"I'm starting to think you're letting these people dream you simply to let them die quicker."
"Think what you want, but I have my reasons."
"You are twisted. Living alone in Wonderland for so long must've messed with your mind."
"Maybe I am twisted, but I will keep trying until the death of me, and we both know that I am never going to die…"
"A rumor is spreading through town," the girl said as she laid the mail on the table. "That people are disappearing. People that—"
"People that lived in that mental hospital or are living there now are the ones being taken. I heard it too." Her brother said as he dropped his stuff on the floor and sat down on the couch. Him and his sister were twins, and lived together, having no parents. They decided to pretend they had parents, because in their town, if you were an orphan, you went to live in that asylum for the mentally insane, which they had anyway, but orphans are left there. It's not an orphanage, so if you go there, even if you're mentally sane, you don't leave until they say you can, and most of the time, people who leave, if any does, escapes, but are hunted down and killed or severely wounded.
They both had blonde hair and blue eyes. The brother was shy, but the sister was thick-headed, stubborn, and strong-willed, and most of the people at school called her whole life a 'blonde moment'. Her brother couldn't really argue, since his sister was there for being insane in the first place. He was there simply because he had been her twin. They had run away about three years ago, and they were pretty certain that the people in white coats from the asylum weren't looking for them anymore.
The sister walked over to the couch and sat beside her brother. "That's why I think we're next." She said, resting her head on his shoulder. "I mean, I always think we're next, but this time I know." She looked over at the window and closed the blinds, as if the person kidnapping all the children was outside.
"How?" her brother asked rhetorically. He didn't really care, but might as well ask or his sister would keep bothering him.
"Because," she said, crossing her arms over her chest and pouting. "They say that the kidnapper wears all white. If that's the case than it must be those guys from the crazy hut. And if so, then they must still be looking for us. They already have Clair's little sister, that guy who sings a lot, and that little green haired girl from school." The girl took her hair in her hands and held them to make it look as if she had pigtails. Her brother rolled his eyes.
"You always think they're still looking for us, it's been three years and they haven't found us yet." He said, standing up. His sister fell sideways, horizontal on the couch, lying where he had just been sitting. Looking down at her and shaking his head slightly, her brother walked into the kitchen. He opened the refrigerator and looked around for leftovers. He pulled out a few boxes of Chinese food from last night and gave one to his sister when he walked back into the living room.
His sister ate her food lying down and he sat in the chair beside the door. After him and his sister finished their food, he threw away the cartons and put the forks and spoons and other various tableware in the sink. They didn't use chopsticks often. They then watched random shows on TV until two AM.
"Okay." The boy said, standing up and stretching. He grabbed his sister's wrist and started to pull her off the couch. "Time for bed." Yes, they shared a bedroom, but they slept in separate beds, mostly because his sister sleep-punched-people-in-the-face.
He had to drag his sister all the way to their room because she refused to get up and walk. When they were in the room, she still wouldn't move, she just lay on the floor, sleeping. He got into his own bed and fell asleep almost instantly.
He awoke to hear the front door crash, the muffled sound of wood hitting carpet. His sister also woke up, and both were sitting up in their beds, staring at the open door to the bedroom. Silence, then suddenly "Search the house." Someone yelled. His sister got out of her bed, grabbed her brother's wrist, and started toward the door.
"Told you we were next." She whispered as she tip-toed past one of the men in white. As they almost reached the front door, two people grabbed their shoulders, and tried to handcuff them. If you escaped from the asylum, you were either treated like a prisoner or killed, depending on how much trouble you had caused, and the boy figured they had caused enough.
Both twins were handcuffed and being led outside toward a big black van. It was only six AM, and already almost the whole town had gathered to see if the infamous twins that had eluded the asylum for years would finally be caught, and many were disappointed to see them. A few cheered, like those who had been pressured by the asylum for information they didn't have, but they were quickly silenced.
As the van drove away, the sound of the jeers faded and after a while the asylum came into view. When the van stopped and the door opened so the twins could be brought out, the girl whispered "I don't wanna be back…" They were brought into the asylum and put into a small elevator set for floor thirteen, the floor where you were killed or the extremely dangerous insane people were kept.
As the elevator 'dinged' and the doors open, they saw a bunch of buildings, crumbling away under a red sky. The sun looked like the middle of a solar eclipse, and there was no wind. The forest off to the right was black, a shroud of shadow engulfing it. The only thing that seemed out of place in this ruined world was a big neon sign on top of a building, the only one fully intact except for a castle about half a mile in front of them, that said "APARTMENTS" in big, lit up, blue letters, though the windows were broken and no lights were on.
His sister started walking ahead, but he stepped in front of her. "I think we should look around first." He said, looking over at the black forest. He could hear something, a faint pounding, constant, never ceasing. 'bump-bump…bump-bump' A heart beat? He asked himself, unsure. It sounded like one, but it was too faint to tell.
