She filed her nails in the silence of the room, humming a low tune to keep herself occupied, to keep her mind still. She had flashes of memories, of screams that hurt her throat, of a man hovering over her with little emotion in his eyes. She had run through the same halls as everyone else, hid behind things to keep the monsters from finding her, and what she saw had done something to her.
It made everything inside go completely still. She was able to breathe more evenly, to deal with what she saw without trying to fight it, and then she wandered into the room where she was now staring. Time had something to do with this place, a prison within a prison of tempered minds that linked a hold of each other. The walls hummed, they breathed something from the outside. Changing, twisting, into new places that she would not go near.
Not until that man appeared again. She looked at him and she dug for that fear she thought was there, but it wasn't. She stared at him, at his burns, at his cloak, at his face that stared back at her.
He placed a hand around her neck and squeezed, but she didn't fight him. He pushed her against a wall, his eyes trying to find something within hers. But she knew there was nothing, not a speck of interest that should have collided with fear.
"You're dead," he had said to her, removing his hand from her neck and stepping back. "You're dead," he repeated, slowly figuring out what he had done to her killed off anything she could remotely feel.
That was when he had left her alone inside that room and she stayed. There was a memory of this place that belonged to her. It molded for this purpose, and she was okay with that.
Leslie Withers had come through several times over the weeks, and she made sure he stayed in his room, but there were times when he wasn't there. Like the creator of this place, Leslie could move things around, change the environment.
She said nothing to the man when he asked her where he was, she simply stared at him until he went away.
It wasn't until something had crawled through the door on its legs and arms. The stink of it made her stop filing her nails. This thing wasn't Leslie, and she was sure he was taken out of this world, but what had come through was one of his creations.
She raised her head and instead of finding what she figured was a creature, she found herself looking at a girl of long black hair down her shoulders and a red dress to her ankles. She had a melancholy expression on her face as she stared at her.
"What's your name?" she asked, quietly.
"Tatiana," she answered, not understanding why this girl was here, but it didn't matter, she went back to filing her nails.
"Why does he care about you?" she asked, stepping closer to the desk.
"Who?" Tatiana asked.
"Ruben."
The name made her stop, he flashed in her mind, always dismissing her with a single look, he knew she wasn't of any interest to him anymore. Now that she was technically dead inside. "I cannot answer that."
"Tell me," the girl said, her voice guttural.
She stayed quiet, unsure of why this girl wanted to know. There was no reason, not one she could understand.
She saw it, the flicker of it before the fingers tugged on the collar of her shirt and yanked her forward. Her eyes squeezed tight as she landed on the floor, her hands shaking, and the smell of something burning wafted into her nose.
Blinking her eyes open, the girl hovered over her, head tilted to the side. She breathed heavily, her fingers coming down to touch her hair before trailing to her cheek.
"Tell me...why he keeps you here—alive."
She couldn't tell her, there was no answer for it. Nothing she could say would persuade this girl of anything. All the monsters in this world had come from him, and even she was a part of his mind, a pawn in the grand scheme of his revenge. She didn't know the purpose of everything, but she understand what he wanted, what he craved.
He wanted to escape.
And how she wanted the same, but her body was tossed away, and her mind stayed intact inside this monstrosity. She could do nothing about it, and she had accepted it when her mind broke into pieces after seeing the horrifying things in this world.
The girl leaned forward, "Tell me why you aren't dead."
"Aren't I?" she asked.
Her body began to distort above her, and her hand grew in length as it came down to her neck. Her hand strained as it placed pressure on Tatiana's neck.
The breath came out in pants at first before it was gone completely. Her lips parted and her hands went straight for this monster's wrist, trying to wrench her hold on her neck.
"Tell me," the woman screamed, "why he keeps you alive!"
She couldn't answer, in all this pain and misery that spilled forth into every corner of this place. She couldn't find a reason to care if she was alive or dead, nor the reason why he had kept her here. Maybe in all that, this was a torment for herself, waiting for the unexpected person to wander in and to be later killed.
The woman raised the hand that was choking her and her face twisted into rage, and Tatiana knew that she was about to die to this thing. Before her hand came down, a pulse went through the entire office area and stalled this woman's hand from moving. Her body went completely still, she back away toward the heavy door and faded into a sheer of blood particles.
Tatiana breathed heavily, her hand massaging where she was choked, her ear twitched at the sound of the gate behind her opening. The creak sent a shiver down her spine as the footsteps grew closer. She turned her head to see him come into her sight, he was staring off at the hallway where the creature disappeared.
"You've been given a reprieve," he said, almost like a joke as he looked down at Tatiana.
She kept her mouth shut before getting to her feet. The man walked further toward the door and pushed it open.
"Thank you," she said, surprising herself.
He turned around, his eyes narrowing at her. "She wasn't meant to be here, I didn't do it for you." And in a blink, he was gone.
She stared at the spot where he was before making her way around the counter. She took up the nail filer and resumed filing her nails. In all that, the silence surrounded her again and her heart did not beat in fear, even when she tried to save herself, she knew there was no point. His appearance was a surprise, something she didn't expect.
She let herself smile.