Chapter 1
Fluorescent lights veer overhead. I can smell sweat and blood, and feel my stomach lurching. There are people in here with me, doctors and nurses hurrying for some reason. I struggle to get up, but I'm tied to this table. One of the doctors sees I'm awake and walks over to me. "Clara, it's alright, you're fine." I can't make out her face, everything's starting to blur, but I fight against it. "Where am I? Why can't I remember…?" I trail off, and I feel I'm losing myself again. Suddenly my thoughts click and I remember faintly something…but if I go back under I know I'll forget. "Where is he? There was someone else, where is he?!" The lady seems somewhat perturbed, and doesn't reply. I panic and begin screaming wildly at her. She sticks a needle in my arm and I lose consciousness.
I open my eyes. Yes, I'm still here in this white cell. I wipe the sweat off my forehead. Those dreams plague me every night, all that's left of a past that's lost to me. I don't know where I am or who I am, all I have are those nightmares, and I know they're memories. I lean against the whitewashed cement and close my eyes. There's something in my mind, a shadow of someone who was everything to me, and they were taken away. I feel as if my life isn't worth living anymore. I tried to kill myself a day ago, but two people in white masks and jumpsuits came in and stopped me. I think I'm an experiment of smoking, but that's all the value I have to them. I can feel myself drifting back into oblivion, and I know it's useless to struggle. It's as if I can hear them calling, all my memories, so I must get them back.
—
I awake to the cell door opening loudly and a woman stepping in. She's been here before, every morning. "How are you today, Clara?" She asks. I don't answer. When I first woke up here she was the first person I saw, and I was so afraid and confused and she wouldn't answer any of my questions—so I ended up cussing her out. Ever since I feel terrified when she comes to see me. She whispers something to her assistant and approaches me. I shrink against the wall. "Clara, there's nothing to be afraid of. Very soon you won't have to be here anymore, and you will be in the outside world. When you are there, I want you to remember something for me. Wicked is good, Clara." She turns and leaves. What does she mean, I will leave this place? What is the outside world like? My brain tries to make sense of it all, but more than anything else I hear her last words: Wicked is good.