His sister held up her hands, the handcuffs broken around her wrists. His were broken too, so he slid them off and dropped them on the floor after his sister did. Without a word, both started walking off toward the forest. As they passed the first tree, it was no longer darkness around them, but it was as if it was only dusk, light enough to see by and not yet totally dark. The trees they passed had black bark, black leaves, and the bark looked almost thorny. The further they walked in the forest, the louder a sound of screaming got. It wasn't a terrified scream, it was more like a scream of agony.
After a few minutes, they came up to a wall made of thick vines covered in thorns. A hand was sticking out, fresh blood dripping off its fingers. Below it, at the base of the wall, was a sword, small streams of blood, mostly dried, were staining the blade, and a small ruby spade on the hilt was cracked down the middle. The boy picked it up while his sister took a stick off the ground and started to poke the hand. The screams stopped and the hand swiped at her, grabbing her shirt sleeve. She hit the hand with the stick until it let go and tried to slide back through the hole it was caught, to go back into the area behind the wall. When it finally did, it was replaced with a red eye, looking out of the hole. It looked down at the sword and screamed "GIVE ME MY SWORD!" over and over.
The heartbeat he had been hearing got faster and louder, but only slightly. "Let's get out of here." He told his sister, putting the hand that wasn't holding the sword on her shoulder and pulling her along behind him as he started walking away. The screams started again, out of anger this time, and faded as the twins reached the end of the forest. As they stepped out back into the city, they were out of earshot of the screams, and all was silent again, mostly. His sister started walking off again, past full skeletons that were on the ground, leaning against walls, hanging out of windows, toward the hotel.
Upon reaching the hotel, the sound of electric currents filled the air. The faint sounds of someone singing echoed from a barely visible radio that could be seen through a broken window. The singing was barely audible through a lot of static. The song was in, what sounded like, Japanese. The lyrics were about death and corruption and crime and sickness. In the boy's opinion, not a song he would like listening to. The front door was locked, chains with spikes wrapped around the whole building, the lock in the shape of a big metal 2-D rose. His sister pulled on it, hoping the chains would be weak enough that she could tear the lock from them, but her attempt failed. Her brother took the sword, unconsciously, and cut the lock in half, the blood stained blade cutting it almost like butter.
The doors creaked open by themselves, and revealed a lobby. The couches were covered in dust, the front desk old and a small stage off to the left, in the back of the room. On the stage was a boy, a blue rose growing on his shirt. As the twins got closer, they recognized the face of the boy as someone they knew. The heart beat got louder, the same constant beating as it had been when they had gotten to this crumbling city, only a bit louder, almost doubling in volume.
The rose's vines were holding the boy's body in place, not allowing him to move. Without thinking, again, the boy took the sword and cut the rose in half, the blue petals falling and withering as they fell, landing as frail, brittle, dull blue husks of what they had been only seconds before. The boy's body grew colder, as though he hadn't been dead before. Well, if he wasn't then, he is now, the boy thought. The heartbeat got louder still.
They left the hotel, his sister muttering to herself "So this is where they all went." They headed off toward the castle, as they did, the heart beat got steadily louder and louder until they reached the doors of the gate, when it stayed the same volume, an ear popping volume, as if someone had taken a heartbeat and put it in stereo. As his sister was about to knock on the door, an envelope slid out from under it. A plain white envelope sealed with a small green clover on the back. He picked it up and opened it, pulling out a playing card, more specifically, the ace of hearts. On the back was a mirrored surface, showing a shadow child with bright silver eyes and a white crescent smile. His sister took it and looked at it.
"Well," she said, dropping it on the ground. "That was weird. What does it even mean? It's just a playing card. Is someone playing poker or something?" she rambled on, asking herself questions and making statements.
"Didn't you see the back?" her brother asked.
"Yeah, and all I saw was a freaky clown. All white with one of those jester hats with bells on the end." She said, pointing at her head as if she too were wearing a jester hat. Her brother quickly snatched up the card and inspected the back. Nothing changed, the shadow child still smiled. Narrowing his eyes, trying to look closer, the heartbeat got louder, he could hardly stand it anymore. The one thing he had learned about this beat is that it was coming from his sister, and the longer she lived, the louder it would get. Either he do something about it, or he let the sound drive him insane, and he was not going to end up like the innocent that became trapped in the asylum, never again. He was thinking of a plan before he realized that his sister was far ahead of him, yelling at him to hurry up.
"There's only one place left to look." She said when he caught up. She pointed off at the castle with its black marble walls, its large rusty doors, its broken windows, and a withered, long dead, garden. When they approached, they could hear the sound of crying. Not like the yelling from the girl in the forest, but actual crying, as if another human being, who was completely sane, came here and saw instantly the horror of this place. It suddenly occurred to him that he was already becoming insane. Being here, actually listening to the distressed sounds of others, killing someone they once knew, and planning to kill his twin sister. For a few seconds, he decided that he must stop the noise of this world before it drove him over the border into direct insanity, no matter what the cost. However, in that short time, he forgot that his sister was the one causing it.
