White windowless walls
I remember the day when the blood envelope was placed delicately at our door, for the whole world to see. Whenever I remember that blood envelope I wish it had never been made, or born…is blood envelopes born? Made?
There are voices in my head, they whisper to me, talking through the white windowless walls of the crazy room.
Crazy that's what they said; they said I lost it after they took something from my head… e?
Why does my head hurt so much, the pain, it's always pounding at the back of my skull, like a hammer on silk?
Flowers, bees, warmth, a white painted door with gold carvings of trees dancing along the sides….what was I remembering, was it home or some things I made up to keep me from going more insane.
I remembered adrenalin racing through my body making me shiver a little bit. I remembered being worried about something, I think it was what the letter said that I worried about but I don't remember. A flash of white and a glimpse of sharp silver was something I could never forget of this memory. It had broken the blood red envelope revealing a snow white piece of paper with all but a few words. ACCEPTED. SPECIAL. . ….GIFTED?
I think at the time I knew what it meant but now everything is confusing, everything is so blurry…why does my head hurt…when did I get this scar on the side of my...side of my… head.
Is this what makes my head hurt…..blood envelope, white walls, THE VOICE INSIDE MY HEAD STOP TALKING IT HURTS, help me…
A forced smile with red lips curling up so slowly like it almost pained it to show happiness or fear of people seeing their scary sharp snow teeth. Music hummed in the distance as more of these smiles appeared…whenever I look back I think, did those things want me gone…did they know what they were doing…did they care….maybe they did and my mind is playing tricks on me again, maybe the plain white windowless walls have started speaking to me again telling me what to think and what to do.
I remembered bags of colourful garments placed into a giant moving object….,car, plane, no no no, ship yes ship…. I remembered the feeling of my lips curling up like those things...was I happy or sad, I don't think even then I knew why…the feeling of soft fabric underneath my fingers, the pitch black sky with millions of shinny white orbs in the distance, the motion as though I was flying…that memory always brings a smile to my face.
"No smiling, that is for those who are too wild to realise that emotions lead to chaos, we don't need to go in there do we now Averie"
The white windowless wall spoke to me in its robotic voice…they whisper sometimes….they tell me what's right and wrong….they tell me emotions are…emotions are….something…dumb…I think...no must not think the wall will yell at me and send its white coated spawn for me by opening its glowing mouth. That's what the walls do, if you upset it, it will send out a mini version of its self, but these things can grab you and drag you away, there's nowhere to hide, no bed to hide under, no friend to talk to….white walls whisper to me…. when you get scared. All you can do is crawl into a ball in the corner cover your head with your arms and hope some miracle will turn you invisible saving you from their black cold eyes and freezing touch.
And that word AVERIE who is that…I don't know anyone called that. Who are they talking about, is their someone else in here! No no no no no no others bring pain, pain means blood red, blood red means envelope, loop, loop, loop, it's all one big loop of pain…they bring back the pounding in my head.
I got onto my knees and swirled around the room like a wild an. , I properly looked wild. . . .PREPARE. My eyes hurt from being open to long without blinking, my head whipped back and forth only to find nothing, nobody, in the room, nothing but the white walls with no windows. An empty feeling in my chest appeared out of nowhere, it hurt and it made me feel as though I would explode. It was like darkness was consuming me, ripping me apart on the inside…make it stop please…it hurts it hurts everywhere, it's going to eat me…. something started running down my face and reached my lips. It tasted …what is this…what's going on….alone, emptiness, darkness, who am I, where am I…my name, my name what's my name….Averie….who is Averie…what is Averie…who are they talking to.
The white walls will whisper to me all the time, every day, but there is no time in here, one hour is one week, there was never any time in here.
"WHOS AVERIE"!
My voice cracked and a burning sensation flashed in my throat…why did it hurt to talk…why did my throat fell like it was on fire, my bones leapt on their own as I slammed the side of my body into that stupid white wall, screaming out all of the questions that had built up over the time of being in the white windowless room.
"WHO ARE YOU?"
"WHERE AM I?"
"WHY ARE THE WHITE WALLS TALKING TO ME?!"
I felt more of the hot salty stuff run down my face as I kicked and punched the white walls, sparks of pain flashed in my hands and feet, they started turning blood red…blood red….blood red envelope with the white snow inside….blood red stains on a snow white wall.
"AHHHHHH", my hands scratched at the white walls trying to get rid of the blood red, making my nails get caught on the walls, but it only seemed to make it bleed blood red even more…
The white wall stained blood red talks to me, you should hope they don't talk to you too, for then you will be in the white windowless blood stained room too.
I looked up from where I was sitting in the damp corner to see a girl yelling and screaming at the SNOW white walls, she was scratching them soaking them with her blood… turning them blood red, she was shrieking and crying, her voice echoing around the blank canvas of a room. Her bones could be seen as clearly as though there was no such thing as meat or muscle in her world. The snow dress she wore that went down to her knees was tainted with her own blood. But her face was something I would never forget, it was hollow like a skeleton and her eyes were blackened with all the darkness she had seen. Her cries stopped and I could faintly hear laughter, it was broken and lost, she laughed even more, like a cackling old hag, and my heart ached.
Who was this girl…?
