what you assume to be after-effects of the fantasy. You must have heard of the commercial from your parents.
A tear runs down your face. They died from the Hydrolitis Plague when you were seven. The memories feel fuzzy to you, even now… almost like they were fabricated. But no, they couldn’t be. How could I forget them, even for a moment? you berate yourself. What kind of person does that make me?
Gah, screw it.
I can’t let myself be deluded again.
Not after I’ve just been liberated.
Category:Tales