He opened the doors slowly as they creaked, whining in disuse. The air was musty, the interior was covered in a layer of dust so thick that his sister couldn't see the individual bricks on the floor, and the whole place smelled like rotting flesh. He didn't know how he knew the smell, he just did and was terrified by it. To the left of the hall were two large oak doors, the wood eaten away in places by termites, leaving holes behind that showed a withered shape sitting in a throne painted gold, holding her face in her hands and crying quietly.
His sister walked up to her and stared at her long green hair. The crying girl lifted her head, and she saw that it was that girl who was always quiet at school and had no friends. She automatically assumed that that was why the girl was crying. "It's okay," she said, patting her on the back. "You have friends."
The girl stopped crying, for the most part, and looked up at her, clearly confused. "What?"
"Aren't you crying because you have no friends?" the girl asked, ignoring her brother telling her that she wasn't helping the situation.
"No." the girl said, putting her face in her hands again, but not crying. Her voice was breaking as she spoke.
"Then why?" she asked, obviously not realizing that she wasn't helping.
The Queen was silent for a long time before responding. "Because this world is rotting, as well as me." She lifted her head and held out her arms, showing her pale skin, her once bright green eyes turned dark, and the little black flowers that covered her flesh in almost every square inch. "I am its queen, I guess it only seems fitting that I become ugly when my kingdom does."
"You aren't ugly!" the girl said, holding the Queen's hands. "You're still beautiful." She tried to lie, though she fully agreed. Upon arriving, she had instantly thought this place was ugly. The Queen, though she was beautiful, was also ugly at the same time, if it was possible to see that in someone at the same time.
The Queen hung her head. After a few seconds, she snatched her hands back and covered her face with them, crying again. "Lies don't help…" she said, her voice muffled through her hands. The girl looked back at her brother, who seemed off in another world.
"But…" the Queen said, her voice gentle and full of self-love. "Rot is pretty in this world, no?" She said, not really a question, as if she was stating a fact in a questioning tone. She lifted her head to show her white mask and the clover of an eye on the right side of her face.
The girl stood, shocked, not knowing what to say. Her brother looked on with indifference, focusing on the heartbeat. As the Queen's face changed, the heartbeat slowed and the volume went down to about half as loud. He saw something white out of the corner of his eye and turned to see what it was. It was a small human-like being, with no eyes, hair, and its head had a curved stitch, making it look like part of Frankenstein's monster, but only a small version. It looked at him with a smile like the one on the back of the playing card he held in one hand.
"I know you hear it," the creature said, but only he seemed to be able to hear its voice. "The heartbeat. I set up everything for your arrival, but these children had to come and ruin it. I made you a sword, and some woman comes and kills people with it. I tell the hotel manager to keep you a room while your castle is built, and he gives it to some singer. I finish building your castle, and that girl comes and claims it as hers. I planned everything perfect until it was ruined, why ruin it further?"
He didn't quite understand what the child was saying; he just wanted the heartbeat to stop. It made sense though, in a weird, twisted sort of way.
"The doors I set must've been more obvious or well hidden than I thought they'd be." The child muttered. Turning back to the boy, it said, speaking louder "Why not end the noise? If you end it here, it'll all be quiet." The child pointed at his sister and the Queen. He looked down at the sword in his hand, then up at his sister. He didn't know if he could kill her, but the beating was pounding on his ear drums, screaming at him to listen to what the child was saying, and begging him to be happy, no matter what the cost.
"Is something wrong?" his sister came up to him and asked, standing beside him, her back to the Queen. The queen was sitting in her throne, her face still half covered by the mask, and her right eye still a clover. He sighed, and, just as before, his arm flew out as if it had a mind of its own, and cut a deep slice across his sister's chest, killing her almost instantly. As she fell to the floor, dead, the child smiled. It had been right, the heartbeat did die down, just to a subtle thump.
He slowly walked up to the Queen, not looking down at his dead sister. He raised his sword to touch the base of the Queen's throat. She looked at him with her mask and clover eye, her long, white smile matching that of the child's, a crescent of solid white. 'This world is strange.' He told himself as he thrust his hand forward.
The sound of metal hitting metal as his sword connected with the back of the throne behind the Queen. Afterward—silence, complete and utter silence. The heartbeat stopped, there was no wind. Then, almost suddenly, the dust blew away from the ground. The windows put their pieces back together one by one, as if going back through time to end up whole, like it was before it was shattered. The walls and doors started to rebuild themselves, the color coming back to them. Before long, the boy was standing by a full length stain glass window, looking out at tall buildings and people walking along the streets.
He stood there for a while, the white child watching him. The sword became a stainless steel again, and the boy held up his hand and inspected the blade. "Are you alright?" the child asked him. The boy looked back with dark topaz eyes, and a yellow heart on his right hand.
"Yes," he answered darkly. "I think I am."