Oh right
She's me
The hollow girl morphed into a mist and disappeared. I looked at my arms and saw that they were as skinny as a skeleton, I saw that the snow dress I wore was tainted with blood and my face, I felt it and it was hallow.
I was the girl…I was going… disappearing…till there would be nothing left of me and then I would be gone.
River… one word that kept me sane in the word of insanity. I knew her…I think?
I remember she had red…no wait…brown hair and crystal blue eyes, her skin was a healthy tan opposed to my paper white skin. I remember her saying she got her skin colour from the planet she grew up on Osiris.
"To many days reading out in the hot sun with not a lot of sunblock", she had said.
She was nice, we were friends, we did all the school projects together…then the day came. I remember it like it was yesterday…maybe it was…no no it couldn't be…it's been to long…or has it, there's no time in this blood white room.
It was a sunny day and the bell had just gone…to many people there, that's what I thought.
River was walking next to me, her arms waving around as she tried to explain why in her opinion her brother was still single…but I couldn't concentrate on what she was saying, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up on their own, adrenalin pumped through me and my hands became sweaty with fear. Something was wrong, I just knew it, something was terribly wrong.
BANG
I looked up to see I had walked into a teacher at our school, stupid me I had thought, my fear from before had disappeared only to be replaced by curiosity. I knew ever teacher but not this one, he was a tall man with snow hair with a beard and wrinkles to match, he wore a lab coat that had millions of little sticks in the front pocket, all of them red…a white lab coat with red things…like the white walls with the blood smeared everywhere…. He had told us his name but whenever I try to remember it hurts my head.
We don't want to hurt you Averie, we just want to know how you work…so to speak.
I cried out in pain as I heard those words bounce around my head…what did he mean…why do the white walls speak.
He had said that he needed to talk to River in private about her math test…which looking back was weird we didn't do a math test…did we… white walls, white walls, white walls here, white walls there.
I didn't see her for two days, two, and when she did come back she was different. She didn't smile, she didn't laugh, she even forgot things, this wasn't her…or was it… the white walls said she didn't exists…did she…didn't she…is she just something I made up to help me with the pressure of school…but then why…why am I in a white walled with blood red stains.
And then she just disappeared, vanished into thin air, as though she didn't ever go to the school…but she did…didn't she…all her stuff was in her room…nothing was taken it was all there.
Then they did the same to me, they said I failed a test.
Failed
Failed
Failed
Failure
They took me to a room with even whiter walls. Blood stained objects were placed neatly in the corner of the room. There was excruciating pain that erupted on the side of my head. I remember looking up and seeing white men dressed in blood spattered clothes…like the white walls here…I remember shaking my head and the salty stuff running down my face. I remember crying out for help and them laughing at my weakness…and then…and then…nothing there was nothing, but searing hot pain pulsing through my head, as a whizzing sound echoed in the distance.
That was when everything stopped and I woke up in the white windowless walled room. With no memory of whom I was no idea where they had put me, and no way of yelling for help. Life as I knew it had ended for me at that point. I just sat in the corner of the room staring at the white blood stained walls that laughed at me every day and every night. Hours became days, days became weeks, weeks turned to months and who knows how long I've been here.
An empty feeling worked its way up my chest and started to drown me in darkness, more of those salty things ran down my face. My throat closed up making it harder for me to breath. I gasped for air but there was none. My head felt dizzy and light, colours blurred in front of my eyes and formed pictures.
Home
Photographic memory
Gifted
Alliance
School
River
The white walls whisper to me when I try to sleep
A spark in the corner of my eye made my head turn, green gas started filling up the room, it moved around slowly like lion stalking its prey. It clung to the ground as it made its slow and painful way over to me.
Warmth, that's how it felt when the green gas covered me, it was like a blanket of something I hadn't felt in a long time…company, no, pride, no, hope, maybe….I think its love…though how do you get love from a gas that is making your eyes water and your skin burn as though you were thrown into hells pit of fire. How can it take your will to continue breathing disappear, and make you gag uncontrollably till the snow white floor became blood stained to?
No this was not love, but something close to it…
It was mercy, mercy on a child by ending their life because they did not turn out how they expected them to be, or because their pet experiment went wrong, because they didn't get what they wanted. As my body stiffened to the point where I could not move, and the pounding in my head finally stopped I had the courage to open my eyes. It took me a while because my eye lids were so heavy it felt like they weighed 1000 tones. The green jungle gas started to burn my eyes like a sun with the power to disintegrate a human being to nothing but dust, but I did not close them. The idea of seeing any other colour while being in this white windowless room was nothing but a dream, a memory. But as I lied there staring at the celling with the jungle green gas circling around the edges of my eyes. I smiled, a real smile, not forced, no sharp pointy teeth, there was only a warm fuzzy feeling in my chest enveloping me into it…and I felt happy…for the first time I felt real happiness. Not the forgotten kind of happiness I felt when remembering the ship, the bags of colours and river my friend who mysteriously disappeared for two days then vanished forever. No it was real, and I felt alive.
The white windowless walls will disappear
They still whisper to me
The white walls
Blood red envelope
Snow white paper
Jungle green gas
Nothing
My breathing slowed to that of nothing, my eyes lids dropped and blackness surrounded me. And then there was nothing, nothing but peace, and then I was gone.
The white walls whispered to me while I slept…forever.
By Tayla Robertson